This year’s SCOUG Spring Workshop will offer SCOUGers the unique opportunity to join together with the Association of Independent Information Professionals (AIIP) to share a day of partnerships and alliances programming – a true partnership in keeping with this year’s theme!

Demands, up! Expectations, up! Resources, down! What’s an information professional to do?

The demands for accurate, timely, relevant information have never been greater.

Expectations of end-users in the world of the Web have risen to Disneyesque proportions.

Resources – the time, the money, the staff – continue to shrink. And, in the midst of all these challenges, management questions the role and even the need for information professionals.

What are we to do? We must band together to do the best job possible and prove our worth to the world, including the WWW world. We must share the knowledge, learn and benefit from the expertise of colleagues and vendor partners. This partnerships and alliances program will bring you up to speed on current P&A trends and behind the scenes thinking, present case studies on how it’s done right and offer hard core ideas and tips for potential new business relationships to survive in these economic times!

AIIP Member rates offered to SCOUGers! See the FULL CONFERENCE PROGRAM.

FREE vendor training offered Wed., 4/17, and Thurs., 4/18: Dialog, Factiva, National Library of Medicine, LexisNexis.

Who should come?

You Should!

Whether you’re a library manager, work in an information center, are in collection development or a reference librarian for a corporate, public, academic or special library, or a hard-working information broker or vendor, a writer, webmaster, database designer, document provider, or consultant - in short, if you are in any way concerned with finding, accessing, buying, or distributing information to an increasingly savvy and demanding audience, you need to know about the latest trends, techniques, and tips for forming and maintaining partnerships and alliances.

The Southern California Online Users Group is a non-profit, all-volunteer organization dedicated to helping people take better advantage of information in electronic formats. Founded 25 years ago by Barbara Quint, editor of Searcher Magazine and still an active member, SCOUG’s membership of over 1600 professionals includes individuals in every type of information organization in dozens of countries around the world.

Every year SCOUG produces a Spring Workshop and a Retreat – hailed as the Renaissance Weekend of the information industry – both dedicated to engaging old and new information professionals in stimulating discussions, challenging research and problem-solving exercises that improve the professional environment and facilitate use of the immense amounts of information available to individuals and organizations in the Information Age.

Date last modified: 5/2/02

Partnerships & Alliances: Surviving & Succeeding Together

7:30 - 8:30 Signing Up for the Team
Registration & Continental Breakfast in the Exhibit Hall

8:30 - 8:35 What’s the Game Plan? Welcome & Introduction
Latonya Jefferson, KPMG, Mistress of Ceremonies

8:35 - 9:05 A View from the Skybox Keynote
Anthea Stratigos, President of Outsell, Inc. Hear about the mergers, acquisitions and strategic partnerships that have brought changes to the information industry. What works and what doesn’t work about these alliances for the industry as a whole and what’s ahead for possible alliances of the future? How will these strategic changes affect what consumers can expect from an alliance-based information industry? View the PowerPoint Presentation

9:05 - 9:30 Understanding the Content Game
Corilee Christou, MLS, VP Online & New Media Licensing & Development, responsible for Cahners’ electronic content. Hear how licensing negotiations and the partnerships they create between information providers and aggregators affect users. What impact can industry partnerships have on information content, availability and pricing? How do these changes affect the user’s ability to use the material they’ve acquired? View the PowerPoint Presentation

9:30 - 9:50 Time Out on the Field Break & Visit the Exhibitors

9:50 - 11:30 Who Plays on the Information Team? Panel
A panel of information professionals representing all major "conferences" – Corporate, Academic, Public and Independent – talk about who they partner with inside their organizations as well as how they use external connections and why. Discussion will extend from how partnering helps careers to what they had to learn to make the partnerships work and what they wouldn’t try again. How do you get your team together? How do you deal with outside and inside groups?
Corporate: Cynthia Hill, Sun Microsystems
Academic: Chad Kahl, Librarian, California State University, Los Angeles View the PowerPoint Presentation
Public: Bo Simons, Sonoma County Public Library, Sonoma County Wine Library
Independent: Amelia Kassel, MarketingBase View the PowerPoint Presentation

11:30 - 11:50 20-Second Warm-up / 20-Second Pitch Vendor Soundbytes
A lightning round of vendor presentations. To absolutely guarantee that no attendee misses the presence of a key vendor, each exhibitor will get a chance to speak their piece, but briefly.

11:50 -12:20 Visit the Exhibits & Network

12:20 -1:30 Lunch

1:30 - 2:15 Google: Hitting a Home Run Afternoon Keynote
Marissa Mayer, Product Manager, Google, Inc., will discuss how the world’s leading search engine is approaching the seemingly impossible task of keeping their massive user base happy with free, relatively noncommercial service and, at the same time, translating their market dominance into dollars and cents. Find out how keeping the user happy can also make good business sense.

2:15 - 3:15 Spring Training A series of practical tips, concrete suggestions and how to’s – to bring your partnership and alliance ideas from murky to marvelous.
Sue Brewsaugh, Boeing. The Request for Proposal (RFP) process: from creating the requirements to evaluating the proposals. View the PowerPoint Presentation
Linnea Christiani, Licensing Consultant, The Game Plan: partnership recruitment, proposal strategies and backup plans. View the PowerPoint Presentation
Randy Marcinko, President, Nstein Technologies: Avoiding pitfalls in the info game.

3:15 - 3:35 Seventh Inning Stretch Break & Visit the Exhibits

3:35- 4:30 Wrap-Up Panel: Partnering for Better Times
A final look at the issues of the day with a panel of speaker participants. Ask your questions and get your answers. Mary-Ellen Mort, Director, JobStar, will honcho an interactive session. View the Haiku summary of the day's program

4:30 to 6:00 Post Game Show Wine & Cheese Reception sponsored by Dialog
Give-aways, door prizes, networking, last chance to visit the exhibits.