Subscription Update for Professional Services
Jinfo Blog

By Jan Sykes

Abstract

Professional services firms make up a significant portion of FreePint's customer base. We work closely with our customers in this industry to produce resources that speak to their broad-based content requirements and particular needs for information strategy, procurement, skill development and collaboration with other parts of their businesses. Here we highlight recent and upcoming items from FreePint's Content, Community and Consulting.

Item

Content (Articles, Reports and Webinars)

The current FreePint Topic Series, "Best Practices in Information Skills Development" focuses on a business issue that is of critical importance to information professionals working in professional services firms.

We are required to keep pace with evolving technology tools and content products in order to support strategic initiatives and minimise risks in firms in which we work.

Several approaches to creating effective learning events and incorporating learning opportunities in busy schedules are recommended in this Series, including the following Subscription articles:

• Driving Professional Development through Associations: a deep dive into the process of evaluating resources offered by professional associations

• Information Skills Development - Incorporating Resources from Industry Partners: this article explores leveraging professional partners, including vendors, professional associations, academic courses and coaches or consultants, to build skills relevant to prevailing market requirements

• Create Engaging and Memorable Presentations by Going Beyond PowerPoint: techniques are suggested for making presentations more memorable and more visually pleasing to the audience, and the article includes an overview of some new tools 

• Bite-Size Training - Making a Difference with Short, Face-to-Face Sessions: informal, 30-minute bursts of training are being used successfully to enhance staff development in an increasingly busy work environment.

Webinars have also provided useful insights and opportunities for discussion around the subject of skills development.

• Getting Started with Effective Distance Learning on 4th June gave participants an overview of what you need to know to start your distance learning programme - or to rescue a floundering one (a write-up of the event is coming soon)

• Do You Know Your Skills Objectives? on 28th May built on early results from the FreePint Survey: Information Skills Development to show attendees how to use a framework to develop objectives, research and implement training, and measure progress against objectives. Subscribers can log in to listen to the recording and there will also be an article coming soon.

Ebooks seem to be ubiquitous and it is a challenge for professional services firms to identify not only the appropriate content and collections given the wide range of industries they cover, but also compatible delivery platforms.

The FreePint Report: Ebook Research 2015 discusses the penetration of ebooks in professional services firms and provides detail on vendors, licensing considerations, and strategies for launch and management of ebook collections.

Community

FreePint hosts Communities of Practice via teleconference and in-person to support customers with similar needs. The list of upcoming teleconferences and briefings can be found here.

• Getting Information Skills Development on the Strategic Agenda, 25th June. This upcoming teleconference complements the current topic focus of "Best Practices in Information Skills Development". It focuses on ways of identifying and cultivating skills needed by information professionals in order for them to continue to be successful in their profession. Register to join the teleconference here.
  
  
• Driving the Future of Information - FreePint's Research Agenda: FreePint's director of research, Robin Neidorf led a special in-person CoP at the SLA Annual Conference in Boston on 15th June where she shared three headline ideas which will affect the entire business, not just the information centre:   
  
  
  1. The time has come to break down the walls between IS and IT
     
     
  2. The majority of information practice now takes place on the desks of knowledge workers, not in the information centre
     
     
  3. Consumption of information is tipping to automated systems - by 2017, information usage will look dramatically different than it does today.
     
     These themes are of great interest to many of our Subscribers and one of the participants commented, "Great session this morning. Took more notes and wrote down more ideas than any session yet."

• A recent Community of Practice teleconference "Turning Content into Curricula" provided additional insights on the topic of training development. 

Consulting

A professional services firm has undergone dramatic structural change in its European research operations, which it now wants to carry over to its North American research operations. However, the North American environment is quite different with respect to the level of experience, overall resources, and existing relationships between researchers and the business lines they support, from their counterparts in Europe.

FreePint is working with information services leadership to lay out a practical, ambitious, yet still workable, plan for adapting the new European model for the North American environment. The plan requires evaluation of key stakeholders, analysis of gaps in skills, and prototyping of core "products" the information services team can provide, all with an eye to what will make the most difference to quickly build momentum and support for longer-term progress.

Editor's Note: A FreePint Subscription at the Content level gives access to all FreePint articles, reports and webinars, at the Community level gives access to all FreePint Communities of Practice (as well as all FreePint Content), and at the Consulting level adds a credit for up to six hours of annual consulting time. Find out more.

« Blog