 Hello, this is Kim Dority, career consultant for the San Jose State University iSchool. I'd like to welcome you to today's career podcast where we'll be interviewing Scott Brown, whose official title is Senior Cyberarian for Oracle. He's also the owner of his own business, Social Information Group. He's a published author of a book called Social Information and you may also know Scott in his role as adjunct faculty for the San Jose iSchool program. I've been fortunate to know Scott for many years and during that time I have learned just a ton of information and and good ideas and innovative thinking from him. So because of that I'm really happy to have Scott with us so you can also benefit from his professional experience and insights and I'm guessing that Scott is blushing right now. If you know Scott you know that this is all true. So with that I'd like to say welcome Scott. Thank you and I'm very pleased to be here and yes I'm choked up. Well one of the benefits for me working with San Jose State students is that I get to hear from them about faculty members and faculty members and adjunct faculty members that they've worked with and learned from and I know that you are an important contributor to the program so that's one of the things that makes it so special for us to have you with us today. So I'm going to ask Scott some questions and and have him give us his background, his perspective, his insights because he's had a very unusual career and can contribute on a lot of different levels. So with that my first question to Scott is Siberian is one of those great titles that can be infinitely adaptable depending on the organization's needs but I think it's also a great term to describe how adaptable your particular career has been since you graduated with your MLIS from the San Jose State University program. So could you tell us a bit about your career journey? Yeah um yeah and I was actually surprised to find that Siberian is my official HR system title it's it's actually you know it's not something I made up it's a title that they actually gave to me which I guess was forward thinking on their part but so you know I went to San Jose State before it was an online program I started it back in 1996 I think it was but over the time that I've been a librarian I've worked in public settings I've worked in academic settings and I've worked in corporate settings so it started as a page I did circulation desk clerk I did in the library loans in a public setting I went to an academic setting for a small community college did reserve collections and they actually upgraded and automated their system while I was there which was fascinating because I'm kind of more on the tech side and I love that that kind of stuff but that's actually part of what got me to San Jose State is I thought in my head at the time that I would become a systems librarian because I thought it was just really cool to see how it all worked and and all that kind of stuff but I got my degree and I did a practicum at Sun Microsystems if you recognize that name from the I guess the first dot-com boom back in 2000 and I got that actually based on taking an HTML class at San Jose State they hired me to to do or not hired me but I did my practicum to help them update some of their sites and what happened is they had a temporary opening come open for researcher which is not something I had planned for at all I had taken one reference class the reference class available through San Jose State at least at the time and but I said sure sure I can do that and I have been doing research essentially ever ever since I was with Sun for about nine years and then left to do independent work while I was actually getting a second master's degree in community counseling and was focusing on social media I was writing that's actually when I wrote wrote the book that you mentioned doing presenting for a while I was doing content development for publication or a firm called Freepaint which is now called JINFO which is based in the UK as you mentioned also adjunct faculty both at University of Denver's program and San Jose State and then joined Qualcomm for a little bit they are a chip company mobile chip company based in San Diego was there for almost two years and that was wonderful weather wise and then have been with Oracle since October 2014 and for Oracle you had that's a remote position correct that's correct I am based in Portland Oregon right now and how do you like working remotely um you know I've worked remotely when I was at Sun Microsystems and but I was in an office at Qualcomm and so I was used to working remotely you know both kind of the discipline of it and how the flow kind of changes and kind of being away from people and so going back into an office was a bit of an adjustment I thought coming back would be fairly easy but I actually I missed some of the interaction that you get when you're actually in an office or in a building but again I've readjusted as well okay so now let's talk about what being a Siberian entails for Oracle could you tell us a bit about your specific responsibilities and maybe what a typical day or week or month might look like for you yeah so the information function is a very small function uh what we call virtual information services consists essentially of three people for I think we're 143,000 people globally so we do so there's two big chunks to what I do one is what I kind of think broadly of as content management so they're technical resources like IEEE digital library, ACM digital library, market and business resources like Harvard management or EBSCO and then some soft skills resources again like Harvard management or lynda.com that we essentially negotiate and deploy and make available to the entire company so everyone at Oracle has access to those and that's a big part of what we do is procuring those things making sure we understand what's available making sure people understand what's what's out there driving that usage and essentially integrating it wherever it makes sense the other big bucket of what I do is what I think of as research and content curation so on-demand research and we're typically working with folks who are at senior director, director VP level within the company when they're doing their planning anything that's business related that they need information support on we're open to that and then on the content curation side what we do is we have a couple of internal blogs and other places that we push out information around what's going on in the industry for example or the various industry verticals that the company focuses on or you know curating content for example around artificial intelligence or machine learning or autonomous driving or whatever that might be so a lot of content management and also navigating that content in order to get the business the answers that it needs so typical day i'm sure you get this a lot there's no typical day right I realized that was a trick question you know the on-demand research really drives the day so if I have something that's come in you know I'll negotiate a deadline around that sometimes it needs to be turned around quickly sometimes there's more lead time but those typically always take priority so it might be a heavy research day it might be a like a research day the other thing that I'm typically doing is I'm curating content for a newsletter that goes out to all the human resources team across the globe over 2,000 people trying to get content to keep them up to speed as far as what's going on kind of in the HR human capital space and that's again more on the content curation side typically I'm meeting with people for some reason on my schedule these days I've got a lot of 6am calls because I'm talking with folks over in the UK or in Europe it's better than India calls at least for me which are you know 11 o'clock 12 o'clock at night morning person but my day starts pretty early primarily by choice but you know I also wrap up typically around four p.m. or so okay and what skills would you say are most in demand in in your role or a role that would be similar to yours yeah it's a good question so so our group just to kind of give you an idea of the structure and this will make sense in a moment is we actually report up through an HR communications group which reports up through essentially HR and learning and development and so we report up to a group that's communicating essentially all over the world in the company and so a lot of what we're doing which ties in very well with what we're trying to do is having those strong communication skills so written you know being able to present doing all of those kinds of things and to me the interesting thing about that is I think it's really reflective of the job survey that San Jose State does it every year looking at those on demand you know most in demand skills that are out there in communication and collaboration are always at the top of the list and I think that's absolutely true for this this role as well I definitely live that every day what I find as far as the research piece and getting under having a good understanding what information is going to be useful for my clients is a really really strong set I'm not bragging but strong set of listening skills and really understanding what the customer or the client needs are so that's that's a big big piece of what I do I'll talk probably talk a little bit more about this later but constantly learning I mean doing research is essentially constantly learning and within a corporate organization I think a lot of you know especially for-profit organizations a lot of organizations are just very fast moving and so there's a need for a lot of adaptability and the ability to do a lot of different roles and a lot of different tasks and so you know and the ability to kind of reprioritize sometimes several times a day depending on what's coming in you know and what's and what's going on in the organization that excuse me that sounds very familiar to to work that I've done in the past and I think it's that adaptability that is what sort of keeps opening up opportunities so sort of along those lines what courses did you take or what skills did you learn in grad school and I realized this was a way back that you found most important to your ability to move into new roles and opportunities now yeah um so I already illustrated a little bit I took a lot of technical classes and then what actually what I ended up going into was research which you know okay so that's that's one one thing but you know for me again I guess I emphasize the communication piece my undergraduate is a writing degree and so I actually did did writing and I did that solely for pleasure and what I found is that that actually has come in quite handy throughout my career but one of the skills not necessarily related to the actual course content was this ability to switch modes quickly so you know for example as a student you might be taking a database class and then you might also have a management class and you might have you know some other class that is fairly unrelated and the ability to switch between those modes effectively and kind of juggle all those as you go along is a skill that I never really thought about that I think I gained in grad school you know what the big thing that got me I think as I mentioned in my practicum and I think has held me in good stead in the industry that I'm in which is the tech industry is that kind of technical savviness and I am not a programmer I'm not a coder by any means by any stretch of the imagination but being curious about it and being willing to kind of learn at least the language and the landscape of whatever you're dealing with will take you quite far and again I mentioned you know the the single class that probably got me into my practicum was that html class and since then I've been fortunate enough to be able to take advantage of a lot of other learning opportunities you know technical technical and otherwise so okay that that makes a lot of sense because what you're sort of talking about in terms of what you learned in grad school was a process of how you approach different kinds of challenges and different kinds of learning situations and sort of to your point that's going to go on over and over again but if you are willing to embrace that and jump in and say I don't know this yet or this is what I need to learn to become not at a point of mastery but at a point of understanding that that's huge I would think and and your point about students doing this on an ongoing basis throughout their grad school program without really understanding what a skill that is to be able to switch gears like that that's that's a really good point and and I would encourage students to recognize that in themselves as well okay that that was wonderful thank you how about what other skills you've had to learn since grad school so you know now we're looking at decades to adapt to the changing or unanticipated requirements of your role so basically how have you learned to become more adaptable and what have you learned had to learn through that process and I'm going to guess number one it was probably how to do research yes yes and you know in on the research side I've been very fortunate to have some very good mentors you know my first first research manager at Sun Microsystems was she actually came from a journalism background which is kind of fascinating and so she was very good at what she did and very patient with me which was good but really kind of walking me through it and allowing me the time and the space to kind of get familiar with with the resources with the techniques really and with just the the landscape of technology which again coming into it I just I had no idea really I knew it was exciting but I didn't know much much more beyond that and so there's there's a lot of different thoughts that I could share around this but from the content side one of the things that I really enjoy about my work is I learn something new every day literally you know part of my job which is to me a blessing and a wonderful thing is that I need to keep track of a lot of information and so though it is a lot of information again I'm constantly learning and so so having building over time over a long time discipline to to kind of curate my own information feed to to be specific to what I need to know and to not be overwhelming is an ongoing learn for me an ongoing task on the skills side what I found more often number one there's a huge amount of on-demand and oftentimes free resources and ways to learn out there whether you want to learn video creation which is something that I have learned and picked up since graduation it's been a blast and there's a lot of different ways that you can learn about that visually you know whatever whatever learning mode that you that you use some of the ways that I've kind of honed some of this is recently I've I've taken some linda courses you know online video courses around writing headlines and around storytelling which actually again kind of continuing to hone those communication skills but understanding the persuasiveness and the effectiveness that you can really give to whether you're doing research or you know whatever your whatever kind of information you're sharing to really drive the impact of of what you're trying to share and then you know another piece that has been a learned process is and again over over years has been really being able to put yourself in the shoes of your client your customer your patron whoever that is um it is a learned thing it is a skill um and it takes time but the more effectively that you can do that um and understand you know what if I were getting what I'm giving this person and being able to evaluate it from their perspective is incredibly value valuable in driving how you can make more valuable deliverables I'm starting to talk in phrases but hopefully that makes sense I think it does so so basically what you're saying is someone has asked me for information I have found that information I'm going to give them that information but is the way in which I am presenting that information the way that's most easily absorbed by them yes absolutely and yeah there are people you know they want the answer they want the figure you know they want whatever it is which is fine there are other people and I've explicitly asked people about this you know what you prefer um who they want the broad spectrum they're like give me everything I want it all because that's how I process information not everybody knows themselves that well but um having that that's kind of a gift in a way that the requester is giving you so cool okay um as part of what you're doing or or when you're presenting information are you being asked to do data visualization um typically not but I like to be able to do it when I can so it's something that I've certainly dabbled in and depending upon what it is oftentimes if I'm working with figures I will you know do some basic there are some very basic tools that you could use even just in excel to highlight the information to make differences and variations stand out more and so oftentimes if appropriate I'll I'll do that visualize visualization is an interesting field because it looks great but it is incredibly difficult to do elegantly and in a way that is meaningful without it just being a bunch of colors or designs and so um it's it's used judiciously um and looking for those opportunities to apply it um when you get that opportunity it can make a huge difference okay good to know um okay so are there any changes on the horizon that you feel will have a strong impact on the work and or opportunities of information professionals so basically our students well you and I have had this conversation is you know back when I graduated that sounds so funny so we all know we didn't have electricity back now back when I graduated I felt so optimistic about the opportunities because in my perspective information was everywhere that was kind of the first phase of knowledge management when people were spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on knowledge management systems and then they realized that that what they didn't really work that well but there was just it seemed to me like there was information everywhere and I think through all of my experience and all of my roles that's only become more apparent and so there is going to constantly be this need I think for people to help people make sense out of information and I think that's one of at least coming from a research side but also from a taxonomy side from records management side being able to put some kind of framework or make some kind of sense out of something is only going to become more important but I also think we have this parallel challenge of continuing to have to define and redefine our niche and what we can do it's fascinating to me because I regularly not often but regularly get clients asking me you know you've done this can you do this and is this okay to ask you to do and my answer almost always is yes of course I'd love to do that and so I think you know continually demonstrating our value it's going to be a constant and I think we also have the opportunity to you know do more and better but also to expand out to build your skills portfolio as you go along and my experience has been at least is that what at least when I look back that all the skills that I've gained over all the various roles that I've taken have lent have become valuable in some way and so the more that you can do that kind of skills building for yourself I think the better I don't know if I answered your question exactly but I think that you did and it relates back to and you had mentioned that we've talked about this brief before and and I will relate one of my Scott Brown stores which is when Scott and I one time were talking about sort of how we were looking at our careers and our our I think it was the coming year Scott's comment to me was his mantra for the year was going to be to say yes and when you look at your career like that for example if someone says to you can you do this is it okay to ask you to do this if your answer is pretty much always yes that puts you in the position that Scott's talking about of constantly growing into new opportunities and they may be opportunities that aren't obvious when you first start your job but as you demonstrate your value then more and more people will gravitate to you as a possible solution to the challenge that they're facing so I I'm seconding exactly what Scott has said there we can't tell what the new opportunities will be for tomorrow we just know that they're going to be there and and so sort of our goal is okay have a mindset of yes there is a a phrase that HR managers use frequently which is higher for attitude and trained for skills well if you think about that in terms of your career your own career if your attitude is say yes which I would attribute to Scott I think that you will find you have wonderful wonderful opportunities to contribute so next question for you Scott and this is an easy one what what professional organizations and or social media groups do you belong to or would you recommend for people who are doing the kind of work that you do yeah it's a good question so for me I'm I'm a longtime member of SLA special libraries association and SLA helped build my career in ways in many different ways through the relationships through the volunteer work that I've done with SLA you know working with vendors talking with vendors it's just it really has been a it's been a phenomenal organization for me you know I've been a member just due to kind of my focus areas I've been a member of skip which is the they've changed their name and I'm learning the the new strategic and competitive intelligence professional thank you I'm not currently a member maybe that's why I don't remember it but very valuable for the for the learning around those particular areas and they've got it actually really strong mentoring I think group in there as well those are two key ones that come to mind on the social media side I'm trying to think you know I there was a while a time where I flirted with oh and I'm gonna forget the name SILIP C-I-L-I-P right the UK based or maybe European information professionals group and I thought they're I think they're doing really strong work as well it's been a while since I've connected with them but I've always I've always been impressed with their work so that was harder than I thought it was going to be and and I would second your comment about SILIP they are UK based and they do a tremendous amount of knowledge creation they they look at the profession they look at what's going on in the profession public libraries are struggling for funding in the UK but as an organization they are incredibly supportive of all of the libraries it's not like they have SLA and PLA and ALA SILIP which is C as in Charlie I-L-I-P embraces all of the different types of libraries and librarians and they're a very strong group to follow okay so over the course of your career this is going to be tough what work have you enjoyed the most or found the most rewarding um well there's I guess there's two two answers to that one is if if you're a researcher or just like researching topics there's that zone that you get into when you're researching and really kind of deep into it and discovering the topic and finding really cool stuff that's one of my favorite experiences again that that kind of experience of constantly learning I just there's something that's very meaningful to me about that process so that's that's one piece of it you know the other thing that I really enjoyed and your comments are kind of making me reflect on this a little bit Kim is being an independent primarily because it gave me the freedom to as you were saying explore a lot of different things and try out a lot of different things and build my skills in many ways that I never would have had the opportunity to do before so you know doing my own marketing for myself and for my services um I started doing a podcast during that time and I learned how to do podcasting um you know I actually doing while I was doing that I was contracted to do a essentially kind of put together a publishing editorial calendar which was something that I never thought I would do and and that was a really great experience the the challenge with working independently of course income as you part of what you know again you know some of the challenges associated with that but I the freedom to be able to shape um the work to what almost entirely to what what I wanted to do was was wonderful and again the learning the learning curve was just huge um which was challenging at the same time but also just very very fulfilling that's I I love that response because I think what happens is for both of us and for many people who do independent work or or really sort of take on any kind of new project is that that challenge is incredibly energizing it's you know you're scared to death but at the same time you've got this wonderful adrenaline rush of I can't wait to jump into this and and learn it and and explore it so very cool okay so lastly what advice would you give students still in grad school in terms of positioning themselves for jobs when they graduate or as they're building their careers good question so I I mean I have some kind of overall thoughts you know part of what I would love to be able to provide is you know learn x y and z skills and I don't I just don't know you know that there's much concrete beyond kind of what I've talked about so far that's too bad because they were really hoping you would say take these three classes and call it good right here the silver but I will say this and and kind of share some final thoughts as well as is think about what you bring to the table that's unique and valuable both in your interests and in your you know in the the coursework that you've done and actually thinking about that through all of your career previous to where you're going next so for myself for example you know I think of that video creation piece it's not something that everybody has and especially with the proliferation of content being delivered via video these days it's an interesting and unique skill that I can bring that I do bring to my environment I don't do it a lot these days because I'm doing so much research but but being able to do something like that is again something that's unique and potentially valuable in different ways that makes you stand out as a candidate and so so that's kind of probably the most concrete I can get but you know a few other things that I suggest is and I suggest this to pretty much any student that will listen to me is do informational interviews so I'll share a story related to my coursework at San Jose State is in one of my core courses the actually was Cindy Hill who was the manager of the library at San Microsystems came in and spoke about corporate her corporate library and what that was like when I heard that it was I thought it was the coolest thing ever number one but the think the other thing she offered is she offered to host anybody if you wanted to come visit the library and I was like oh my god of course I'm gonna go do that and I did and actually I think I visited more than once and but she told me which shocked me that very few people took her up on it and she did this for many many classes and that just floored me because partly it's like why would you not go and check it out and so I think it's really important to be curious my experience with anyone in the information professional pretty much universally is that they are more than happy to talk to you about what they do and their experience and to provide guidance or suggestions that might be helpful to you no matter what field you're interested in and no matter what your relationship is if you're kind of curious and open with them I think most people are very willing to to help you out and as Kim said you know taking on those tasks or those projects that scare you is incredibly valuable I had a student recently who she had graduated and she actually had two different jobs that she was considering one was kind of in her comfort zone and she she said you know I know I could do this well but it doesn't seem that challenging and she said this other one I don't know that I could do it you know it kind of scares me and I you know kind of gave her my perspective but I said you know there's clearly advantages to one or the other of those and she connected with me and said you know I ended up taking the other this other one that that scared me and I thought yeah that's yeah that's good choice because you really do you know build your learning curve you really do learn a lot in a short amount of time and I think you're oftentimes I certainly am oftentimes surprised in looking back and saying yeah that's you know I did I accomplished it number one and I actually build a lot of skills around that so yep I I would agree completely and it's one of the wonderful things about the profession is that even if you think oh my gosh I don't know this how am I going to learn it to your point people in this profession are so willing to share knowledge and support each other that you learn from each other yeah so it's that that is great advice Scott thank thank you so much so thank you all for being with us for this interview with Scott Brown who I personally feel is one of the most amazing LIS professionals I know and Scott thank you for taking the time to chat with us today I really appreciate it and I'll look forward to the next time oh my pleasure all right take care everyone