I've put up this and the follow-up discussion at:
http://www.loc.gov/z3950/agency/zing/forum-june05-output/steps.html
Thanks, Eric.
--Ray
----- Original Message -----
From: "Eric Lease Morgan" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, June 28, 2005 11:35 AM
Subject: srw/u next steps
> 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
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