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

Dear Quantum² Member...
It is supposed to be the height of summer, but it seems the planet might be slightly confused, what with cool temperatures, rain and floods here in the UK (not all that surprising!) and in Texas (of all places), heat waves across parts of Europe and brushfires in other places. Some might ask "well, what is new?" and to that I might say, watch the space below for exciting new collaborations. Read on to see what we've been up to recently.

Spotlight on Quantum² InfoStar
Carmen Pacho Gutierrez

For Carmen Pacho Gutierrez, the most satisfying part of her job is providing information that is ultimately used to facilitate decision making. "We give them the puzzle pieces, and they build it," said Carmen, referring to the 450 employees she serves at the Technological Watch and Information Center within Repsol YPF in Madrid, Spain. To read more about the intriguing ways Carmen serves her clients, read her profile at http://scientific.thomson.com/quantum/infostars/.

To nominate an information professional you know whose initiatives might also serve as inspiration to others, please see the criteria and nomination form at http://scientific.thomson.com/quantum/forms/nominate/.

Our next group of Quantum² InfoStar honorees will be announced at the London Online Information Conference and Exhibition which takes place from December 4-6, 2007.

Quantum² e-Brief
Marketing Your Information Services

Our second Quantum² e-Brief on Marketing Your Information Services has been published.

As information professionals, we are often challenged to make sure that we are providing the right information products to meet our users' needs. A strategic marketing plan can help you refine your service offering to make sure you are focusing on the most important and highly valued information needs of the organization, rather than just reacting to the flow of information requests.

Successful marketing involves seeing the products and services you offer through the eyes of the customers, and articulating clients' needs in their own terms.

As a starting point for your marketing efforts, ask yourself if you can easily describe your products and services in terminology that makes sense to the users:

• Who are we?
• What do we offer? (i.e., the services or features we provide)
• What are our key strengths?
• What are our limitations?

Client-focused marketing will improve the satisfaction of your existing customers and increase the sales of your products and services to current and prospective customers.

For more tips on what marketing is, and to highlight the value you add using the 3 P's of marketing, read our marketing e-Brief at http://scientific.thomson.com/quantum2/q2_resources/ebriefs/.

For this month???s topic, we are pleased to welcome guest author Robin Neidorf, General Manager of Freepint Limited.

Quantum² Topic of the Month — FUMSI

Everybody FUMSI!

Think about the tasks in front of you at work every day. How many of them represent the kind of work you thought you'd be engaged in when you earned your information credentials?

If you're anything like many information professionals, you probably find yourself carrying out a whole range of projects that weren't covered in your university classes. Managing content for an intranet...evaluating federated search products...coaching internal stakeholders on the ROI of premium content services in the face of cost-cutting requirements, alongside freebies they're in the habit of using...Today's information professionals need to build skills in a wide variety of areas that are clearly related to information practice but might fall outside of the usual purview of the corporate library.

So how can we stay on top of the dynamic world of information at work and build value within our organizations for our work, tools and skill set?

One way is through the holistic concept of FUMSI, an acronym for Find, Use, Manage and Share Information. And in today's business world, almost everybody has a way to FUMSI. Information is no longer a specialization but an essential component of "everybody's" job. By emphasizing the value of FUMSI to helping businesses reach their goals, information professionals are strategically positioned to be not just useful but utterly essential to their organizations.

The FUMSI concept recognizes that the role of information in business reaches far beyond the corporate library or resource center. It puts information professionals where the action is — at the strategic decision-making level, as well as on the desktop of every employee. FUMSI roles include:

• F inding Information: search and research
• U sing Information: analysis and advice
• M anaging Information: storage, organization and retrieval
• S haring Information: communicate and educate

Some of these roles will be performed by information professionals — others by different professionals, with the support of the information professionals.

In a FUMSI world, information professionals have enormous opportunity to redefine their work and their value. Learn more about your own FUMSI skills and interests by completing an online self-assessment at http://digbig.com/4thrc. Then stay tuned for forthcoming Quantum² Highlights articles discussing each of the four FUMSI practice areas and how you can build skills, awareness and support for them in your workplace.

About the author:
Robin Neidorf is the General Manager of Free Pint Limited, publisher of Jinfo (http://www.jinfo.com/), a resource for Jobs in Information. Jinfo, a partner of Quantum², offers a free weekly Jobs Update and a free monthly career tips newsletter (subscribe at http://www.jinfo.com/subs/). Free Pint Limited publishes a range of sites and publications serving the business information industry. Learn more at http://www.onopoly.com/. FUMSI is a trademark of Free Pint Limited; learn more at http://www.freepint.com/fumsi/.