Meredith’s blog post on “shameless self-promotion” really resonated with me. Perhaps it’s because I used to call it “vicious self-promotion” and believed, and still do believe, that it is a critical success factor for information professionals. It is very important to be seen, heard, and have presence — I’ve written about that before in my “At the Table Voice” post. Or perhaps Meredith’s thoughts reminded me of recent conversations with executives (all former librarians meaning that their current roles are not library related), and all different organizations — consulting, insurance, and investments. Their comments really put into perspective for me the current corporate expectations for information professionals. When hiring, they are looking for people with big picture skills, technical skills like anaylsis and ability to give presentations, and business sense in addition to research. In many cases they are no longer hiring librarians but other kinds of researchers and analysts. It is great that as a profession librarians are concerned about the details and ensuring that systems and services are implemented and working properly, but without presense, confidence, and the skills to back them up, we are never going to get the resources, jobs, or success that we might like.

Watch for the press release from Lycos which illustrates how they will enhance their blog offering with a new desktop blog editor powered by Qumana. This free downloadable application let’s bloggers publish content to multiple blogs from the desktop. It also gives users control of ads on blogs, and could potentially be used to direct blog readers to experts in the organization (a KM application!), links to training or podcasts, or even directions. Just think of the applications. I’m looking for organizations or libraries who want to try an application, as Qumana are eager to build some interesting applications and I’m looking for practitioners to talk about their application.

Blogger Loic Le Meur, EVP, Europe for Six Apart and author of “Blogs pour les pros”, gave a great talk about blogs and the enterprise giving lots of great examples of organizations using blogs. He emphasized:
* searching using Technorati, PubSub, Feedster & Blogpulse
* evaluting what people think of your organization and products
* creating communities of influencers
* creating blogs “de marque” like Blackberry & Skype.
Unfortunately he ran out of time before discussing podcasts and videoblogs. Next time!

Eventia’s Intracom Paris 2006 started yesterday “en francais” in windy, cold Paris while demonstrations were going on in another part of the city. A number of Canadian speakers are here: Claude Malaison, formerly with Hydro Quebec and now with Prescient Digital Media, Jon Husband of Qumana and the Wirearchy blog, Real Jacob of Cefrio. And as usual these days, the talks turn “research sociaux” and “media sociaux” — social networking and computing.