Quantum² Highlights
A newsletter of the Dialog leadership development program for information professionals

Dear Quantum² Member...
As I write, I am “down under” attending the 13 th Information Online Exhibition & Conference in Sydney, Australia. We took advantage of my visit to organize a Quantum² workshop, and what an engaging group it was! It was a delight to see the audience participate in the spirit of Quantum² and exchange issues, thoughts and ideas in a sometimes passionate manner. To feed off this enthusiasm, Melinda Kershaw, Dialog intellectual property specialist, will be taking on the role as our local Quantum² coach in the region, allowing us to offer more sessions in Asia-Pacific. Look for upcoming sessions for Australia/New Zealand in the near future.

New Quantum² Coaches

In addition to Melinda Kershaw, as mentioned above, we are also very thrilled to welcome back Gabrielle Derriks, GEP and training consultant, as a member of the coaches team. Many in continental Europe will remember Gabrielle. Please read her profile at http://scientific.thomson.com/quantum/team/derriks_gabrielle/.

Spotlight on Quantum² InfoStar
Sonja Van der Haeghen

As Medical Affairs & Drug Safety Coordinator, Sonja Van der Haeghen of Astra Zeneca, Belgium and her team believe it is their responsibility in helping with the safe use of drugs, to identify relevant sources of information and filter out the “noise” of information overload by providing scientifically accurate, balanced and focused responses to information requests.

To read more about this InfoStar, please read her profile at http://scientific.thomson.com/quantum/infostars/gallery/.

Quantum² Topic of the Month
Achieving Information Service Excellence

Seeking and adopting best practices can help improve the work processes for delivery of products and services to better meet client needs. That translates into achieving efficiencies and economies that are extremely important to senior management. It also aids in building stronger relationships across the organization.

The process of identifying and implementing a best practice can be outlined in five steps:

• Asses internal needs by looking at the business needs of the organization and how the information center should perform to meet those needs.
• Understand current practices by capturing the current workflow that meets those business needs, and identifying gaps and points of failure in that process.
• Examine alternative practices, including research into benchmarks in order to identify possible improvements
• Model best practice through selection of an appropriate solution, and creating a new workflow or process for implementation.
• Implement the new process, measuring the effectiveness and communicating the results to staff, customers and senior management.

By taking a visible role in leading this best practice project with visible results, the information center becomes associated with the value of the project, thus making its ROI self-evident.

This summary is taken from an article by Betty Jo Hibberd, s enior manager, Information Professional Development, published in the January 2007 edition of the SLA journal, Information Outlook. To read the full article, please visit scientific.thomson.com/media/newsletterpdfs/2007-01/excellence.pdf. Reprint permission granted by SLA. www.sla.org .

This topic is also the subject of our scheduled Quantum² workshop on February 22, 2007 (see Quantum² Web Sessions above).