tfpl blog

The Growth of Social Media

by Denise Harmer, Recruitment Consultant

I attended my first NetikX event on Tuesday where Steve Dale and Geoff McCaleb (social media mobile consultant) shared some interesting statistics about social media which is undoubtedly here to stay given that staggeringly two thirds of the population visit a social network site once a month and Facebook has 800 million users...

The future of social media is clearly growth, Facebook’s strategy for example is to encourage users to spend more time on the site, this will soon be a a possibility as they are about to launch Timeline which will encourage the user to spend more time uploading and sharing information. Another major focus of social media will be its mobility -  by 2013, it is predicted that mobile devices will provide more people with their online experiences than desktops.

A few facts – 1 in 3 companies now use some form of social media to recruit (eg LinkedIn), 47% of journalists used twitter as a source in 2010, 50% of the population uses Facebook.
Its official – social media is here to stay and who knows, in ten years time email may be replaced and we could be operating in a Skype based in environment conversing face to face via a mobile platform.

The Annual SLA Winter Warmer Pub Quiz

by Helen Trudgeon, Contracts Recruitment Consultant

 

Last week saw SLA Europe’s Annual Winter Warmer Pub Quiz event take place, once again hosted by professional QuizMaster, AskTony and kindly sponsored by Swets and the Financial Times.

SLA President and TFPL Managing Director Darron Chapman welcomed the 16 teams, made up of SLA members and friends, all eager to be crowned Quiz Champions 2012.  So keen were staff at TFPL, that we were able to field 2 full teams – the IDOX Idles and TFPL & Back - competing not only for the main prize, but also to take home the honour of being TFPL’s own internal champion. Purely in the spirit of friendly rivalry, of course.

The quiz kicked off with an investigation of our knowledge of recent current affairs, which perhaps left a little to be desired, but the room soon warmed up as we were asked, amongst other things, to identify obscure television adverts, to get inside the heads of Sun readers  and to spot price an eyewateringly obscure range of commodities.  Smartphones were sadly banned, but our team nonetheless managed to achieve modest success, based on a sound knowledge of Asda pricing and at least one mathematical genius who knew the current price of Brent Crude.

The final round remains memorable, if only for the noise of over 80 people singing along to Chas n’ Dave and the Rocky soundtrack.  Possibly with more enthusiasm than any inherent musical ability. Or perhaps that was just me.

The eventual and well deserved winners were the Film Club, captained by Mark Haines, whilst both of TFPL’s teams managed a respectable mid-table ranking, with IDOX Idles pipping TFPL & Back by just 1 point.  We are already anticipating next year’s re-match.

Ultimate winners the Film Club https://picasaweb.google.com/asktony.co.uk/Sla2012?authkey=Gv1sRgCJrUv8Dvu5285AE#5698928439449238770

https://picasaweb.google.com/asktony.co.uk/Sla2012?authkey=Gv1sRgCJrUv8Dvu5285AE#5698928397971520194

Recruitment Update: Agency Worker Regulations, by Tracey South, Recruitment Manager

The regulations came into force on 1 October 2011 and give agency workers the entitlement to:

-  the same basic employment and working conditions as if they had been recruited directly;
-  if and when they complete a qualifying period of 12 weeks in the same job.

We have taken immediate action to ensure compliance with this new legislation:

-  Updated all of our contracts and procedures in line with Recruitment and Employment Confederation guidelines;
-  Updated our recruitment system;
-  Worked closely with current contractors and clients to ensure that they are aware of these changes and how they will be affected;
-  Trained our team and have been out to various AWR conferences and events;
-  Ensured all new vacancies are dealt with in accordance with the AWR regulations.
It has been a challenging couple of months for the team but we're confident that we are well prepared and fully briefed.

For more information about AWR, you can go to the information page on our website. For information about contract opportunities, please contact Tracey South - tracey.south@tfpl.com.

DREaM with the LIS Research Coalition and TFPL

I am pleased to announce our support of the Library and Information Science Research Coalition’s project – Developing Research Excellence and Methods (DREaM).  Last year the LIS Research Coalition was awarded a grant from the AHRC to support the DREaM project.  The project will comprise a number of events where researchers from LIS and other subject domains will review methods and provide overviews of their strengths and weaknesses.  A wide range of techniques are to be evaluated beyond the standard qualitative and quantitative techniques commonly used in LIS research.

The full list of DREaM project events is as follows:

1. Tuesday 19th July 2011 – project launch conference “Out of the comfort zone” at British Library Conference Centre, London (places for 100 participants) – please register here
2. Tuesday 25th October 2011 – workshop 1 (of 3) at Craighouse campus, Edinburgh Napier University, Edinburgh (places for 30 participants)
3. Monday 30th January 2012 – workshop 2 (of 3) at the British Library Conference Centre, London (places for 30 participants)
4. Wednesday 25th April 2012 – workshop 3 (of 3) at Craighouse campus, Edinburgh Napier University, Edinburgh (places for 30 participants)
5. Monday 9th July 2012 – concluding event at the British Library Conference Centre, London (places for 40 participants)

As part of our support we have sponsored two places for research students at the event at the British Library Conference Centre on 19th July.  This is an important project for all and something that LIS will be able to benefit from for the future.

 

Darron Chapman, Managing Director

BIALL Conference: Gateshead

Anne Ashdown, Consultant, TFPL

What do you get when you cross a group of legal information officers with a long weekend in Newcastle?  Well, thankfully not the latest showing of Geordie Shores but in fact BIALL’s 42nd Annual Study Conference & Exhibition. Conference this year was both informative and a great networking opportunity; chance to catch up with professional colleagues and the opportunity to meet new faces.

It was held in the very modern environment of the SAGE at Gateshead. This is a spectacular venue in a wonderful setting, overlooking the Tyne and the Millenium Bridge. 

This year’s conference was on the topic of “Sharing Experience; building value in legal information”. We learned about the importance of measuring the effectiveness of your service, retaining a focus on customer insight and satisfaction and making sure you understand your clients’ specific needs. Once you have the right mechanisms in place you can ensure your service focuses on meeting business objectives and improving performance of your function. There were many more sessions that I was unable to attend but the general “buzz” of comments all indicated a very worthwhile conference agenda.

Report on the CLSIG NetIKX conference on “Making the Most of Sharepoint”

Author: Matt Woods, Contracts Recruiter, TFPL

This Wednesday, CLSIG/NetIKX hosted an interesting gathering, where about 45 people listened to a presentation by Mark Field on the implementation of Sharepoint and cloud platforms at the Department for Education, followed by case studies and group discussions led by Hugh O’Neill (Knowledge Manager, EMEA for Jones Lang LaSalle) and James Andrews (KIM Officer at the British Red Cross)

Funding restraint, while being a driver of innovation in many cases, could end up being a result of improved efficiencies brought about by a move toward shared workspaces.  Mark spoke about the improvement in document control and compliance at the DfE since the introduction of the Sharepoint-based system.  Perhaps the main theme of Mark’s case study was the importance of achieving staff participation and acceptance of any new platform and to get beyond a perception that it is merely a case of “the intranet’s changed”.  Mark did this at DfE by identifying key people to become advocates or “champions” of the new system, being sure that these people were senior and with a reputation for being resistant.

Hugh also had experiences of promoting Sharepoint as a Knowledge Management tool at Jones Lang LaSalle, where he helped to implement a platform that enabled previously technophobic executives to collate and share information about contacts, intangible market and competitor intelligence and business information.  He stressed the importance of approaching the setup from a KM standpoint rather than as an IT project, a point which seemed to echo the thoughts of Mark Field, who found that avoiding Sharepoint and Microsoft language helped to improve engagement with the project.  Hugh also found that making the platform visually appealing made it much easier for people to engage with.

During questions and answers, user-engagement came up time and time again, as well as references to open government regulations and with that, the future prospects for using Sharepoint platforms to provide linked data to people within and outside of public sector organisations.  With this in mind, Hugh O’Neill stressed the importance of having common versions of the programme to make sure that different sets of data are compatible and able to migrate from one platform to another.  I asked Mark Field whether, as the roll out of this type of platform continues across departments, the use and choice of different programmes or even versions will hinder the linked data aspect of open government.  This will most likely depend on the attitudes of different departments and Permanent Secretaries and how they are able/forced to collaborate.  It was particularly interesting to compare these observations to those made by the information Commissioner and Paul Davidson (Local e-Government Standards Body) at the recent ISKO Public Access to Information conference (see blog post  14 April) and may be an indicator of further business opportunities in exploiting Open government, linked data and FoI requirements within local and national government.

In all, even though approaching the seminar form a non-technical viewpoint, it was clear that there is a groundswell in favour of using Sharepoint and Cloud systems, with upgrades to later versions inevitable.  The key points appeared to centre on the importance of making the platforms easier to use, which in turn will improve user participation and acceptance, as well as the increased likelihood that organisations in all sectors will be looking to implement and improve their use of Sharepoint.

 

 

BIALL : Cheese & Wine

Author: Anne Ashdown, Consultant
TFPL Intelligent Resources

A pleasant evening was had at the BIALL Cheese & Wine event on Friday, 25^th February, held in the beautiful Old Hall at Lincoln’s Inn. This annual event has become a longstanding date in the BIALL networking calendar and consistently attracts a good attendance of information professionals from all levels of seniority across the legal sector.  It is an informal and very enjoyable gathering and a real opportunity to network: refreshing relationships with old acquaintances and making new contacts.

It came as no surprise that most people I spoke to had opinions on the increasing rise of Outsourcing to affect the legal information industry.  What struck me is the wide ranging difference of opinion with regard to Outsourcing: some people were very worried about their individual future; some concerned about the overall future of the legal information profession; whilst others could forecast positive advantages. Clearly the whole Outsourcing debate is very current in peoples’ minds and a theme which will rightly appear on the agendas at other industry events over the coming months.

Some hope for public libraries facing closure?

We came across this heart-warming story in yesterday's Evening Standard.  Darren Taylor, a self styled not-for-profit entrepreneur, is in talks with Lewisham Council to take over four libraries ear-marked for closure.  While the exact details of the funding model are not clear, Mr Taylor claims that the libraries could continue to serve the public for 6 days a week at an annual cost of £250,000 each. 

Mr Taylor, already runs a community library cum-café in Deptford, which certainly gives credence to his commitment. His vision includes modernising the Lewisham facilities into "eco-libraries" in continued effort to attract young users with new self service machines and electronic Kindle readers. 

So what hope is there for other public libraries? Philanthropists such as Mr Taylor are a rare commodity in society and certainly there aren't enough like him with the vision and ability to keep all community libraries open.  We've heard before of innovations where public libraries have been co-located with new supermarkets and other unrelated consumer outlets to attract more people.   However, it is funding and not necessarily foot-fall which is the immediate concern for public library professionals.

It seems that public-private initiatives are the most viable option in the "age of austerity" for the sustenance and modernisation of community libraries.  Such initiatives could combine not just cafés and supermarkets with libraries, but indeed turn them into more focused commercial and public service literacy and information centres in partnership with commercial book sellers, public agencies such as Citizen's Advice, DWP Job Centres and more.

 

Unlocking the value of you

Author: Shooresh Golzari

Last night we hosted our third Connect event of the year at the Radisson Edwardian hotel, close to Tottenham Court Road. The theme of the evening, kindly chaired by Gwenda Sippings of Linklaters, focused on how KIM professionals could demonstrate the value of their function and themselves as individuals to the business in times where cost cutting may put them at the fore of management scrutiny.

The first presentation was that of Rosemary Nunn, who demonstrated how she has championed the value of KIM as a critical function of business at EC Harris.  Rosemary highlighted the problem as largely being a lack of understanding in the business around what KIM is all about.

She stressed that this problem is often compounded by the obscure language of KIM, which people outside the discipline struggle to link with business objectives.  This very much resonates with what other speakers at previous Connect meetings have posited and echoes our own Vivienne Winterman's blog on plain speak.

Where I feel Rosemary's piece was particularly powerful was in the solution she proposed: let's not only use plain speak, but let's also demonstrate how intrinsically linked what we do is to the business cycle.  Let's look at the business, identify where we add value and be ready to demonstrate it. If we do this effectively, by showing what we do, what it enables and what would happen without it, then we will not make for such easy targets in lean times.

Dave Tullett of Heidrick and Struggles added to Rosemary's angle by bringing an introspective turn to our attention with his presentation, building the case for you.  The crux of Dave's point was that you, as in you personally, have to know what your value to the business is and be ready to present it in a way that is resounding to the places that matter and authentic to yourself; because it's not anyone else's job to monitor and promote your value.

To illustrate with one of Dave's examples, it is not very useful to answer, when asked who you are and what you do, with "I'm a knowledge manager" - what's a knowledge manager?  On the other hand, what would be useful is to demonstrate quickly and effectively how you make things happen for those you're there to support. An "elevator pitch" for yourself.

Dave recommended you do this by firstly measuring your actual impact (how you are perceived) with how you intend to be perceived.  Then by following a three step process of self discovery, expression and evolution begin to build for yourself a case, a set of stories and a brand that demonstrates your skills, attributes and ultimately, your value.

Finally, for those of you who are members of TFPL Connect, we'll be making Rosemary and Dave's slides available online in the members' area.

 

Networking at SLA Europe

Author: Luisa Jefford
TFPL Intelligent Resources, Director - Public Sector Recruitment

As a Recruiter I have always understood the value of a network.  It's an essential part of my job, it's how I get to meet and greet the people I am working with, it's also how I build my own professional brand and that of my organisation.  We have an array of technical tools to help us network virtually these days, my preferred choices have always been and will always be Linked In for professional contacts and Facebook for friends.  However, meeting people face to face, particularly new contacts, is why I am a regular attendee at industry network events.

This week I have networked at the SLA European Chapter SLA(m) meeting.   The meeting was sponsored by SLA Europe, FreePint and TFPL and the venue was a funky bar in Blackfriars.  I was told it would be a great opportunity to build and cement existing relationships and indeed it lived up to expectations.
 
The evening kicked off in the usual fashion of being greeted by the SLA team.  I was presented with a badge which has space for me to pose two discussion points, one professional and one personal, was then handed a drink and off I went to work the room.
 
As a seasoned networker I find it relatively easy to approach old friends and colleagues at these events but the structure of this evening really did allow me to step outside my comfort zone and chat to new people.  There were certainly some common themes for the night, outsourcing and the future of the KIM profession and on a more personal note there was lots of discussion around the recent election, the ash cloud and holidays.
 
It was a great night, lively discussion, a great venue and many enthusiastic networkers so I am sure I wasn't alone in my enjoyment.