via Flowtown.

via cmo.com

There were a few resources I mentioned that I wanted to make available here.

• Positioning Information Professionals for the Future (SLA Alignment Project)
• Competencies for Information Professionals of the 21st Century: Revised edition, June 2003 (SLA)
• What Color Is Your Parachute? 2009: A Practical Manual for Job-Hunters and Career-Changers by Richard Nelson Bolles
• Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time by Keith Ferrazzi and Tahl Raz
• First Have Something to Say: Writing for the Library Profession, By Walt Crawford
• Now, Discover Your Strengths by Marcus Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton

According to The intelligent enterprise: Creating a culture of speedy and efficient decision-making:

• Decision-making is accelerating, and becoming centralised in the C-suite, rather than being pushed
  out to regions or business units.
• Despite the wide recognition that accurate and timely decision-making is crucial, most firms’ ability to
  make good decisions needs improvement.
• Customer service is a significant trouble spot. Information from customer service and support is ranked
  among the most critical to a company’s business strategy, yet it ranks poorly as a source of good
  business insight.
• Although data-driven decision-making is espoused by the C-suite, formal governance policies
  or procedures to ensure the consistency, integrity and accuracy of the data are rare. Even fewer
  companies dedicate resources to information governance, which is key to ensuring that information is
  properly analysed and transformed into actionable intelligence.

Fascinating that only 3% of executives would describe their own companies as being the best at using timely, relevant and accurate information for descision-making.

There’s one graph, in particular, that should grab the attention of any savvy knowledge and information professional out there.  It speaks to many potential opportunities out there for you.

About the survey
This survey included 208 respondents, 21% of whom were CEOs, presidents or managing directors, 45% held other C-level titles, and 23% were senior vicepresidents, vice-presidents or directors. Thirty-eight percent of respondents were located in North America, 27% in Western Europe and 23% in Asia-Pacifi c, while 29% worked at companies with annual revenue of US$10bn or more and 31% of respondents worked at companies with annual revenue of US$500m or less.

The more lines you have, the more @replies to different people you sent. If you don’t appear on the graph, but know that you sent out @replies, it’s because the person you sent your @reply to never sent out an @reply and so that person won’t appear on the graph and unfortunately, you can’t either!

For a more detailed explanation of how this was done, see #sla2009 Social Network Graph.

Based on the code of eskimoblood.

Created using Processing with data from the #slaname Twapper Keeper archive setup by iBraryGuy.

For larger sizes, see the original on flickr.

This is my first year as a Director on the Board of Directors and I voted in favor of the motion to put the proposed name to a vote because:

• as a member you have the right to cast your vote to make this momentous decision;
• “change the name” has been a constant refrain for many years;
• the proposed name is based on solid research, conducted in good faith; and
• the proposed name reflects a direction many members have told me they want to go in.

Personally, I believe in this association’s diversity and see it as a strength.  I also believe it’s what sets us apart from other associations.  That is why I have spent my own money to be a member for eight years.  Diversity of opinion begets perspective and I need multiple perspectives reflected in the association I choose to belong to so I can grow and prosper as a professional in this increasingly complex world we operate in.

The name Special Libraries Association narrows that potential for perspective and Association for Strategic Knowledge Professionals broadens it.

Vote YES to Association for Strategic Knowledge Professionals – vote yes, vote early and vote often!

Using Processing and sample code from www.eskimoblood.de I have created a basic social network graph of replies sent during #sla2009.

The thicker the line the more times you sent an @reply to that
person. The more lines you have, the more @replies to different people
you sent. If you don’t appear on the graph, but know that you sent out
@replies, it’s because the person you sent your @reply to never sent
out an @reply and so that person won’t appear on the graph and
unfortunately, you can’t either! Interestingly, a few people only sent
replies to themselves, so they do appear on the graph as a line that
goes back to themselves.

The sample code from eskimoblood required that my data be in the following format:

• One array of all the usernames in alphabetical order
• A second multi-dimensional array that links the users with each other (in this case based on @replies) using an ID number.  Like this:

@amalthea67
{70, 74}

In other words @amalthea67 sent @replies to the 69th and 73rd person in the list of usernames on the wheel.  The first person in the list is at number 0.

Here is an outline of what I did:

• Queried the #sla2009 re-tweeter database for all tweets with @replies as of June 19, 2009
• Using php, created an html table of this query that lists the ID of the tweet, the username of the person who sent the reply and the username(s) of the person(s) it was sent to.  Here is a screen shot of part of the HTML table that resulted.

• Imported the html table into an Inmagic database, which allows for multiple entries in the “Replies” field (separated by a space)
• Created a secondary Inmagic database for every username, plus a unique ID for each.
• Exported the data to a report that lists the username and the ID number of the person the reply was sent to.  Here is a screen shot:

• Using Excel again, this table was copied, pasted and transposed so the usernames ran along the the first row and the numeric ID of the target of the @reply ran along in the second row.  A little bit of find/replace to get the data in the exact format (as above) and voila!  My data is in the format that I need it in.
• I made a few changes to eskimoblood’s code and ran the sketch in Processing, which resulted in the social network graph above.

Update: this graph is now available with color.

Compare this year's cloud with 2008 and you may notice a few things:

• "SLA", "session", "conference"and "great" are again the more popular words used
• The divisions, especially IT, PAM, KM, and LMD were actively tweeting this year
• The concept of a re-tweet (using RT) didn't exist in 2008