Ferrazzi vs. MacKay
I've just finished reading Keith Ferrazzi's Never Eat Alone and Harvey MacKay's Dig Your Well Before You're Thirsty - two remarkably similar books. The Mackay book came first (in the late nineties, sorry I don't have it with me) and the Ferrazzi was published later, in 2005. I read the Ferrazzi first and, as a result, didn't actually finish the MacKay. Both books said the exact same thing, giving the same advice on building and sustaining a network. Mostly good advice, some a little questionable. But I figure I can put into practice the stuff I like and ignore the stuff that makes me feel uncomfortable. It'll still get me further than where I am now. The major difference between the books was the authors' perspectives. Mr. MacKay is of an older generation, a right-wing Republican who believes that networking is the way to help oneself. Yet, his tone is friendly, almost grandfatherly, and his anecdotal stories are refreshing and encouraging. Mr. Ferrazzi, in contrast, is a young, left-wing, democrat who praises networking as a way to help others. But his writing is full of name-drops and has an air of condescension, as if he's saying, "hey look what I did - I made millions of dollars and wrote a book and met famous people." So while I actually got clearer, more precise information about the how-to of networking from the Ferrazzi book, I prefered Mr. MacKay's candor. (And this coming from a young, left-wing democrat, no less!)

So, obviously I don't have this blogging thing down as a regular part of my routine yet. I'll get there though. I really will because this blog now has a purpose. It is destined to be a record of my journey to becoming an independent information professional. I've been thinking about almost nothing else for the past week and a half. It started because I stumbled on Mary Ellen Bates's website where I read her essay "A Typical Day in the Life of an Info Broker." Something just clicked. Her "typical day," even with all of the negative stuff that she points out, sounded like a dream come true to me. It's all the things I love doing and only negatives that I am perfectly capable and willing to deal with. My next step was to go to the AIIP website and browse through their member directory, looking at the websites of those who might someday be my colleagues and mentors. Then I went to the library and checked out every book I'd seen mentioned in my brief online research (at least the ones that were actually in my public library). I've finished The Information Broker's Handbook by Sue Rugge, and am now reading Secrets of the Super Net Searchers by Reva Basch and Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi. There are more in my stack, but I'll list them as I get to them.
Now my big question is - what niche should I go into? I love doing any kind of research, but I would love it even more if it was in a field I could get really excited about. So that's what I'll be pondering between now and my next post.

For the past few months I've been in turmoil about where I am in my life versus where I want to be ten years from now. I've finally settled my mind and am comfortable, nay, even happy, with how my life stands now. Part of my epiphany was that in order to have the time and money to study the rather useless subject in which I someday plan on earning a PhD, I must focus more immediately on raising myself up among the best in my current field (a field in which I am actually very happy, but which is simply not useless enough for that part of my brain that needs to study frivolous and arcane topics). To that end, I am leaving the ranks of those who merely observe the blogosphere to join the ranks of those who who actively participate in it. So hello to all the librarians and information gurus out there. I am officially throwing my hat in the ring! I am here, I will post, and I will comment. By way of introduction, I graduated from an accredited School of Information in 2005, worked briefly in an academic library, spent 15 months in a public library, and have now finally settled in with a well-known vendor which shall remain anonymous. I have a love/hate relationship with technology. In other words I'm fascinated by all of the exciting things I've seen in this Web 2.0 world, but the more I learn the more behind the times I feel, and I'm not particularly tech-minded, so everything comes with a steep learning curve. For now, I look forward to becoming an active member of this marvelous community we call the biblioblogosphere.