INFOPROFESSIONAALI VÄLJAKUTSED ETTEVÕTJANA (M.E. Bates'i järgi)

SISSEKANNE # 81

1.

Infoettevõtlus on lai tegevusvaldkond. Ameerika infoettevõtja M.E. Bates’i  hinnangul (2005) on potentsiaalseid kliente – neid, kes vajaksid mingil moel infoteenuseid – kaugelt rohkem kui selliste teenuste pakkujaid turul. Õigupoolest ei tea keegi, kui palju sõltumatuid infospetsialiste, nn infoprofessionaale, ettevõtlusturul tegutseb. Ameerikas tegutseval katus-organisatsiooni AIIP (The Association of the Independent Information Professionals, asut. 1986)  palgal on 201-500 töötajat, liikmeid on üle 20 riigis (https://www.aiip.org), kuid infoettevõtjaid on loomulikult palju rohkem. Iseasi, kui püsivalt suudetakse selles valdkonnas töötada. Bates (2005) toob välja põhjused, miks infoärist lahkutakse:

·         igatsus tavapärasema kontorirutiini järele (infoettevõtjale toob iga uus päev väljakutseid);

·         ebastabiilsed sissetulekud;

·         vajalike administratiiv- ja turundustöö oskuste puudumine;

·         täistööajaga tööleasumine kliendi ettevõttes.

Ülaltoodust peegelduvadki infoettevõtja ees seisvad väljakutsed – oskus üles leida see niśs, millele oma äri rajada, pakkuda toodet (teenust), mida kliendid väärtustavad ja mille eest nad on nõus maksma. Idee võib olla olemuslikult äärmiselt lihtne, kuid tähtis on leida oma sihtgrupp ja  ära tabada tema nõudmised. Kliendibaasi loomine on alustava ettevõtte üks täht-samaid töölõike, kuna eelnevalt on vaja mõelda pakutav müügiartikkel ja see disainida vastavalt potentsiaalsete klientide ootustele. Silmas tuleb pidada, et tavaklient mõistab informatsiooni mõneti teistmoodi kui infospetsialist  - see võib olla marginaalne, lihtsustatud või hoopis segane ja fokuseerimata viimase silmis, kuid sellest hoolimata peab ta oskama näha infot nii-öelda kliendi silmade läbi ja seejärel andma sellele infole enda erialaseid oskusi rakendades väärtuse, mille eest klient saab tasuda. Väärtus ei ole mitte see, mida infoettevõtja arvab oma professionaalse pilguga olevat, vaid see, millisena see paistab kliendi silmis. Ehk tagasiside stiilis „Aitäh, sellest oli mulle abi!“ ongi kliendipoolne väärtushinnang.

Seega on miljoni dollari küsimus, edu valem, kuidas ära tabada klientide täpne infovajadus. Tugev kliendibaas on ka stabiilsete sissetulekute aluseks, mis omakorda aitavad kaasa ettevõtte kasvamisele ja kvaliteedi tõusule. Administratiivsed oskused – seadusandluse tundmine ja igapäevane kontoritöö korraldus - on infoettevõtluses niisama määravad kui mistahes muu sektori puhul. Samuti turundustöö, mille agressiivne vorm (nt otsepostitused) on alustava ettevõtte jaoks alati küsimärk. Eks infoettevõtluse puhul mängi rolli need samad faktorid, mis toitlustusäri puhul – positiivne kliendikogemus, hea sõna levitamine teevad paremat müügitööd kui reklaamlehed postkastis.

Bates (2005) mainib nelja aspekti, millele infoettevõtja peaks tähelepanu pöörama. Esiteks, suhtlemisoskus. Infoettevõtja esimene armastus on loomulikult informatsioon, kuid selle järel peaks tulema kohe inimesed – sest ta töötab sõna otseses mõttes inimestega ja inimestele. Psühholoogia-alased teadmised tulevad seega kasuks. Sõnaosavus ja klientide haldamine (olla kliendi jaoks olemas, s.o. kättesaadav, vastutustundlik ümberkäimine kliendi andmetega jne) on samuti väga vajalikud oskused. Nagu Bates märgib, peab infoettevõtja olema oma kliendi jaoks meeldiv äripartner, kellega tahetakse koostööd teha. Rohujuure tasandil tähendabki see seda, et kliendi jaoks ollakse alati olemas – mitte pealetükkivas, vaid pigem nõustavas rollis.

Teiseks peab infoettevõtja omama piisaval määral ärivaistu. Tuleb endalt küsida, milliseid äririske ollakse valmis võtma. Kas olla avatud uutele pakkumistele/projektidele, mis tõotavad kasumit, ent kätkevad samas riske, või ujuda turvalisematel vetel, s.o. tugineda püsikliendibaasile, millega kaasnevad madalad riskid, aga vahest ka väiksemad sissetulekud? Igatahes on see mõtlemise koht: kas tegutseda mugavustsoonis või arendada ettevõtmist ja saada suuremat kasumit. Mõlemal otsusel on oma head ja vead, kaalukausiks võib olla jätku-suutlikkuse küsimus.

Kolmandaks, juhtimisoskused. Bates (2005) sedastab, et infoettevõtja peab olema ühtviisi tugev nii uurimistöö läbiviijana kui ka oma ettevõtte juhina. Tõenäoliselt peab algaja infopreneur olema valmis kandma nii direktori, asjaajaja, raamatupidaja ja suhtekorraldaja vastutust – ning sealjuures teostama tulemuslikult ka infootsingut kui põhitööd.

Neljandaks loomulikult erialased infootsingu ja –kogumise oskused, mis on üks suur teadmiste ja meetodite kompleks, mille valdamine (haldamine) on a priori infoettevõtluse eelduseks.

Nagu näha, seisab algaja infoettevõtja silmitsi päris suurte väljakutsetega, mis esmapilgul mõjuvad hirmutavalt, panevad silmi pöörama töökuulutustele ja otsima palgatööd. Kuid, nagu Bates (2005) ütleb, on infoettevõtluse vooruseks paindlikkus. See on töö arvutiga, laptopiga, mis tähendab võimalust töötada igal poole kus on traadita või kaabliga võrguühendus. Võib töötada internetikohvikus, pargis, rongis, lennukis.  Küsimus on lihtsalt ambitsioonides. Ja tegelikult võib mõelda suurelt ka ise suur olemata.

 

2.

Infoettevõtjate klientuuri hulka võiks kuuluda ka parlamendisaadikud. Üldjuhul on saadikud parlamenti valitud mitte teadmiste ja elukogemuse baasil, vaid populaarsuse ja parteipoliitika õnnestunud kombinatsiooni tulemusel. Seega on saadikuteks erinevast taustsüsteemist pärinevad inimesed, igaüks ise võimete ja oskustega. Tavaliselt osalevad nad komisjonides, mis nõuab teatud määral valdkonnasisest orienteerumisoskust. Samuti tuleb aeg-ajalt osata parlamendisaalis küsida relevantseid küsimusi või seista kaamera ees. Need on üpris vastutusrikkad ülesanded kõik. Minu arvates võikski siin abikäe ulatada infoettevõtja, kes esmalt kaardistaks infovajaduse ja töötaks seejärel välja terviklahenduse. Näiteks vajab saadik komisjoni liikmena pidevalt asjakohast ja värsket infot – olgu selleks siis exceli tabel või mapp taustainfoga. Ta pöördub infoettevõtja poole, kes kompileeriks vajamineva info ja edastaks selle n-ö. „söödavas“ vormis (ka Bates kasutab sellist väljendit: edible) ehk lihtsas ja arusaadavas keeles – arvestades, et saadik ei ole nn infoprofessionaal ega ka mitte exceli guru. Seega: kui saadik toetub oma igapäevatöös infoettevõtja kogutud andmetele ega jää sealjuures hätta (s.t. näib kompetentne), siis on infoettevõtja teinud oma tööd hästi.

Kasutatud allikad: 

·         Bates, M.E. (2005). The Changing Role of the Info-Entrepreneur. Advances in Librarianship. Published online 2015, March 8; pp 187-222. Loetud 15.12.2019 aadressilt https://doi.org/10.1016/S0065-2830(05)29006-2.

·         Bates, M.E.  (2016). The Accidental Intrapreneur: Becoming the Knowledge Center CEO (webinar).  Vaadatud 15.12.2019 aadressilt https://youtu.be/2C8I2Rd_nAg.

INFORMATION WARRIOR ON THE VERGE OF DATA AGE

ENTRY # 80

INTRODUCTION

Information is not a tangible thing but something invisible in itself, yet always present and surrounding us.  According to Wikipedia we have been living in the information age for some time[i]. One can say that the so-called fourth industrial revolution is under way, driven by information and data[ii]. There is an ongoing debate with mixed opinions over the statement which declares data as new oil. As Clive R. Humby[iii] says, „data is the new oil. It’s valuable, but if unrefined it cannot really be used. It has to be changed into gas, plastic, chemicals, etc to create a valuable entity that drives profitable activity; so must data be broken down, analyzed for it to have value.“[iv]

 

Going even further, it has also been suggested that we have already reached the edge of information age and take first steps toward vast new area, so-called datasphere, as the data keep growing to cosmic heights. The vision paper Data Age 2025 compiled by David Reinsel, John Gantz and John Rydning (2017), tells us clearly that „we are fast approaching a new era of the Data Age. From autonomous cars to humanoid robots and from intelligent personal assistants to smart home devices, the world around us is undergoing a fundamental change, transforming the way we live, work, and play./.../  The way society uses data is going through a fundamental shift: from entertainment to productivity, from business focused to hyperpersonal, from structured to unstructured, from selective to ubiquitous, from retrospective to here and now, from life-enhancing to life-critical.“[v]  

https://assets.ey.com/content/dam/ey-sites/ey-com/en_gl/topics/workforce/Seagate-WP-DataAge2025-March-2017.pdf

 

So the future belongs to information and data, the situation won’t get any clearer. Back in 1983, a well-known American historician Daniel J. Boorstin made his famous quote in New York Times: "Technology is so much fun but we can drown in our technology. The fog of information can drive out knowledge."[vi] I agree. Here’s my question: what we can do about it, inevitable as it is? The concept of this essay was born from the fruitful yet dystopic predictions of data age, which gave me an idea to describe an info specialist (in fact, it applies to everyone, one way or another) as a full equipped information warrior with special skills. Our martial arts come from the high level information literacy and abilities to dig up the sources, using certain methods to process raw data into value. But in the beginning of all, there is a rookie with some basic knowledge. The idea follows that every step upward, taken academically, is a step forward acquiring aforementioned status, i.e. becoming info scientist as an ultimate goal.

THE BASE: INFORMATION LITERACY

We all have information literacy in some extent, before entering the field of information science. At least, I did. By definition it should be „the set of integrated abilities encompas-sing the reflective discovery of information, the understanding of how information is produced and valued, and the use of information in creating new knowledge and participating ethically in communities of learning,“ - the way American Library Association (ALA) sees it.[vii] More simply, „to be information literate, a person must be able to recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed information.“[viii]  Jeremy J. Shapiro and Shelley K. Hughes (1996) declare information literacy as a new liberal art and provide us the sketch of curriculum, attempting to encompass the old concept of „computer literacy“, the librarians’ notion of information literacy and a broader, critical conception of a more humanistic sort. They give seven well-described dimensions of literacy as such: 

·         Tool literacy is the ability to understand and use print and electronic resources, including software, hardware and multimedia, that are relevant to education and the areas of work and professional life; the basics of computer and network applications as well as fundamental concepts of algorithms, data structures, network topologies and protocols  - all goes within.

·         Resource literacy means the ability to understand the form, format, location and access methods of information resources, especially daily expanding networked information resources, which is practically identical with librarians' conceptions of information literacy.

·         Social-structural literacy is knowing how information is socially situated and produced, how it fits into the life of  groups; about the institutions and social networks (universities, libraries, research communities etc), it also includes understanding the scholarly publishing process.

·         Research literacy is the ability to understand and use the IT-based tools to carry out research work.

·         Publishing literacy allows to format and produce a text or multimedia report of the results of research.

·         Emerging technology literacy consists of abilities to ongoingly adapt to, evaluate and make use of innovations in IT, encouraging  us to replace of old with new.

·         Critical literacy means the ability to evaluate critically the intellectual, human and social strengths and weaknesses, potentials and limits, benefits and costs of information technologies[ix].

On those seven pillars we should stand firmly enough to challenge the new era. Questions like who owns the information, what's the difference between a piece of information and a copy of it, who should have access to it, is the internet a public good or a private one, or should internet content be regulated, and if so, by whom, are as relevant today as they were in 1996.[x] Besides, it’s good to know, according to Alexandria Proclamation on Information Literacy and Lifelong Learning (2005) the information literacy is now considered as a basic human right in a digital world, promoting social inclusion of all nations.[xi]

THE PATH: SKILLS AND TOOLS

Now, being aware of the necessity of information literacy, we should learn tools for each and every action (remember our game – information warriors as we are). I see the learning (training) process literally as the bumpy road from BibDesk via Mendeley to Zotero – the true Discovery indeed. And this is just one route out of many. Surely it depends on where we heading to.We can establish our own infopreneurship to take advantage of acquired retrieval skills by making dollars, or we can do the charitable guidance work in this foggy information field. Either way the future looks sustainably good: society is increasingly in need of helping hands, well educated knowledge workers, who could easily navigate the data ocean. 

Reducing the scope, focusing on modern librarian – the friendliest form of knowledge worker, I guess - ,  there’s a big list of opportunities and challenges to cope with. Not the „Ssh, silence, please!“-announcer anymore but „Feel free to ask“-person,  doing well both in communication and technology. Take digital preservation, for example: the concept of acquisition has been shifted to subscription, as information is getting generated in e-format. The set of activities which assure “interoperability with the future” can be termed as digital preservation – without it we might not be able to access the wide range of digital resources created and collected today[xii]. Much of this work has to be done by librarians themselves.

There are questions of content: impact and accessibility. Librarians should have skills to analyze the impact of purchased information to maximalize its effect (deal with data, right?). Because of all these new horizons (open access, e-ressources, library in your smartphone) the collection development policy has also making a fundamental shift, i.e. less paper and more electronic. In 2004 Norwegian special libraries  had  163,000 print  journal  subscriptions, by 2014 that figure had plummeted to a little over  40,000,  while  electronic  subscriptions had grown from 155,000 to 650,000[xiii]. It reflects the tendency  that  acquisitions are  now  made  overwhelmingly  at  the  request  of  researchers  and  students.  There has been a change of direction from developing collections  on  a  „just-in-case“  basis to acquisition „on demand“. There has also been a change from individual purchases to purchases of large resource  packages through consortia, so we talking about administering consortia agreements governing  access  to  various  digital  knowledge sources  and negotiating  with  the  providers on behalf of the libraries.[xiv]

Therefore the modern librarian as a councelor, specialist, information officer and data analyst has a great responsibility in educational field. In my opinion the strategy is always the same – provide information to the people and make it accessible so that the outcome would be satisfactory. The methodology is different, depending on personal needs of the researcher. So it really does not matter  whoever it is – an astrophysician or a digital humanist – the librarian as information worker should remain on duty and maintain high standards in any such case.

And yes, there is a world of LibGuides – an impressive network of 714 289 tutorials, 461 160 librarians and 5415 institutions in 95 countries at the moment.[xv] LibGuides are, according to Alison Hicks (2015), guides to relevant or recommended sources and sites that students can use to search for information on a topic, typically created for courses or for general topics (e.g. criminology, art history) and organized by source format, for example, databases or images, and have now expanded beyond their original research guide design, being marketed as a core instructional tool for academic, public, school and special libraries.[xvi]  But then again, Hicks is critical as they tend to be just librarian-defined list of „best sources“, static instead of pedagogigal. Better approach is to help students create their personal LibGuides, so they can experience inquiry. Then the librarian steps up in intermediary role.[xvii]  

Nevertheless, LibGuides are powerful tools which deserve special chapter, but here, in this context they characterize the scope of information worker and do it fine.

CONCLUSION

After I had read some interesting but somewhat pompous and glossy ideas about the coming soon Data Age, I got stuck in question what kind of role information workers will play in this new era. Are they arbitrators, educators, missionaires,  kind of infopreneurs or watchdogs of the society? As I understand it, they can be a little bit of everything. So I was mesmerized by the idea that the fully educated information worker can be compared to heavily armed warrior. Acquiring high level information literacy and becoming tech savvy, he or she has precious skills to face the challenges of Data Age, takes advantages of its potential and serves as a guide for data-blind people.  

And last, but not least - here is a manifesto I found from the abyss of Internet. An information warriors' manifesto.  Manifestos are meant to spread, then let it spread.

http://sis.wayne.edu/alumni/sis_info_warrior_manifesto_printable_1.pdf

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[i] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_Age

[ii] https://www.sentryo.net/the-4-industrial-revolutions/

[iii] British matematician and entrepreneur in the field of data science (b. 1955), brain behind Tesco's highly successful Clubcard, a scheme that tracks customer behaviour to an astonishing degree, see https://www.managementtoday.co.uk/mt-britains-top-100-entrepreneurs-2007/article/625114.,

[iv] https://hackernoon.com/data-is-the-new-oil-1227197762b2; see also https://www.economist.com/leaders/2017/05/06/the-worlds-most-valuable-resource-is-no-longer-oil-but-data or https://truthonthemarket.com/2019/10/08/why-data-is-not-the-new-oil/

[v] Reinsel, D., Gantz, J., Rydning, J. (2017, April). Data Age 2025. The Evolution of Data to Life-Critical Don’t Focus on Big Data; Focus on the Data That’s Big. An IDC White Paper. Retrieved from https://assets.ey.com/content/dam/ey-sites/ey-com/en_gl/topics/workforce/Seagate-WP-DataAge2025-March-2017.pdf. See also https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/information-age-over-welcome-data-aaron-edell.

[vi] Cited via https://libguides.madisoncollege.edu/InfoLitStudents.

[vii]  American Library Association (2015, February 9). Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education. Retrieved from http://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/ilframework

[viii] American Library Association (2006, July 24). Presidential Committee on Information Literacy: Final Report. Retrieved  from http://www.ala.org/acrl/publications/whitepapers/presidential.

[ix] Shapiro, J.J., Hughes, S. K. (1996, March/April). Information Literacy as a Liberal Art. Educom Review, Vol 31, No 2. Retrieved from  https://www.educause.edu/ir/library/html/erm/31231.html .

[x] Ibidem.

[xi] IFLA (2015, January 26). Beacons of the Information Society: The Alexandria Proclamation on Information Literacy and Lifelong Learning. Retrieved from https://www.ifla.org/publications/beacons-of-the-information-society-the-alexandria-proclamation-on-information-literacy.

[xii] Pai, R. D., Parmar, S.S. (2014). Modern Librarian: Opportunities and Challenges. Conference Paper. Retr. from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/263464447_Modern_Librarian_Challenges_and_Opportunities.

[xiii] Egeland, L. (2015). From „just in case“ to „just in time“. Scandinavian Library Quaterly. No 4.  Retrieved from http://slq.nu/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/SLQ-4.2015.pdf.

[xiv] Egeland, L. (2015). Ibidem.

[xv] See  https://community.libguides.com/.

[xvi] Hicks, A. (2015). LibGuides: Pedagogy to Oppress? Hybrid Pedagogy.  Retrieved https://scholar.colorado.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1039&context=libr_facpapers.

[xvii] Ibidem.