During a recent BookExpo meeting, a publishing company executive asserted, "Any company that isn't behaving like a start-up is doomed." What does this mean in the context of service organizations such as libraries, as well as businesses that serve the library industry such as publishers and vendors? How can large institutions be more nimble, act more quickly, adopt new tech more easily? What can be learned from startups and what can be avoided?

1. http://www.niso.org/news/events/2013/webinars/startup
Behave Like a Startup: Adapting Your
Organization to Rapid Change
NISO Webinar:
January 9, 2013
Speakers:
Brian Matthews
Michael Winkler
John Sack

2. THINKING LIKE A STARTUP
BEHAVING LIKE AN R&D SHOP
pathways to innovation
Brian Mathews
Virginia Tech
NISO January 2013

3. Imagine the process of stretching
telephone cable 3,000 miles…
…under the ocean.
1957

4. TELSTAR
transformed
communications
1962

5. TECHNOLOGIES
DISCOVERY SYSTEMS
PEDAGOGIES
PUBLISHING MODELS
LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS
PARTNERSHIPS
TUITION STRUCTURES
CREDENTIALING
PROCESSES
ATTITUDES,
PREFERENCES, AND
NEW EXPECTATIONS

6. “Libraries, traditionally “Moving from a
focused on the products collection-centered
of scholarship, are now model to an
prompted to understand engagement-centered
and support the process one does not happen
of scholarship.” overnight.”

7. THINK LIKE
A STARTUP
an organization
dedicated to creating
something new under
conditions of extreme
uncertainty

8. A STARTUP IS…
an organization searching for a
profitable, scalable, reliable
model.
valuable

9. New
Growth
Value

10. BUILD * MEASURE * LEARN
FEEDBACK LOOP

11. Three Essential Qualities
“Entrepreneurialism is
1.Usable about constantly creating
and testing theses.”
Bob Summers, TechPad
2.Feasible
3.Valuable*
*This is why most startups fail!

12. FLEXIBLE WORKSPACE
space wasn’t usable
assistance services

13. EXAM CRAM
scale wasn’t feasible
assistance services

14. SKYPE A LIBRARIAN
service wasn’t valuable
Courtesy of Char Booth

15. NCSU LEARNING COMMONS
lessons from bean bags

16. NCSU Virtual Bookshelf
let the community be involved in improving it

17. VT Libraries
Writing Center + other support agencies

18. Increase: Sharing, Publishing, & Archiving of Scientific

19. R&D @ UC Santa Barbara
We really don’t know anything about
graduate students
• Libraries are for undergrads, didn‟t want be there
• 90% used Google Scholar and couldn‟t name
core databases (but knew the core journals)
• Half didn‟t view database access as a library
service, thought it was provided by
dept/campus/free
• Kindles in labs: wanted non-scholarly content
• Website that gathers all grad related support
materials together
• Classes, videos, or handouts on getting
published, giving conference talks, & applying for
grants
• Need help getting organized and time
management

20. R&D @ Virginia Tech
Curriculum Visualization
• Our instructional
effort is not feasible,
scalable and in some
cases is not valuable
• How can we
strategically package
instruction content
across the curriculum
• Talking with profs,
advisors, and
students in several
departments

21. Consider the value of phone
lines to a wireless society.

22. www.brianmathews.com
Free copies of startup & R&D papers

23. Kuali OLE : Behaving Like a Startup
An Agile Approach to Community Source Software
Michael Winkler | Director of Information Technologies & Digital Development | University of Pennsylvania
Email: winkler4@upenn.edu | Twitter: @winkler4
NISO Webinars | Behaving Like a Startup | 01.09.13

24. A Word or Two About Kuali OLE
NISO Webinars | Behaving Like a Startup | 01.09.13

25. Building an ILS
Integrated Library System
Open source
Enterprise caliber
Scales to research university
and consortia size
Service-oriented architecture
Flexible
NISO Webinars | Behaving Like a Startup | 01.09.13

26. NISO Webinars | Behaving Like a Startup | 01.09.13

27. Kuali OLE as a Community
 Aligned vision
 Shared resources and
commitment
 Working together is strategic
 Differences not as great as
similarities
 Risk mitigation through shared
investment
 Shared knowledge and effort
 Intentional collaboration
 Software for academic libraries, http://www.cowlitzsheriff.org/community.html
built by academic libraries
 Vendors and Open Communities
 Agile approach: Appealing and
consistent
NISO Webinars | Behaving Like a Startup | 01.09.13

28. The Promise of Agile
 Quick
 Tight alignment
 Practical
 Opportunistic
 Documentation & testing
 Buy in

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Coding_Shots_Annual_Plan_high_res-5.jpg
Demonstrable progress
NISO Webinars | Behaving Like a Startup | 01.09.13

29. Challenges of Agile
 Mechanics of a multi-institution project
 Time constraints
 Details
 Scale
 Proximity – miles and time zones
 On-boarding new participants
 Barriers to Agile
 Research and planning
 “If we knew what it was we were doing it
wouldn‟t be called research, would it?” -
Einstein
 Learning curves
 For analyst and coders
 For functional experts
 Organizational structure of project
 Code size
 Resource commitment for demonstration
NISO Webinars | Behaving Like a Startup | 01.09.13

30. Response to Challenges
 Recognize Evolution
 From startup
 To architecture
 To code production
 Acknowledging and accepting
decisions
 Already moving to implementation
phase
 Reorganize to Match http://blog.pathway.com/the-ah-ha-moments-in-human-genetics/
 Development managers
 Functional analysts
 Move closer to developers
 Set timeline and tie deliverables to
timeline Webinars | Behaving Like a Startup | 01.09.13
NISO

31. Lessons Learned
 No place for ego!
 Don‟t be afraid to change!
 Act – Recognize and deal!
 Match to phase!
 And prepare for phase
changes
 Resource Agile process! http://socialchange.is/4-lessons-ive-learned-from-launching-a-
 Be Agile!
successful-non-profit/einstein-lessons-learned/#!prettyPhoto
NISO Webinars | Behaving Like a Startup | 01.09.13

32. Startup behavior at
Stanford‟s HighWire
Can an 18-year-old still act like a startup?
(and get away with it?)
Presenter: John Sack, Founding
Director
Date: January 9, 2013

33. “Foster…a…culture…to drive innovation”
HighWire | Stanford University 33

34. Why “behave like a startup”?
• Speed
• Innovation
• 20 hour days
• Lots of pizza
• Sleep at work
• Don‟t get paid for months…
HighWire | Stanford University 34

35. University-based “Startups”
• HighWire is a department inside
the Stanford University Libraries
• University infrastructure, or bureaucracy?
– HR policy changes
– Facility policy changes
HighWire | Stanford University 35

36. HighWire | Stanford University 36

37. Characteristics
• Rapid product cycles
• Pivots
• Feedback loops
• Skunkworks
• MVP
• Free stuff
• Dog food
• Demo or Die
• Stealth
• Platforms
• White space
HighWire | Stanford University 37

38. Characteristics
• Rapid product cycles Move quickly, not
• Pivots completely
• Feedback loops
• Skunkworks
• MVP
• Free stuff
• Dog food
• Demo or Die
• Stealth
• Platforms
• White space
HighWire | Stanford University 38

39. Characteristics
• Rapid product cycles
• Pivots Identify what’s working and
• Feedback loops make that the business
• Skunkworks
• MVP
• Free stuff
• Dog food
• Demo or Die
• Stealth
• Platforms
• White space
HighWire | Stanford University 39

40. Characteristics
• Rapid product cycles
• Pivots
• Feedback loops Get feedback from the
• Skunkworks market/customers and
• MVP make sure you learn from it
and adapt with it
• Free stuff
• Dog food
• Demo or Die
• Stealth
• Platforms
• White space
HighWire | Stanford University 40

41. Characteristics
• Rapid product cycles
• Pivots
• Feedback loops
• Skunkworks Create a separate
• MVP organization that is totally
• Free stuff focused on making it to
market
• Dog food
• Demo or Die
• Stealth
• Platforms
• White space
HighWire | Stanford University 41

42. Characteristics
• Rapid product cycles
• Pivots
• Feedback loops
• Skunkworks
• MVP Minimal Viable Product –
• Free stuff don’t gild the lily, ship it
• Dog food
• Demo or Die
• Stealth
• Platforms
• White space
HighWire | Stanford University 42

43. Characteristics
• Rapid product cycles
• Pivots
• Feedback loops
• Skunkworks
• MVP
• Free stuff Leverage open source and
• Dog food services already built out
• Demo or Die and accessible by APIs,
web services, etc.
• Stealth
• Platforms
• White space
HighWire | Stanford University 43

44. Characteristics
• Rapid product cycles
• Pivots
• Feedback loops
• Skunkworks
• MVP
• Free stuff
• Dog food As in, “startups eat their
• Demo or Die own dog food”
• Stealth
• Platforms
• White space
HighWire | Stanford University 44

45. Characteristics
• Rapid product cycles
• Pivots
• Feedback loops
• Skunkworks
• MVP
• Free stuff
• Dog food
• Demo or Die Set a ship date that matters
• Stealth somewhere in the real
• Platforms world
– a date you can’t change –
• White space and hit it
HighWire | Stanford University 45

46. Characteristics
• Rapid product cycles
• Pivots
• Feedback loops
• Skunkworks
• MVP
• Free stuff
• Dog food
• Demo or Die
• Stealth Don’t talk, DO.
• Platforms
• White space
HighWire | Stanford University 46

47. Characteristics
• Rapid product cycles
• Pivots
• Feedback loops
• Skunkworks
• MVP
• Free stuff
• Dog food
• Demo or Die
• Stealth Deliver a tool or capability
• Platforms that others can leverage,
• White space not just an “application”.
HighWire | Stanford University 47

48. Characteristics of a Startup
• Rapid product cycles
• Pivots
• Feedback loops
• Skunkworks
• MVP
• Free stuff
• Dog food
• Demo or Die
• Stealth
• Platforms Find an empty niche to fill,
• White space not a crowded space
HighWire | Stanford University 48

49. Some Examples from Stanford‟s HighWire
• Shift from traditional platform to
“HighWire Open Platform” to enable others
– Drupal-enabled front-end
– Mini-sites
– Mobile-web sites
– APIs
– Co-development with publishers
• Feedback from end-users
– Suggestion forms
– Detailed interviews
• Network/community effects
– „Toll-free‟ inter-journal links
– Free back issues
– Alerting
– Publishers‟ community
• Discovery
– Google, Google Scholar
– Microdata, Linked Open Data
HighWire | Stanford University 49

50. Drupal-enabled Front-End
Rethink the front-end (user interface) to
improve cost, resource availability, time to
market, flexibility
• Take advantage of layered Highwire Open
Platform
• Open source tools
• Many „modules‟ (extensions)
• Widely-adopted
• Significant third-party support
• Example: boneandjoint.org.uk
HighWire | Stanford University 50

51. Mini-sites
Enable short-cycle, low-cost
experimentation to test product ideas with
users
• Drupal-based templates
• A couple of days to build a site
• Use monitoring tools to observe usage
• Example: sustainability.pnas.org
HighWire | Stanford University 51

52. Mobile-web sites
Deliver mobile-optimized versions of every
HighWire journal site; time to market was
critical priority
• Drupal-based
• Start with a clean slate and build up, rather
than prune down the general website
• Keep it simple, templated
• 1200 sites delivered in 15 months
HighWire | Stanford University 52

53. APIs
Give other developers access to content to
build products/services, bypassing the front-
end user-interface
• APIs for metadata, content, search,
authentication/authorization
• Eventually support text/data mining using
industry standards in development
HighWire | Stanford University 53

54. Co-development with Publishers
• Divide up the work so publisher and
HighWire can do implementation work on
a project in parallel
• Drupal-based, so developers need to
know Drupal, not HighWire
• HighWire Integration Module extends
Drupal
• Agile project techniques
• Example: www.bmj.com
HighWire | Stanford University 54

55. Feedback from End-Users
Detailed interviews, ethnographic-style, to
keep us aware of user tasks, workflows
• 45 interviews with researchers in 2011/12
• Feeds back into product development
• To be published in Learned Publishing
• Interviewing clinicians/practitioners
2012/13
• Students and teachers should follow
HighWire | Stanford University 55

56. Network/community Effects
• Figure out where an electronic resource
and workflow can be different…
…and better
• Inter-journal links
• „Toll-free‟ inter-journal links
• Free back issues
HighWire | Stanford University 56

57. Discovery
Recognize the tools people actually use,
and improve content visibility (ranking),
accuracy (correctness, completeness) and
currency (up-to-date-ness) in those tools
• Google & Google Scholar
• Make it better, not perfect
HighWire | Stanford University 57

58. Thank you.
- John Sack,
sack@stanford.edu

59. THANK YOU
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