Research is a Commodity

August 28, 2008

Last night I attended a small networking event attended by professionals in a variety of businesses.  This event combined my efforts for networking on a business and volunteer level.  I served as the past-president of the Louisville Youth Group for several years and we are currently seeking board members, so I plugged that need last night.

As the conversation flowed, one of the members mentioned that he had published a book recently and had a new book coming out soon.  I was on the far end of the table so I missed a lot of the details of that conversation.  However, the thread moved down the table and another member mentioned some research she was doing of a more clinical nature.  She mentioned that she would need some statistics as well as some primary material based upon interviews of the target audience.

The thread of this conversation caused me to wonder, as I reflected upon it during the wee hours this morning, about how research and information analysis is part of every day life.  Math has its place but so do research skills.  New technologies do not change the need for empirical data, it just changes the methodologies.

How do professionals, who must conduct research to accomplish their task, bridge the gap when the methodologies they used 20 years ago have changed by force of technology?  Continuing Education courses in some professions may teach people how to adjust their technique.  Do all professions concentrate on information gathering methods when providing continuing education or do professionals flounder because they haven’t been given the opportunity to learn how to navigate the new waters?

How do you stay ontop, especially as a solo practitioner or self-owned business of the information research trends in your industry?  How do you conduct market research on your own or is it viewed as a line-item expense that you will pay an information professional because your commodity is not research but mine is?

Note:  This post is truly a reflection of intellectual curiosity on my part.  As the Answer Maven conducts market research and searches for topics to write about here and in other publications, I have the luxury of knowing how to do the research.  I hire out for a lot of the complex math associated with owning a business because that is beyond my skill set.  So I truly am interested in knowing how small business owners in any field gather the information they need to conduct business.  Are the skills you learned in college or graduate school enough of a basis to help you bridge the gaps?  Please leave comments with your responses.

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Following Directions

August 26, 2008

Tonight I cooked dinner, baked a cake and assembled a new office chair. All of these tasks had distinct instructions that led to the final product.

Sure the cooking has its own subtleties, but ultimately you can follow a recipe precisely and the results will be acceptable.  Research is a mixture of serendipity and precision.

You can follow processes, you can assemble checklists that will allow you to do a comprehensive search for a specific task, but ultimately, research requires its own unique talent.  Talent that allows information professionals to weave their way through a myriad of sources all the while executing queries and analyzing the data in the way that only info pros can.

That is what is so invigorating about research and data analysis.  The chase allows me to review a lot of information, make determinations about its relevance to the problem at hand, and provide recommendations about next actions.  With a complex research problem or a situation that requires determination of the right information solution, I get to create rather than follow.

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Research Tip

August 25, 2008

When researching Expert Witnesses, don’t forget to check with your local library, to see if they carry any electronic databases.  Often, experts are scholars, and you will find their writing in those scholarly journals.

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Maintain Contact

August 22, 2008

In my effort to make a living while growing Answer Maven I am serving as Marketing Director for a small company based in Louisville.  Yesterday the owners and staff, 4 people including myself, reviewed a strategic marketing plan that I developed this week.

The joy of working for this company is that they have a niche market, they understand their clients and their potential clients.  They know the challenges and have a good answer for those probable objections.

Answer Maven is still working out the best Guerilla Marketing approach.  Referrals are definitely a prime source for business.  This blog is another important component.  Hopefully, one day one of my ramblings will reveal a key piece of information and prompt someone to call me for my expertise.

One thing is certain, knowing your niche and constantly marketing your services is the only way to retain and grow a business.  I contacted many people today via email with an info sheet that gave a quick overview of my services.  I received some great feedback, including those “Mail Delivery Failure” messages.  People move to new positions quickly so maintaining a strong contact database is an essential tool.  How can you communicate with potential clients if you don’t know how to reach them?

The company contact database will be a critical tool in my Marketing Director position as well.  Knowing when and who to contact will be a key to the success of this company’s growth effort.  Luckily organizing and maintaining information is something I’m very good at, after all I’m not just the Answer Maven, I’m an Information Professional.

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Social Media & Business

August 20, 2008

On Monday evening I attended the Social Media Club of Louisville’s monthly gathering.  I ran into a few people I knew and listened to an interesting presentation by Jason Falls of Doe Anderson.

A few things I noted during the presentation have caused me to think more deeply about information evolution.

  1. A comment was made that hearkened to the days of doom-saying.  (I am paraphrasing here.)  “User generated content is threatening the value of journalists and journalism standards.  Anyone remember about 10-12 years ago when the Internet was going to replace librarians and Information Professionals?  This crowd got that journalists would need to position their knowledge as a value-added service – not every citizen journalist has the credentials and ability to write news that meet high standards required for litigation or mega-dollar mergers.  There was a good discussion about the need to balance citizen journalism with proper editorial controls and clarifications.  The sentiment was that sometimes, fast was good enough for now.
  2. One concern that came to my mind regarding user generated content was the continued explosion of information.  What is the value and how can this truly be verified?  Can user generated content be valuable and reliable for research?
  3. On the fun side, social media and user-generated content was touted as a new phenomenon.  There were a few folks in the crowd who disavowed that assumption.  I for one quite fondly remember the social column  (written by a citizen, not a journalist) in my hometown newspaper that would occasionally mention my family members who visited from out-of-town, or even my name being in print when I was heading out-of-town to visit those same relatives.  (Yeah news was hard to come by in my hometown but hey, as a kid, it was fun.)
  4. The other topic that I’m still struggling to get my head around is applications for Twitter to business.  Twitter is fast – instantaneous even.  Can you trust the fast unverified data to make a business decision?  If you follow me on Twitter you won’t get much useful data at this point but if you follow Jason Falls, it might be a different matter.  This topic is getting a lot of press lately and I’ll be paying more attention to Twitter in coming weeks as I begin to make my own determinations of its value.  I think the big point I have missed thus far about Twitter is choosing the right folks to follow – I still think I need to know people to participate in this on-line permitted voyeurism.  The truth is that if you are going to use Twitter for something other than voyeuristic pleasure, you need to target the right folks.  Think about the impact this could have on CI research, if you are following the right competitors it certainly makes the old adage keep your enemies closer that much more powerful – or at least it has the potential.  And it seems that following strangers is easy — I’ve refused requests from people I have never met.

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Generational Differences

August 18, 2008

I purchased a “new” used car last week from a college student who wanted to “downsize” his vehicle.  This was my first purchase of an automobile from an individual.  He was well organized with his “Bill of Sale” and all other proper paperwork.  I don’t know that at his age I would have been that savvy, but then I wasn’t using the Internet at his age.

This weekend, I realized I would be 50 sooner than I cared to think.  Not like next year but in just a few years.  This revelation along with the experience of purchasing the car really caused me to think about generations.

There is no way I can explain to my grandfather (age 84) what I do for a living.  I’m not sure I would even understand it if someone tried to explain it to me.  However, I have no doubt that the college guy would get it and fast.

It is interesting to note that there is a lot of writing in the media today about generational differences in the workplace.  This blend of talent, knowledge and workstyles presents both challenges and opportunities.  The collective knowledge and creativity is overwhelming and presents the opportunity to innovate in unforeseen ways.

The challenge is providing a balance to the work methods and expectations to accomplish business goals.  Generation Xers, myself included, bridge the gap between the Boomers and Millenials.  Perhaps not as well as we should, but we can talk gaming and social media as well as music and politics depending upon the audience.  We also understand the motivations and preferred work methods of both styles.

The academic librarians I know are doing a great job of reaching out to their undergraduates.  The librarians I know in corporate environments work hard to create training opportunities that bridge the generation gap.  Teaching new legal research tools to attorneys requires diligence and creativity because all three working generations have to learn the tools.

Do you have a bridge maker leading your corporate training efforts?  Are you motivating the millenials while teaching the boomers in their preferred learning styles?

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Planning

August 13, 2008

Yesterday I participated in the SLA Legal Division conference call.  I am a board member and will be responsible for helping plan the Legal Division programs for 2010.

This along with other conversations I have had recently caused me to reflect upon the importance of planning.  Planning allows you to map your way to the end goal.  i.e.  If we follow through on steps 1 through 10 then we will finish the project.

Planning is an important part of effective management.  Effective management includes too many facets to discuss in a single blog post but perhaps a few more post entries will come of this exploration of thought.

In my humble opinion, planning requires two very important components.  1)  Organization and 2) Communication.

I have been struggling with an effective way to keep up with my schedule while traveling around town to various appointments and client meetings.  90% of the time I can remember that I have a meeting the next day but there are those occasions that  I forget an appointment and double book myself.

I know in this day and age most people rely upon their blackberry or iPhone or other favorite tool, and in my former job that was a great way to stay organized.  However, I haven’t yet made that personal investment for myself.  A cost-effective measure for me is printing my outlook calendar and taking it with me. The problem with that solution is it is not very tidy.  I tend to let stray papers balloon out, so today I invested in a paper calendar.  $10 and I have an effective planning tool that I can take with me.

The next step in planning for myself is organization.  I have several different projects and responsibilities and as the time draws closer for more activity in the Legal Division planning I’ll have just one more thing to keep together.

Space is important for this part of the planning process.  Proper space to work, file and manage my projects is key to my success.  Everything doesn’t have to be pristine all the time, but I do for sanity’s sake, need to be able to quickly leaf through the correct pile to get the needed information.

Planning has only gotten easier for me with such great tools as Delicious.  Now I can stay on top of my electronic research through this and other great on-line tools, no matter where I am working.

So, how does communication work its way into the conversation, you may wonder.  Effective planning with multiple players requires effective communication of schedules and goals.  Sometimes, just saying what is desired is the best way to accomplish the desired goal, then all the players can adjust according to finish the planning and begin the event or project.

So if you are responsible for planning things, don’t forget to communicate and stay organized.  What are your best planning tools?

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Reinventing the Wheel

August 11, 2008

Social networks are prolific.  I don’t even know how many are out there right now.  Today I received an invitation to build a professional profile at Brightfuse.com.  I already use Linked-In.  Do I really need yet another site to broaden my network?

Sure everyone has the dream of building a better mousetrap.  My problem is that I hate to shop around when I already have one that works just fine.  I feel the same about using the latest and greatest web application.  Facebook is for fun, Linked-In is for my professional profile and connections.  Twitter, well, I’m still undecided about Twitter.  I’d still rather call someone than have to add a text plan to my mobile phone in order to keep up with Twitter.

Is it really useful to participate in every option out there?  Do our web apps work so poorly that new companies think they can build a better mouse trap and make money?  I’m not sure it’s worth the investment but I’m not the designer, I’m just a user.

Once I have a product that works, I tend to be loyal as long as the price is reasonable.  If my trusted advisors insist that a product is really worth looking at then I will investigate but chances are I won’t sign on to the newest product just because it’s there.

I’m not one of those first round of users.  Like the Kindle, I’ll wait for the 2nd generation to see if the bugs are worked out so that I’m not frustrated by the application that just isn’t working the way I think it should.

If you build the best mousetrap in the world and I still have one that is working, you will have to convince me give it a test run.  BrightFuse, I’ll need to hear more about you before I spend time setting up one more web presence.  However, I do like your clean streamlined look of profiles.  It looks like a traditional print resume.

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Kudos to Katie

August 11, 2008

A cat that bunked in my abode for a bit has hit the web big time.  Katie is the “Law Cat of the Week” at Ross-Blakely Law Library.

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Due Diligence

August 7, 2008

Why should attorneys or CEO’s conduct due diligence?  It’s not just because they have to, it’s because business and litigation are the last place you want to experience surprise.

Due diligence can cover a wide variety of topics.  Can your client pay you?  Has the client been involved in any “scandals”?  Is the client who he/she says they are…do their credentials pan out?

Knowing who you are conducting business with is a very important part of your due diligence.  Other aspects of business that should be attended to include industry background.  Sure Mr. Smith is a good guy, you know this but what about his idea to sell widgets in Country X?  Can he do the exports, is Country X able to pay, have the industry standards for that country been met?

The amount of information you need to know in order to conduct business in today’s global economy can be overwhelming.  Knowing that you have done your due diligence provides a peace of mind in moving forward with ventures.  Are you doing your due diligence?

In a post later this week I will provide you with a few tips on conducting due diligence so stay tuned.

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