In the relationship business?
Jinfo Blog

By Joanna Ptolomey

Abstract

Information professionals should not underestimate the work they do in the relationship business. They connect people and groups in businesses but also across communities, some deprived, through libraries and local initiatives brokering deals and building partnerships.

Item

I have had always a sneaking suspicion, as an information professional, that I am in the relationship business.

I suppose I have always known that and I suppose I have always practised it. My job, in the private, public and consultancy sector, has been to facilitate workflows for formal and/or informal networks of people and their content.

I reach out to people. I connect people and groups. I sometimes provide a physical space for people, but also a digital space. I also help people hang out or geek out together, not just as consumers but as creators of content and as innovators.

I was at Edge 2012 conference last week, a major public services and libraries conference. Speakers and delegates alike confirmed not only my suspicions that information professionals are in the relationship business, but further that they should not underestimate the power and value it brings to the profession.

I heard Amy Eshleman talk about the role of Chicago City Libraries in facilitating social capital. She describes the library experience in Cabrini Green, a highly deprived Chicago area, as being equivalent to sending in the marines. Well, someone has to be first to broker deals, make the peace, set the groundwork, attract inward investment. Not a role normally attributed to libraries.

Chicago also developed the YouMedia initiative, building relationships with middle/high school students not just as consumers but also creators. The YouMedia group recently designed a tour bus for Lady GaGa as part of the recent launch by Oprah Winfrey and GaGa at Harvard University for the Born this Way Foundation.

Relationship building and facilitation is key to the success for local area economic and social growth. Yes, libraries can be drivers for supermarkets, coffee shops and business-to-business vendors. Information professionals can foster relationships with local businesses to offer experiences to young people.

In Chicago the library helps showcase their skills for future employment. For example if a young person helps design an application for Motorola then they get the documented credit as well as the work experience. The Chicago experience reminds me of the assets approach where relationship building and partnership working is essential for success.

Communities, of whatever sector, may have many of their assets already in place; however they may need help in the discovery process. Building community capacity often needs a co-design approach from adaptable physical spaces, processes of co-discovery and co-design, and sometimes a digital space to manage assets into use.

Alison Todd, director at children’s charity Children 1^st, described her eureka moment when connecting with Edinburgh City Library services for co-production, engagement and delivery of child safety services. These information professionals already had community trust and services in place – "Why reinvent the wheel?" was her motto.

In local government and local economic development the success driver is in  forming and managing relationships. As information professionals we can help shepherd people, networks, communities and their assets and content.

We should place our profession in the heart of our communities, be that a financial institution, housing project or healthcare provider, and use our relationship skills for co-designing services and discover the real assets.

Get used to it – we are in the relationship business. 

« Blog