SRW/U next steps

This text summarizes a ZNG discussion (Wednesday, June 22, 2005) on the
topic of non-technical next steps regarding the marketing and promotion
of SRW/U. "What can we do to make more people aware of the benefits of
this search and retrieve protocol?" Some of the ideas included:

   * brand it
   * create five-minute Powerpoint show
   * create X profile
   * get grant funding
   * implement a conformance tester
   * make it a formal standard
   * make X more SRW/U services available
   * write "gentle" guides


Quickie introduction to marketing/promotion

The discussion was initiated with an outline defining marketing and
promotion. Marketing is a formalized communications process, a process
of creating and maintaining relationships between a producer (the SRW/U
community) and consumers (vendors, librarians, content providers,
etc.). Key to the marketing process is the articulation of messages to
communicate. These messages can fall into three categories:

   1. inform - simply making the consumers aware of your
      existence

   2. persuade - describing in lesser or greater detail
      the benefits (not necessarily features) of the
      product/service

   3. review - getting feedback from the consumers

After the consumers have been identified, and after the messages have
been articulated, the next step is to execute the communication process
through various promotion techniques. These are the things we normally
associate with advertising: newspaper and television ads, mailing list
announcements, contests, give-aways, workshops, one-on-one tutorials,
etc.

We need to ask yourselves, "To whom do we want to communicate, and what
do we want to say?"


Learning from OAI's success

The ideas of marketing/promotion were re-enforced by learning from
OAI's success. Based on an article written by Lagoze  and Van de Sompel
[1], as well as based on a set of Powerpoint slides, the success of OAI
can be attributed to a number of factors:

   1. a well-defined problem statement - OAI did and
      does not try to be everything to everybody. It is a
      one-trick pony allowing people to expose and harvest
      metadata.

   2. strong leadership - The development process was
      guided by a board and an executive. The board
      consisted of advisors who where expected to implement
      the product of their advice. The executive was really
      two people, Van de Sompel and Lagoze.

   3. community building - This meant quite a number of
      things ranging from getting support from formal
      organization (DLF, SPARC, CNI) to lots o' writing
      (grants, formal papers, normative documents,
      non-normative guidelines) to facilitating workshops
      and tutorials, to the creation of a directory of
      implementations.

   4. sound technical decisions - Implementing something
      that adhered to the problem statement, the creation
      of a conformance tester, purposefully freezing the
      protocol for a specific period of time are all
      examples of sound technical decisions.

It is interesting to note that the article alluded to above was written
three years ago, and it described a process that was three years old.
It has taken OAI six years to get to where it is today. It is also
important to note that while there were millions of dollars spent
through grant funding, only a tiny fraction of money came from places
like DLF, etc. Much of the expenses were hidden in the time and energy
of individuals.


Discuss of next steps

As a group we then discussed next steps. We tried to answer the
question, "What will we, as a group, have accomplished regarding the
marketing and promotion of SRW/U in the next six, twelve, and eighteen
months?" We brainstormed a number of communities to whom we ought to
communicate:

   * vendors of indexing and abstracting services as
     well as integrated library systems vendors
   * instructional management systems (IMS)
   * JISC
   * SQI
   * Google and Yahoo
   * content providers
   * librarians

We listed a (tiny) number of possible venues for the communication
process: NFAIS, the Charleston Conference, and "talking heads" at ALA.

We also listed a number of possible deliverables:

   * brand it - come up with a different name

   * create five-minute Powerpoint show - give this file
     out freely to as many people as possible

   * create X profile - something akin to the Bath
     profile?

   * get grant funding - funding helps set priorities

   * implement a conformance tester - allows implemented
     to see if they are on track

   * make it a formal standard - standards carry more
     weight

   * make X more SRW/U services available - demonstrate
     real, live implementation. Not prototypes.

   * write "gentle" guides - communicate how to
     implement SRW/U, what it can be used for, and what
     problems it can solve.


Summary

I sincerely believe the time used to learn about and discuss these
ideas was well-spent. I sincerely believe the audience became more
aware of some of the issues regarding marketing, promotion, and
possible next steps. Using what we have learned, I now hope we can take
the time to answer the question, "What will we, as a group, have
accomplished regarding the marketing and promotion of SRW/U in the next
six, twelve, and eighteen months?" and put the answers into practice.


Notes

   1. Carl Lagoze and Herbert Van de Sompel, "The making of the Open
Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting" Library Hi Tech
(2003, Volume 21, Number 2, Pages 118-128).


--
Eric Lease Morgan
Head, Digital Access and Information Architecture Department
University Libraries of Notre Dame

(574) 631-8604