Career Path – Part 2

I went to lunch with one of my most favorite graduate school colleagues a few weeks ago. She recalled my blog post, “Toughest Teacher Paves Career Path” and asked me how that actually happened. Here is the next part of the story.

The original COM (Computer Output Microform) version of the Magazine Index

Professor West worked with a small consulting company (R&D Consultants) that became Information Access Company (IAC). I already talked about how I produced a marketing/media presentation on their first product the “Magazine Index.”

What I didn’t mention was IAC hosted a reception to introduce the presentation to the local library community. Attendees were a virtual Who’s Who of San Francisco Bay Area library leaders.

All of the founders of IAC attended – Brett Butler, Martha West, Buster Spiwak, Lyle Priest, and Dick Kollin.

Library Directors including David C. Weber (Stanford), Richard Dougherty (UC Berkeley) and Bruce Bajema (Marin County) were there. Other attendees included Anne Lipow, Sue Martin, and Walt Crawford, also from UC Berkeley, and many individuals from emerging library technology companies such as Jerry Kline and Steve Silberstein, the founders of Innovative Interfaces.

The Magazine Index used the Library of Congress Subject Headings

R&D Consultants was involved in the development of the Library of Congress MARC (Machine Readable Cataloging) standard, the basis of online catalogs, with many studies led by Brett Butler who became the first president of IAC.

Innovative Interfaces operated in the integrated systems for library management space, especially online catalogs which were replacing the card catalog. Innovative was one of several emerging library technology companies, along with Dialog and IAC, in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Fran Spigai, who was Director of Marketing at Dialog, was also there. Dialog was already well known as one of the first online library services designed for reference use. I had a chance to meet and talk with all of these influential members of the local library community.

A few weeks later I was sitting at the Reference Desk at the San Jose State University Library, where I worked, and received a phone call. “Hello, I’d like to speak with George Plosker.”

“This is he.”

“This is Fran Spigai from Dialog. We met at the IAC reception for the Magazine Index.”

“Yes, I enjoyed talking with you.”

“Would you be interested in coming to Dialog this Friday to talk about a junior position in our Marketing Department? You would report to me.”

“I think you have the wrong person.”

Fran said – “why do you say that?”

“I have no experience searching Dialog. I have not even looked over someone’s shoulder as they did a search. I don’t see how I can help you.”

“Are you sitting at a Reference Desk? Did you produce the Magazine Index marketing presentation?”

“Yes.”

“We are interested in you. You will receive all the training you need once you are on the team.”

We agreed I would come to Dialog that Friday and I should expect to spend several hours doing interviews.

That day, I drove to Palo Alto and met all kinds of people. Other members of the Marketing Department. Several individuals from Dialog Customer Service who answered search questions from librarians via an 800 number and were closely linked to the Marketing team. The head of publications (Barbara Anderson) who produced the highly regarded Dialog documentation. All three heads of the Content teams from Chemistry/Sci-Tech (Peter Rusch), Social Sciences (Charlie Bourne) and Business (Geoff Sharp).

By the time I had finished these interviews it was late afternoon. Fran asked if I could come back on Monday to talk with Roger Summit.

Roger Summit (center) in the Dialog Computer Room

Roger was the Program Manager and the top person at Dialog. He was also the founder. Roger had a big reputation and I had all weekend to think about talking with him and not being intimidated. It was not a relaxing weekend.

After I arrived Monday morning, I was ushered in to see Roger and met his administrative assistant, Bea Cosgrove. She was very protective of Roger’s time and told me to take a seat. After a few minutes, she said, “Dr. Summit will see you now.” The lilt and tone of her voice was unforgettable.

After initial greetings, Summit asked me, “what do you think you can do to help Dialog?”

I replied by describing the bibliographic instruction/library skills activities I was doing at SJSU including training, library tours, classroom presentations, “how-to” guides, and audiovisual modules. I talked about overview-oriented talks and subject specific examples.

I said something like – “if DIALOG is going to be successful in customer environments, the users and their affiliates need to understand how the content related to their projects and problems, how the service would be able to provide this content faster and more effectively than any prior methodology, and ultimately help their organization and themselves succeed in their business and project objectives.”

Summit clearly understood the close relationship between library skills instruction and Dialog marketing strategies. He said – “very good you can go back to Fran now.”

As many of you know, I got the job. More importantly, the foundation for all my future work, and for the overall marketing of information services was established in my mind.

During the course of my career I was fortunate to have many fabulous colleagues, work with terrific leaders, and even mentors. I count Professor West, Brett Butler, Fran and Roger as members of all three of these categories. Looking back it is clear these early experiences set me on the right course.

In my next entry we will look at the things that made Dialog a true market leader, especially how Roger Summit drove alignment to meet customer needs and to shape the early online market.

Has Personalization Gone Too Far?

Recently my oldest childhood friend asked me an interesting question about Google search results – “When you type in a request on Google, it gives you a list of possible websites you might be looking for. These change as you continue to type. Are the prompts they list the result of algorithms that are user specific or general (the same for everybody)? Would you and I get the same suggested websites if we each typed in identical requests on our own laptops or is it based on our Google search history or even our entire browser history?”

I responded – “Both the prompts they list, and the actual search results are user specific. You are correct – Google results are impacted by their algorithms which read the search and browser history.”

Of course, I kept going – “Google is really not an information retrieval tool – it is a sales and marketing tool. Saving your history gives them more push for selling things via their advertiser/partner network. The ads you see are also based on this record of your searches.”

Infographic by The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions. IFLA is the leading international body representing the interests of library and information services and their users.

While there has been some criticism regarding the impact of personalization and user specific results, it remains a primary driver of what every web user sees, not just in Google, but across the web. When confined to online shopping this may not be such a bad thing, but when expanded to searches on virtually any subject, the danger emerges.

Early information retrieval engines and library-oriented online databases would give each user, anywhere in the world, the exact same result. The results were based strictly on the search terms and strategy – using Boolean, proximity and field-based (i.e., title) queries.

The earliest examples of personalization were really user-specific convenience tools. These included the ability to save searches or set-up alerts which would let you know when new records entered the database which matched your search strategy. Certainly useful and still objective.

The online environment began to change when personalization of search results was introduced and became widespread. Writing in “Search Engine Watch” in November of 2005, industry analyst Chris Sherman, said “Google’s personalized search reorders search results based on your history of past searches, giving more weight to topics that interest you.”

Personalization of search results means you are not seeing the full range of opinion. Results are similar to what you have used before. This is potentially critical as it occurs in every query and precludes seeing information that would broaden your view by showing the full scope of available content.

Research, at its heart, is designed to expand and add depth to your knowledge on any topic. Just reinforcing your existing point of view is counterproductive to this goal.

FactCheck.org is “a nonpartisan, nonprofit ‘consumer advocate’ for voters that aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics.”

The original information intermediaries, librarians, have always known that different types of sources contain distinctive content. For example, news stories have a different emphasis than academic research. Rumors or gossip are far less authoritative than peer-reviewed journal articles.

The body of knowledge (BOK) for any subject allows for range of opinion on a topic, but it is identified in context. All BOKs encompass varying points of view and include things like theories, forecasts, and established facts. BOKs also identify bias as part of the factors that influence the presentation of the information.

Use Media Bias/Fact Check to determine the most credible media sources.

It can be argued that virtually all published sources have some kind of bias. However, often the information from publications does not reveal their tendencies, leaving the reader in the dark.

To combat this libraries and journalism professionals have been publishing media bias evaluation tools. Many of these services are exceptionally useful.

Two examples of these assessment resources include the “Media Bias Chart” by ad fontes media and the “Media Bias/Fact Check” website.

ad fontes media also offers an interactive version of their “Media Bias Chart.

ad fontes media “…rate[s] the news for bias and reliability using a rigorous methodology and a politically balanced team of analysts. Our focus is on analyzing the news content of articles and shows.”

The Media Bias/Fact Check homepage says – “We are the most comprehensive media bias resource on the internet. There are currently 3500+ media sources listed in our database and growing every day. Don’t be fooled by Fake News sources.”

These resources would be more effective if they were immediately available in a user-friendly way at the point of need, that is within the search results.

In a confusing time when information is amplified and accelerated by the connectivity of the internet, it is critical to use the tools that allow one to determine what is the best information on any topic. It would be particularly useful if popular internet sites would integrate these evaluation mechanisms into their feeds or search results. The ethics of being an information intermediary demand it.

Getting to Common Ground

During my tenure as a Client Services Manager for the IEEE I did presentations and training events all over the world. I traveled to many countries in Asia, South America, Europe, the United Kingdom and made frequent trips to the Middle East. I’ve been to Egypt, Lebanon, Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Jordan. I gave a keynote speech at a technical conference in Baku, Azerbaijan.

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A Photographers Tips for Zoom (WebEx, GoTo) Meetings

I’ve been incredibly lucky to have had several wonderful mentors in my experiences with photography. When I was about 14 or 15, my friend’s father recognized my interest and actually offered me paid work!

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Do Not Close the San Carlos School Libraries!

My wife and I do not have any children, but we do have nieces and nephews with children of their own. We are big believers in education. My entire career was built on the education I received in the New York City Public Schools, then Queens College and finally San Jose State University (SJSU).

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Chief Justice Roberts: Stop Messing with Voting Rights!

After the recent decisions about the Wisconsin Primary I posted this on Facebook. Continued thinking led me to write the open letter below to John Roberts, Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Are there any adults in the room?
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Do You Believe In Science?

I’ve always been a science person. I remember reading Popular Mechanics and doing science projects when I was still in elementary school. When my neighbor received a really nice telescope as a Christmas gift, we were out in the freezing New York City weather trying to view the rings of Saturn. This was way before telescopes had GPS and finder devices, so it took considerable effort to find and focus the telescope on our target.

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PG&E Part III – Implement a Knowledge Based Culture

Many of the readers of this blog know I was employed by the “premium content” electronic publishing industry for almost forty years. In our positioning of products to our clients, we would often discuss the need for a knowledge-based culture. This was especially important with our corporate audience with the closing or absence of libraries.

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PG&E Part II – Learn From Industry Best Practices

In my last post we looked at the premise is PG&E responsible for the California wildfires. Numerous experts have pointed to a myriad of PG&E failures that have directly caused wildfires and put PG&E in a very tenuous position regarding their finances and future. But what can be done?

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