What Is Your Value Proposition?

“What Is Your Value Proposition?” By Anne Rogers Director of Research & Knowledge Services at Cargill

This was a timely post on SLA’s Future Ready 365 blog given my rant on value added service last week. 

Of particular interest was Rogers’ bit about the reference interview as added value: During a project to evaluate scientific reference service, I had a key client, a chemical engineer, tell me that one of the most valuable services we provided was to help him refine and express clearly the research/business problem he was trying to solve. We’d been thinking about reference interview skills as a means to an end, not a value added capability in itself. And guess what? The ability to work with individuals or teams to facilitate creation of a clear, actionable problem statement is a critical skill applicable in many areas.

I didn’t think about it during my previous post, but helping people refine their problem/issue/task/whatever is a HUGE value add that I’ve been complimented on before.  Librarians are kind of this weird bartender of information issues that, by listening to people, help them figure out their real problems are, not just what they think they are.  And let’s face it, sometime Corporate America races forward to find the “answer” without really knowing what it’s trying to solve.