Category Archives: Librarians

Why you should learn to stop worrying about your brand

Posted on by
16

Should you waste time worrying about your brand? (Image c/o Todd Klassy on Flickr)

A caveat to start off with. One of my favourite books is No Logo by Naomi Klein. Broadly speaking, I take up positions that could best be described as anti-capitalist. Therefore, as you can imagine, I don’t have much time for marketing or marketing speak.  I guess my view of marketing are best articulated here.  Now that caveat is out-of-the-way, I shall plunge straight into explaining my views on the whole “branding” phenomenon, something that appears to be very much (still) the “hot topic” in library land.

I do not like the idea of “personal branding”.  The term itself is incredibly difficult for me to even contemplate putting to paper (or screen).  I find it a deeply reductionist term. Products are branded, human beings are not.  Turning an individual into a brand simply, to my mind, reduces them to the status of a product or commodity, commodities such as Coca-Cola for example. Coca-Cola is a well-known brand.  It’s been around for over a century and is known across the globe.  It is also (bar the odd ingredient change) broadly speaking unchanged.  The drink itself, the way it has been packaged, very little about it has changed over the years.  It is a constant, unchanging brand.

Now think about yourself as an individual.  You are not a constant.  You change from day-to-day.  The person you are today isn’t the person you were ten, five, even one year ago.  People are complex, they cannot be reduced to one, unifying brand image.  Besides, who would want to be?  Conforming to a particular brand image is dehumanising.  Dehumanising because it is not a natural state for a human being to adopt, for the reasons I have already given.  It is simply not natural to try and adapt your behaviour to conform to an image you wish to project at all times.  Whilst turning oneself into a brand is problematic there is, however, a bigger issue for me around the idea of personal branding.

My biggest concern is that a focus on a “personal brand” can actually do substantial damage to the profession in which such a strategy is employed.  Actions taken by an individual to enhance their brand can, as a side-effect, have a detrimental impact upon the broader profession (emphasis on ‘can‘).  Take, for example, being a vociferous campaigner for public libraries.  You may often say things that are in conflict with superiors within your profession, your peers or the professional body itself.  As a result, you may be seen as nothing more than a trouble-maker, an antagonist causing problems.  This, therefore, would become your brand.  Now, is this a brand image that you would want to cultivate?  An antagonistic trouble-maker?  Probably not.  Who wants to be viewed by others as nothing more than a trouble-maker?  But whilst this “brand” can be seen as damaging to the individual, it can be a good thing for the profession as a whole.  It may not become apparent in the immediate short-term, but over a longer period of time that individual’s actions can have a very beneficial impact upon the profession.  Dissenters and trouble-makers can, after all, be “an organisation’s most valuable asset.”

On the other hand, someone who plugs away and focuses on creating a “positive brand image” which reflects well upon themselves, may create a positive image of themselves amongst their peers, yet will not have a significant impact upon the broader profession because they are unprepared to damage their own “personal brand”.  So focused have they become on creating a positive brand image of themselves, they have been unwilling to upset this image by taking positions that may be unpopular with peers or superiors but will result in long-term benefits. It is, in my opinion, a short-term strategy that will yield some benefits but will have a negligible impact upon the long term future for the profession.

In my view, if you allow yourself to get too sucked in by “what makes you look good” you are in danger of forgetting about what will help the profession overall.  I think of it as a little like neo-liberal Conservative policy over the past thirty years – an ideology focused on what benefits me, rather than what benefits society. Sometimes the things that benefit the “society” (ie the profession) do not benefit you directly as an individual.  Consequently, you may take actions that benefit yourself (your “brand”) rather than “society” as a whole.  Once you get into that mode of thinking as an individual it is hugely damaging, but when you engage in a process of groupthink where everyone acts in that way, you risk damaging the entire profession.

For example, take strike action.  Strikes may reflect badly on the group that is taking the strike action.  In fact, in this country, it is almost invariably the case that it will reflect badly on those taking such action (have you ever encountered positive reporting from the perspective of those on strike?).  However, it is very often the case that the things they are seeking to defend that has led to them taking action will benefit all of us.  The recent petrol tanker situation being a case in point.  Drivers were prepared to strike due to their concerns regarding (amongst other factors admittedly) health and safety.  Whilst the strike action itself had a negative impact on their “brand image”, a successful action leading to a stricter health and safety policy would benefit all of us (we don’t want truck drivers delivering a substance like petrol without adhering to certain health and safety standards obviously).  Short term impact: negative “brand image”. Long term impact: safe transportation on public highways of a highly flammable liquid.

Of course, I am probably mis-reading the whole “personal branding” phenomenon, seeing it purely through the eyes of an anti-capitalist who has no interest in “brands” and marketing, I am sure someone will tell me as much.  However, this is about my perception of personal branding as a strategy.  And my perception is that it is certainly not a good thing.  Personally speaking, I think we would do well as a profession to stop indulging in continuous self-analysis of how we are viewed by those outside the profession.  It does us no favours whatsoever.  The best way to deal with the concerns that this strategy seeks to address is to demonstrate our relevance.  It is through demonstrating our relevance that we will seek to address the concerns that have been thrown around the profession over the past few years (possibly since the year dot).  Not, I’m sorry to say, navel-gazing or a focus on our “personal brand”.

I couldn’t find the time to squeeze them in here, but I would also recommend reading this which I agree with very much (as you can tell) and a post by Lauren here which also sums up my feelings. In fact, I should probably have just posted those two links and not bothered writing this post at all.

 

A librarian shaped hole on the bookshelf?

Posted on by
10

In the information age, is the librarian being overlooked? (Image c/o Marwa Morgan)

A little while ago on Twitter there was a conversation around whether or not people have re-read any books and if so what.  Since graduating in English Literature and History I barely read any fiction at all, let alone re-read any.  In a way studying literature has rather spoilt things for me.  I got used to reading the very best fiction the English language can offer and as a result I tend to be very selective in what I read.  There are a few novelists that I seek out, Bret Easton Ellis and Douglas Coupland to name but two, but generally I tend to avoid them as a rule, although from time to time something comes along that grabs my interest (I currently have Gods Without Men sitting half-read on my bookcase).

But, like I said, I tend to mainly read non-fiction, flitting between sociological, historical and political works in general.  Authors I particularly seek out included Noam Chomsky, George Monbiot and Naomi Klein (whose Shock Doctrine is a must read in the current economic climate).  But generally speaking anything along those lines tends to float my boat.  Certainly I now find these sorts of texts much easier to read than fiction, often ploughing through such texts in no time at all.

A lot of the books I read refer to the society in which we live.  Merchants of Doubt, for example, explores how some ‘scientists’ have used mis-information as a means to protect certain industries from legislation (cigarettes, oil companies etc).  Risk demonstrates through statistics that many of the fears we perceive to exist, actually don’t.  Heat explains the impact we are having on the environment and what we can to address the damage we are doing.  And Bad Science reveals the extent to which dodgy science has infiltrated our media and the increasing number of suspect ‘experts’ that claim to have the answers to a healthy life.  Each of these explore a variety of concerns that impact upon us as a society, getting to the heart of a number of social issues.  Which got me thinking.

We live in an information age (so we are repeatedly told).  It is fast moving and it is complex.  Such an environment creates a number of issues that impact upon us as a society, from the ownership of information to the inequalities in access to information across our society.  There are a whole host of issues that demand exploring, much like those explored in some of the texts referred to above.  The role of Amazon and Google in information provision, the increasing monetisation of information, information inequality, net neutrality, surveillance of the web, the social impact of the web…and many other issues besides have sprung up as we have entered this age of information.  And yet, despite all these issues, a key expert in these matters is not being heard. Yep, you guessed it, librarians.

Like I said, I tend to read a lot of non-fiction.  I seek out stuff that is either on the same page as me politically or I look for things that touch on issues I care about.  Over the years I have become increasingly passionate about issues related to the information age.  This is perhaps unsurprising given my extra-curricular activities (both on the MSc and through my library campaign work).  But what has struck me (and I may be wrong here) is that despite the range of issues that are being faced in this period of massive change in the delivery of information, I cannot think of a single noteworthy text on the topic written by a librarian (this is where people scream titles at me and I look foolish).  I find this strange and I am not quite sure what the reason behind it is.  Maybe mainstream publishers aren’t interested in books exploring issues related to the field of information.  Maybe they feel there is no demand for it.  Who knows, but it does seem a little strange.

To illustrate my point, earlier today I put out a request on Twitter: “name some books written by librarians” (I suspect some people thought I had lost the plot when I tweeted that!).  The responses were interesting.  Without fail every reply pointed to a work of fiction, poetry or philosophy by a librarian or an inward looking text that is solely aimed at information professionals.  Not a single person pointed to any mainstream, mass audience non-fiction.  Now, this could be because the respondents are predominantly fiction readers and therefore they naturally chose fictional works.  Or maybe it is because I wasn’t specific in what I asked and I would have received more suitable suggestions if I had clarified that I was specifically interested in mainstream non-fiction.  However, I deliberately chose that phrasing because I felt that if there was an important mainstream non-fiction text out there by a librarian, someone would mention it.  No-one did, but of course this doesn’t mean to say  that there isn’t one (please tell me in the comments if there is!).

I raise this not because there is anything wrong with texts that are specifically designed for the information professional ‘market’.  Obviously, I would be a fool to say that having never written a book myself.  Besides which, such works are essential for furthering the development of the profession.  Without them we run the risk of becoming irrelevant.  However, it is odd that there are few in the way of outward looking texts.  Of course, several of the non-fiction works I referred to above are by journalists, but there are many other texts of this sort written by professionals who are intimately involved in the topics they explore (take Ben Goldacre for example). For me, given that we live in an information age with all the issues that go with it, it is surprising that there are not more mainstream non-fiction texts by information professionals.  Maybe it is more down to the publishers than anything else (although that again points to the failings of the profession in being a recognised expert on such concerns).  Who knows what the cause is, but surely in this environment and with the range of issues that recent developments raise, there should be a plethora of mainstream texts by information professionals?