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Fine-Tuning Your Search Skills. Mary Ellen Bates Bates Information Services www.BatesInfo.com. What we’ll cover:. Seeing 360 ° degrees of information Real-life example Decision points Tips and techniques. Seeing 360 ° of information. {notice the fuzzy lines}. Free open web.
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Fine-Tuning Your Search Skills Mary Ellen Bates Bates Information Services www.BatesInfo.com
What we’ll cover: • Seeing 360° degrees of information • Real-life example • Decision points • Tips and techniques www.BatesInfo.com
Seeing 360° of information {notice the fuzzy lines} Free open web Free invisible web Fee-based value-added services Fee-based invisible web www.BatesInfo.com
Seeing 360° of information • Free open web • What you can find through search engines • Free invisible web • What you can find if you know where to look www.BatesInfo.com
Seeing 360° of information • Fee-based invisible web • Pay-to-play databases • Fee-based value-added services • Dialog, Factiva.com, LexisNexis, etc. www.BatesInfo.com
Real-life example www.BatesInfo.com
Real-life example • Market research project on the horse feed industry • Who are the North American players? • What are the brands and how are they positioned? • Routes to market for each manufacturer www.BatesInfo.com
Real-life example Budgeting my time: Two hours total 15 minutes – open web 30 minutes – invisible web (both free and fee) 15 minutes – value-added fee-based services 15 minutes – evaluation 30 minutes – chart the results 15 minutes – mop-up www.BatesInfo.com
Real-life example • Open web • Throw “horse feed” at a couple of search engines and see what you get…. www.BatesInfo.com
Real-life example Through the open web, I could: • Identify synonyms • Horse / equine / equestrian • Feed / food / nutrition / supplements • Identify a few major players • Hit those web sites and identify trends, concerns www.BatesInfo.com
Real-life example • Identify web directories • Sports>Equestrian>Health Care>Nutrition • Shopping>Sports>Equestrian> Healthcare and Grooming>Feed and Supplements • Business>Agriculture and Forestry> Livestock>Feeds>Horse Feed • Drill down in directories www.BatesInfo.com
Real-life example • Free invisible web • SEC EDGAR database • Annual reports of privately-held companies • Findarticles.com for random articles www.BatesInfo.com
Real-life example • Fee-based invisible web • Market research aggregators: • MarketResearch.com • MindBranch.com • ECNext, etc • Remember to shop around… costs vary wildly for same report! www.BatesInfo.com
Real-life example • Professional online services • Got some great articles on trends in the “lifestyle” and “commercial” feed products • Identified trends in horse owners’ concerns www.BatesInfo.com
Real-life example • Evaluate information • Executive summary • Mop up – look for missing info-bits www.BatesInfo.com
Decision Points www.BatesInfo.com
Decision Points • Who knows anything about this and who wants to talk about it? • Trade associations • Government agencies • Lobbying organizations • Company press releases or product descriptions www.BatesInfo.com
Decision Points • What kind of search am I doing? Go fee-based if I need: • Search sets • Field searching • Controlled vocabulary indexing • Limit by date • Limit sources, or search non-English sources in English www.BatesInfo.com
Decision Points • How far back do I need to go? • Popular news/info from the past 1 to 6 months: free • Obscure/specialized/trade info: fee • Anything from more than 6 months ago: fee • If I need to find it again later: fee www.BatesInfo.com
Decision Points • If I need to find an obscure expert • Identify a discussion group • E.g., 800 mHz interference – there’s a Yahoo Group called 800interference www.BatesInfo.com
Tips and Techniques www.BatesInfo.com
Tips and Techniques • Work from a checklist of formats • Articles, white papers, statistics, news, company web sites, etc. • Bates’ reference request form • Use the web to identify ambiguities • Find synonyms and acronyms • Look for low-hanging fruit www.BatesInfo.com
Tips and Techniques • Use HotBot.com to search multiple search engines • FAST • Google • Inktomi • Teoma www.BatesInfo.com
Tips and Techniques • What can the open web do best? • Point of view • Company info • Association info • Identify ambiguities, synonyms www.BatesInfo.com
Tips and Techniques • What can the free invisible web do best? • Government info • Company info (some of it is buried) • Association info (ditto) • White papers, reports www.BatesInfo.com
Tips and Techniques • What do fee-based services do best? • Deep research • Published articles • Value-added output • Anything you need to retrieve again www.BatesInfo.com
Tips and Techniques • What do print sources do best? • Less-frequently-updated info • Info that’s difficult to display • Research tools (e.g. Encyclopedia ofBusiness Info Sources, Fulltext Sources Online) www.BatesInfo.com
Tips and Techniques • Think about your time. It's the most valuable, most scarce resource you manage. www.BatesInfo.com
Mary Ellen offers a free “Tip of the Month” email update. If you would like to subscribe, just ask (mbates@BatesInfo.com) or go to www.BatesInfo.com/tip.html www.BatesInfo.com
Mary Ellen Bates Bates Information Services www.BatesInfo.com mbates@BatesInfo.com 202.332.2360 www.BatesInfo.com
