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Dealing with mission impossible – a publishing case study

By on March 1, 2013 in Content, Corporate Environments, Digital Publishing, Management, Professional Development, Search, STM Publishing, Web Technology & The Cloud

The American Geophysical Union (AGU) disseminates scientific information in the interdisciplinary fields of geophysics.  With over 60,000 members worldwide, the AGU publishes books, research journals, newspapers and other scientific periodicals.

In 2012 the AGU announced a publishing partnership with Wiley.  And in September 2012 Freddie Quek, Director of Engineering for Wiley, was given four months to integrate the AGU content onto a single Wiley platform.  He shared his story of coping with this ‘mission impossible’ with delegates at the Association of Subscription Agents conference in London.

Targets

By 2nd January 2013

  • Start revenue earning
  • Ensure systems ready to support entire content chain
  • Ensure system works in a familiar way for all AGU customers
  • Give AGU customers access to all licensed content

Challenges

  • 17 systems to check
  • Non-standard content formats (one publication had no page numbers; one journal had seven parts – three of which had sub-parts)
  • Over 700 special sections of content
  • What to do about unique identifiers; new ISSNs required
  • Unknown unknowns!
  • Ensuring discoverability
  • Development to start before all requirement were clear

What worked

  • Creation of a 60 day plan
  • Number one priority across the organisation – 52 people on the team
  • Sense of commitment, urgency and importance of the project
  • Rapid decision making at all levels
  • Team effort by everyone and a can-do attitude
  • Strong business lead and close cooperation

Lessons learned

  • Focus on people over process
  • Embrace the challenge
  • Break some rules
  • Be brave
  • Use your best people

Many of us will be asked to take on ‘impossible missions’ at work.  Freddie’s best advice?  Deal with it!

Do the right thing: workplace trends in 2013

By on February 20, 2013 in Professional Development, Trends and Statistics

Business solutions expert Sodexo has released its 2013 report on key trends affecting the workplace.  The report combines insight from clients, academia, trade organisations, social media monitoring, literature reviews and surveys.  Physical resources and facilities, people and technology all combine to impact the effectiveness of the workplace and effective management of all three can improve performance and productivity.  The report identifies 12 key workplace trends, including:

  • Thriving in the cloud
  • The development of 21st century mentoring
  • New recruitment models
  • The importance of inclusion

A new era of recruitment – facilitated by social media

There have been radical changes in the way organisations engage with prospective employees in the last five years.  A recent study found that 92% of US companies use social media in their recruitment efforts.  70% of employers report having successfully hired a candidate through social media (up from 58% in 2010).  Social media also creates a two-way conversation between employers and potential employees, who can gain a more complete picture of their potential employer using ratings sites and other similar services.

Flexible workplaces – ‘Integration 2.0’

The needs of the 21st century workforce are more complex and dynamic.  Progressive organisations are looking to provide dynamic life/work ‘ecosystems’ that provide flexible work options and contribute to the effectiveness – and wellbeing – of the workforce.  An example is in the development of more social space in workplaces and more multipurpose spaces that can flex to meet different demands.

Do the right thing – the importance of values

The report notes that 35% of the US workforce claims to have been bullied at work – and emphasises how this can prevent people from excelling at work – hurting the bottom line of organisations as well as having damaging psychological effects on staff.

86% of millennials entering the workforce now say they would consider leaving an employer whose values fell short of their expectations.  The report states that all four generations in the workforce see corporate social responsibility as a potential motivating factor at work.

Harvard Business Review has also been discussing the importance of corporate social responsibility and its impact on profitability and sustainability.  Author Eric McNulty sees the role of business leaders as to be clear in setting and communicating their purpose and their values and being clear about how their business model can ensure financial viability.  This clarity is essential if ‘its leaders and followers are to know what is the right thing to do’.

Women in IT and Science

By on February 15, 2013 in Post, Professional Development, Trends and Statistics

Recent research in the US reveals that women are ‘outnumbered and out-earned’ in science.  Men are taking home an average of $1,117 to a woman’s $853 per week while the mean suggested starting salary for women was lower.  The research also found that all women –whether they had children or not – were at a similar disadvantage.

Meanwhile in Europe, the European Commission, working with international ICT stakeholders, has created the European Code of Best Practices for Women and ICT, stating that women are underrepresented in the industry as a whole and in particular in decision-making roles.

The Code represents recent positive developments and aims to ensure that more women choose ICT and are encouraged and supported in the industry.

Recommended changes in education 

  • Schools and universities should organise career events which feature successful female role models
  • Educate teachers as to possible job opportunities
  • Encourage mentoring programmes between young female engineers and students

Recommended changes to recruitment practices

  • Use gender neutral – or female friendly – vocabulary when advertising vacancies
  • Use recruitment procedures that promote diversity
  • Analyse the company’s gender statistics and compare them with local and sector market
  •  Set targets designed to improve gender balance
  • Apply flexible working practices at all levels – including senior management positions

Career development 

  • Offer competence development programmes
  • Finance care expenses (e.g. childcare) when training outside usual working hours
  • Make career planning a responsibility of the organisation and the individual and apply equal opportunities principles in exercising this responsibility

Monitor career development

  • Collect and analyse relevant statistics
  • Create processes to monitor relevant company policies
  • Introduce mentoring programmes

Work/family balance

  • Promote a positive philosophy of maternity/paternity leave
  • Produce guidelines  to ensure staff on leave (e.g. parental leave) are managed appropriately to ensure inclusion
  • Set up resource and competence monitoring during leaves of absence to identify training and support requirements for returners

Digital Work Life – social media and office politics

By on February 5, 2013 in Professional Development, Social Media

Digital Work Life is the latest in AVG Technologies Digital Diaries series. 4,000 adults in ten countries (Australia, Canada, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, Spain, the UK and the US) were contacted.  The research found worrying gaps in the education and guidance that organisations give their employees about what is acceptable to share.  It also found that 53% of respondents believe that social media has eroded their privacy in the workplace.   This figure rises to 64% in the UK and the US.

Other interesting findings:

  • Over 25% have felt pressured into accepting a friend request from a colleague (34% in Italy).
  • Over 50% of UK and Australian companies have cyber-bullying policies.  This falls to only 23% in Germany and the Czech Republic and only 20% in France
  • 15% of US workers reported they had received a social media insult from a colleague
  • Nearly one in 10 of worldwide respondents has had a manager use information gleaned from social media against them or a colleague.
  • 60+% of US and UK respondents believe employers are responsible for online behaviour of employees during working hours – even if they are using personal accounts.  This dips to 27% in Germany

The need for education

It is vital that organisations educate their employees about social media etiquette and are clear about who is responsible and accountable for the use of social media tools.  A blog post by RL Stollar highlights what exactly can go wrong – and how quickly – when inconsistent policies meet an inadequate understanding of the role of social media.  The resultant ‘social media meltdown’ is a case study in how to get it wrong.

Key learnings

  • Employers should offer clear codes, guidelines or policies and clear examples of what is, and is not, acceptable social media behaviour
  • Policies are not enough. Education and awareness in the application of policies is vital
  • Employees should create – and follow – their own personal social media guidelines
  • Gen Y’ers in particular should think carefully about how they ‘transition’ their social media presence into the world of work
  • Create special ‘walled gardens’ for colleagues if you wish to restrict what you share.

More information on Digital Diaries can be found here.

Gender pay gaps around the world

By on January 2, 2013 in Professional Development

Researchers from Cambridge and Warwick universities in the UK and Lakehead Univrsity in Canada have undertaken a large scale survey of pay gaps between men and women in 20 industrialised countries – with interesting results.

The researchers analysed statistics for the proportion of men and women in different occupations and average pay gaps to highlight the relationship between gender ‘workplace segregation’ and pay gaps.

Women earn less money the more men and women share the same occupations

  • The more the sexes keep to different professions and trades, the more equal average pay between the genders
  • If there are fewer men in an occupation, there are more opportunities for women to move into top, high-paying jobs
  • If there are more balanced numbers of men and women in an occupation, men will dominate the high paying roles
  • The less women are ‘in competition’ with men, the more likely they are to attain high level roles

National variations

  • In only one country – Slovenia -  do women on average earn [slightly] more than men
  • Other ‘top scoring’ countries were Mexico, Brazil and Hungary.  On average, women earn almost as much as men in these countries
  • What links these countries is that men and women work in different occupations to a greater extent than in many of the other countries researched
  • In countries such as Japan, the Czech Republic, Austria and Netherlands, women are more likely to work in the same occupations as men, and the gap between their pay and men’s is higher than average.

The researchers conclude that the segregation of occupations should not necessarily be interpreted as ‘inequality’.  The picture is much more complicated than that, and reflects the continuing changes in the wider workplace, in women’s education and training levels and in people’s attitudes to the ‘nature’ of work and work/life balance.

The research has just been published in the latest issue of Sociology.

“Remember – there is always a customer”

By on November 27, 2012 in Professional Development

When David Lankes presented his vision of new librarianship at Internet Librarian International, he spoke about changing the conceptual mindsets of librarians.  This involves moving away from ‘lending’ models and embracing sharing models where librarians help their communities grow and learn by providing connections as much as collections.

David also expressed his dislike of the word ‘users’, with its emphasis on an almost passive consumption of resources.  His expressed his preference for the word ‘members’ – a statement which created much discussion, debate (and some dissent) at the conference.

Similar themes emerged at the latest Sue Hill Recruitment (SHR) networking breakfast meeting.   Information professionals in a range of sectors discussed some major shifts and trends which will continue to impact information services in 2013 – from ‘the information chain fallout’ of Open Access to funding shortfalls.

Another topic was a perceived backlash against big IT projects, brought about by a mixture of overhype, poor specification and/or management processes and poor value for money.  There was a genuine feeling that the ‘new’ landscape, in which budgets were tight or even non-existent, would provide exciting opportunities to do things differently and that information teams would have more freedom to create solutions, rather than waiting for IT-driven projects to take the lead.

What really matters is how we help others manage and succeed in 2013 and beyond.  And – no matter what we call them, as one fellow breakfaster said – “Remember – there is always a customer”

(Read SHR’s Suzanne Wheatley’s thoughts on the breakfast meeting.)

Purpose, passion and persistence

By on September 26, 2012 in Post, Professional Development

In his book on personal leadership (Lead Yourself: be who you are and what you want to be) Mick Cope writes about how understanding what drives you can help you fulfil your potential.  The three qualities of Purpose, Passion and Persistence help people choose, and navigate, their own paths.  And a good balance of these three characteristics is required.

Mick’s ‘three Ps’ came back to me when I was reading a Harvard Business Review blog post called Solving Gen Y’s Passion Problem.  In it the Gen Y’er Cal Newport sets out a theory that his contemporaries have been brainwashed into believing that career choice was simply a matter of following a passion – rather than working hard to get good at something first and then slowly falling in love with it (for it’s hard to love something we are not good at).

“The early stages of a fantastic career might not feel fantastic at all”, Newport reminds us.  He is not surprised that some young people are disappointed with the reality of work.  He calls for a ‘nuanced’ conversation about people’s relationship with work and for concrete evidence-based observations about how people end up really loving what they do.

Perhaps the ‘nuances’ that are missing in some peoples’ attitudes to work are the other two Ps – purpose and persistence.

(Unsurprisingly the blog post has garnered many comments, some in agreement and others not.  An interesting lunchtime read!)

ICT skills shortages – where are the women?

By on May 16, 2012 in Post, Professional Development

The technology sector may well be suffering from skills shortages but it is still not attracting enough women.  According to research conducted with 2,500 IT leaders from around the world, women are badly under-represented in IT roles.  Even more depressingly, there is little sign that this state of affairs will change soon.

The proportion of female technology leaders and CIOs has remained more or less static for the last seven years.  Only 7% of those responding to the survey were women.   35% of those surveyed reported that their organisations have no female technology managers while 24% have no women at all in their technical/development teams.

While digesting this report I came across this blog post by Lydia Leong of Gartner.  Lydia has a distinguished resume, having worked in IT for 20 years. She draws on her experiences – good and bad – to emphasise that corporate culture is what will make the difference when it comes to improving the representation of women in IT.

She also reports this jaw-dropping story.  At a recent Dell customer/partner summit in Copenhagen a controversial entertainer addressed the audience:

 “The IT business is one of the last frontiers that manages to keep women out. The quota of women to men in your business is sound and healthy,” (and asking the women, “What are you actually doing here?”).

At the time no-one from Dell felt moved to apologise about these comments – although it has since done so via Google+.  This kind of culture – one that hires ‘booth babes’ and speakers with well-known controversial opinions about women in the workplace – is what needs to change if women are to be better represented in IT.

The CIO Survey 2012 is available to download from Harvey Nash.

 

The power of in-person communication

By on May 6, 2012 in Corporate Environments, Post, Professional Development

The increasingly distributed and global nature of organisations means that most communications do not occur in ‘real-time’.  However the majority of business leaders consider in-person collaboration as critical to business success.

The Economics Intelligence Unit (commissioned by Cisco) has published a white paper on the value of face-to-face interactions in business.  862 business leaders, representing a range of sectors and business sizes in Europe, the US and Asia Pacific were questioned about the business value of ‘in-person’ (face-to-face) communication.

Over three-quarters of the respondents felt that in-person communication (with colleagues, partners and customers) is critical to success, fostering improved problem resolution, creating better relationships and improving the identification of business opportunities.

However, most business leaders indicated that the majority of their business interactions are ‘non-real-time’ (e.g. via email) and that the absence of visual and audio cues makes it difficult to assess levels of engagement.

Meanwhile, a report by communications firm RW3 suggests that employees in global businesses feel under-skilled when it comes to communicating within cross-border teams.  The 2012 Virtual Teams Survey Report – Challenges of Working in Virtual Teams summarises responses from 3,300 people based in more than 100 countries.  The respondents agree with the business leaders – the absence of visual clues makes it more difficult to collaborate and build trust.  In addition, time zone differences and cultural differences can make virtual team work challenging.  More than 40% report they had never met their colleagues face-to-face.

Although the large majority of those responding conduct at least part of their work virtually only 16% had been trained to help them get the most out of virtual working.

‘The more for less challenge’ – lessons from lawyers

By on April 12, 2012 in Post, Professional Development

It’s always interesting to hear what thought leaders in other fields are saying about the future of their profession.  A recent Oxford University Press podcast features Richard Susskind who is (among other things) Visiting Professor in Internet Studies at the Oxford University Internet Institute.  He is also the author of The End of Lawyers? Rethinking the nature of legal services.  In the podcast, Susskind outlines some of the key challenges facing the legal profession and recommends some fundamental changes.  Not only will the future landscape in which lawyers work be transformed but the lawyers themselves will look quite different.

The pressure on costs will transform the legal profession

The prohibitive costs of going to law will mean that customers will be looking for more value for money.  Even though there will be an increase in legislation and regulation, there will be pressure to reduce the number of in-house lawyers in corporate institutions.   Those left behind will need to do more with less – Susskind suggests that legal budgets may be squeezed by 30-50%.  The figure is so high that fundamental changes are required.  Although high end legal work is not so price sensitive, other legal services will need to be delivered in new ways.  Susskind suggests that legal work will be broken down into component parts and work that can be carried out more cheaply – though outsourcing or subcontracting for example, will be identified.

New structures required

The challenge of these new models is to the profitability of law firms.  The ‘old school’ pyramid structure in law firms will become less relevant because other suppliers will provide the services currently supplied by junior lawyers.

New service providers

The liberalisation of the legal profession will see new players delivering services.   The legal market is currently worth £25 billion per year in England and Wales and unsurprisingly other players are looking to take some of the action.  Susskind suggests that individuals with experience of running businesses in other sectors could transform the provision of legal services.  For example, NHS Online has managed to distil health and medical information for the layperson and it must surely be possible to do something similar for law.

Physical vs virtual spaces

More legal services can and will be offered outside of the ‘physical’ spaces of the courtroom.  There will continue to be an increase in online dispute resolution for example.

New models of collaboration

Collaboration is another way to cut costs.  Clients could share costs with like-minded others in either non-competitive industries or even share non-commercial services with competitors.  For example, banks could collaborate to manage compliance issues.

Susskind says that lawyers should not be fixated on current or historic representations of ‘what lawyers do’.  For him the key attributes needed to make the most of the new opportunities opening up are nerve and imagination.

Something to aspire to!