Confessions of a Mad Librarian

* We're in an emerging business: the transparency age
- Does transparency = disclosure? No, it's even more than disclosure
- There is unprecedented access to pertinent information about companies, within and outside of those firms
- Your value needs to be evident and your values need to be evident
* By embracing transparency and sharing pertinent information with stakeholders, companies can do really good things
* Special librarians can play an important role in helping companies embrace transparency

Drivers of Transparency:
*Technological
- Digital access to information and new tools have made thing
- The internet is becoming a hypernet - ubiquitous connectivity to high-speed broadband; doors as info appliances
- "They should have called [the Blackberry] the Crackberry ..."
- Growing ambient intelligence
- Explosion in bandwidth: Plain Ole Telephone Service -> ISDN -> T1 -> T3 -> OC3 -> ...
- Wireless and RDID, WiMax
- Integration of servers
- The Internet is becoming a service platform, not just a medium
* Economic
Corporations are undergoing the biggest change in a century, since the peak of the industrial age; vertical integrations
- Transactional costs and collaboration were greater than
- The boundary of the corporation is becoming more porous
- Industrial age corp. -> Semi-porous corp. -> Business webs
* Demographic
- First generation to grow up digital - they are different
-- they use digital applications more seamlessly; it's not "technology" to them; it's like the air
- Boom - bust - echo: the society isn't aging, it's bifurcating; the echo is louder than the original
- Time is spent a lot less time watching TV
- First time that kids are authorities about something important; kids are lapping their parents on the information track
- N-Gen in the Workforce
-- new thinking on authority
-- new approaches to work
-- unprecedented mobility - loyal to their peers, the content of the work, but not to the company per se
- N-Gen as Consumers
-- They want options
-- They want customization
-- They want to change their minds
-- They want to try before they buy
-- Interactive relationships
-- The scrutinizers
* Socio-Political
- Global interdependence: tranparency all around the world
- The civil foundation on a global basis are on the rise
- Science and the knowable - exponential growth
- The corporate trust crisis

Obstacles to technology:
* Limits to knowledge
* Business value of secrets
* Deceit
* Privacy concerns
* Cost of openness
* Transparency literacy
* Fear of litigation
* Risk - vulnerability
* Transparency fatigue (choice/values overload)
* Geopolitical context

Librarians are part of why we have transparency, but companies tend to improvise as to who gets information

5 classes of stakeholders
1. Employees
- companies that share info with employees get all sorts of bennies: increase loyalty, decrease office politics, increase collaboration
- rethinking knowledge mgmt (which has been unsuccessful): containerized like a finite resource, internal; collaboration and across the web, instead
2. Business partners: transparencies in the supply chain, between partners
3. Customers
4. Shareholders - they know more now; 60 years ago, some companies didn't open their books to stockholders
- Shareholder activism: from passive to active investors
- The integrity premium
- Governance premium
5. Communities - companies can scrutinize communities and vice versa

Stakeholder Webs - the embodiment of transparency

Corporate Values
Honesty, consideration, accountability, openness -- the foundation of trust

Corporate values can build trust, which builds relationships which build value

The new business integrity -- sustainability models

Honesty - better visibility; single version of the truth
Consideration - understanding customers' interest; enterprise planning
Accountability - effective scorecarding
Openness - Better, more accurate reporting, valid non-financial info; supply chain transparency; internal info portals

Crises of leadership

Paradigm shifts are scary
Paradigm shifts can be met with indifference, mockery and outright hostility
Those with vested interests tend to fight the hardest