Strategy

This weekend I head for deepest Hampshire to take part in the annual AGI debate about future strategy. After the weekend, next year's Chair will produce a strategy document for approval by the AGI Council and then enactment throughout the next 12 months.

In my opinion, this year the strategy debate is even more important than usual. We are building on real successes in 2007, notably the conference, events programme and a membership increase, but the funding we receive for our running of the GiGateway metadata service is about to come to an end. We therefore will proceed with confidence but with caution. Twenty years after the Chorley Report, we need to refocus on who we are and what makes us relevant to our members.

And the end product from the weekend should not just be a written strategy document for the next twelve months, but a realistic and positive strategy to take us forward for at least the next five years.

It will be an interesting debate. It will, I believe, prove to our members that we have the energy and the ideas to meet the future challenges in the world of GI.