Information Consulting As A Career

Panel Presentation for SLA Philadelphia + Trenton-Princeton, NJ Chapters

At the kind invitation of the SLA Philadelphia chapter, presented jointly with the Trenton-Princeton chapter, I was part of a panel workshop to talk about being independent and what a career as an information consultant could look like. We had members of the two SLA chapters attend the event in person as well as via a live webcast.

The other panelists were Andrea Carrero, of Black Ink Marketing and Word Technologies, Inc (also an AIIP member) and Jean Fisher, of Vantage Information Services.  I greatly enjoyed hearing their start-up stories, what they wish they knew when starting out, and other great tips for those considering making the leap to info-entrepreneurship. The evening really became a back-n-forth sharing of stories, experiences, tips and asking each other how we got to where we are now and what we’ve learned along the way. The attendees asked interesting questions – although it was sometimes odd to have a question come from a computer and then address that person unseen via the camera in front of us!

I also wrote about, and promoted this event, via my InfoHound site and of course social media. All part of expanding my visibility and giving back as often as I can to the information and library community. My thanks also go to Mary Ellen Bates, SLA Fellow and AIIP Past President, for donating copies of her books to give as prizes to those asking questions and generating good discussion, both live and online.