Sunday Morning Reflections

February 8, 2009

In my effort to better manage my time, I was planning on spending an hour this morning, reviewing the top sources for current information about Information and Content Management and blog about my impressions of what I found.  Alas, alak, it seems my browser just does not like the Information Week site enough this morning to allow me to even begin to be productive on this project.

My overall plan which prompted that hour-long project is to apply  tighter themes to this blog.  How will you know that I’m the right person to contact when you have an information management crisis, if I haven’t even written about the problems and solutions in my own blog, right?

In addition to writing more about information and content management and due to the continued popularity of the Somerset Oil Executive Brief, I will attempt to do at least one new executive brief per month on the blog.   I truly enjoy business background research and I know that these briefs are useful and powerful.

Based upon past experience with electronic discovery I will also be writing about e-discovery problems, challenges, and best practices.  I may on occasion highlight e-discovery vendors with their own executive brief.

I will continue to offer brief reviews of new research resources and quick research tips.  I can’t help but share things that I think are interesting and  useful to those of you who enjoy doing your own research.  Besides, we all need an expert of our own on occasion and when you hit your research brick wall you may just call the Answer Maven to help you out thanks to my brilliant analysis.

Well the sun is up and my coffee cup is empty so it’s time to move on to the next activity for the day.  Enjoy your Sunday!

Constance Ard February8, 2009 8:oo a.m. EST

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Energy Research Source

February 7, 2009

The University of Texas School of Law Tarlton Law Library has recently launched a new resource related to energy legislation and policy.

If energy policy and legislation is your particular area of interest or practice don’t miss this site.  The site is enabled with RSS feeds and the resources provided are a product of literature review by the Law Library staff of incoming periodicals, journals and law reviews.

The articles are listed in reverse chronological order and .pdf of the first page of the document is provided for your review.  The downside of this organization style is that there does not seem to be a sub-subject organizational structure provided or even an author index. Of course there are only two dates of article upload dates listed at this point so it would be worthwhile to check back later.

As it stands, the organization structure in place is very conducive to the RSS feed style of current awareness.  However, I would recommend optional features for future research use of the site.  Of course, the sources being provided are already being indexed on a greater scale into existing indexing products and thus there may be a very good reason not to reinvent the wheel and I’m all for not reinventing the wheel.

In essence this is a source that provides to you a high quality distillation of the many possibilities available on the topic of energy policy current awareness.  Use it with the power of an RSS feed reader and you will be on top of the mass of literature for Energy Policy.

Constance Ard February 7, 2009

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Time Management

February 5, 2009

Sometimes the best tool for information management is time management.

I had an interesting conversation today with someone who felt that a particular listserv had gems of good information but that the overall value was not worth the noise.

I tend to agree.  I get the particular listserv in digest form but still find it difficult to make myself review it daily for the few gems I do receive.  The search feature for the archives of the listserv also disappointed my conversation partner.

She made a conscience decision to not receive the listserv any longer as a part of her time management strategy.  Interesting.  As my schedule continues to tighten over the next several weeks I realize that my own time management skills are going to need some serious honing.

I know that my best personal productivity is early in the morning and from about 3-7 in the evening.  Of course, the home duties are also at a premium during that time as well.  The dogs have just gotten to used to feeding time at 6:30 a.m and 5:30 p.m.

I also have a variety of deadlines that involve other people’s schedules over the next few weeks.  Planning around my work and personal calendar and their calendars will be a challenge.

Collaborative work on-line is definitely an advantage but it is not always possible.  Sometimes you must meet with people (not have a meeting) in order to allow the creativity and problem solving to occur.  That takes additional time.

Routine is important and so is flexibility.  As I adjust to added demands on my schedule and meet my upcoming deadlines I will need to build time in for routine tasks as well.

Controlling my information flow will be critical.  Constantly checking email or Twitter will not be a part of the routine.  Twice a day response time to email will be built into the new schedule.   After-hours will be the social media time.

Managing my information, both incoming and outgoing, will benefit from better time management.  And my time will be better managed with these new information workflows.

What is your favorite time/information management tip.  Feel free to share in the comments section.  I’m sure I will benefit from your expertise.

Constance Ard February 5, 2009

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Public Records: The Information is Always Correct?

February 4, 2009

Today has been an interesting work day.  For those of you who may not realize it, I’m not a high paid consultant, yet.  Those days are coming, soon I hope.  So I supplement my consulting with a part-time job as a Marketing Director for a small niche company.

If this blog and that company were really connected I would provide appropriate links and demonstrate my marvelous marketing skills.   As it is, they are separate entities and thus today’s lesson is related to information used during today’s marketing work not the marketing itself.

I used a government site that is obviously fed by forms submitted by the providers I was researching.  The glitch, some people don’t know their own area code.  Deductive reasoning served up the correct number but it just goes to show you the fatal flaw of  public records.

Public records are loaded enmasse and little or no vetting is done to ensure that accurate information is submitted.  If every phone number in a particular county starts with 765 but the records you are reviewing have just a few that start with an alternative area code the obvious deduction is that those alternative records probably start with 765 too.

So for those of you using public records never forget that the information really is only as good as the information provided.  People don’t spell well, they don’t write carefully and they don’t check the details.  They fill out the form and go.

Some tips to help you find good public records iformation:

  • Confirm the data by making a phone call.
  • If you find the same information from a few separate sources, it’s reliable if not completely accurate.
  • Search with good data, if you’re looking for an address, try to start with a previous confirmed address or property records.

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Build It and They Might Come

February 3, 2009

Thanks to this post at Beyond Search for alerting me to this confirming article from PC World.

By now, my faithful readers, all three of us,  realize that usefulness is more important to me than the tool itself.  I relish the fact that the PC World article by Kathleen Lau debunks the theory that all Web 2.0 tools have evangelists at the time of deployment.

She does a great job of debunking the myths surrounding the use of Wiki’s in enterprises.  Wiki’s are great mediums to replace an out-of-date and stagnant Intranet.  However, just choosing a wiki does not guarantee use or acceptance.

Understanding your corporate culture and planning strategically is imperative.  This critical step helps ensure the adoption and longevity of this innovative content creation tool.

Wiki’s are by nature, content creation tools not information management tools.  To manage the information on your wiki requires smart policy, specific guidelines and critical personnel.  If you are in the midst of deploying a wiki for your enterprise, think about the myths Ms. Lau discusses and analyze your organization’s content creation and collaboration habits.

Even Stephen Arnold might tell you that having the search tool does not guarantee the information will be found.  And by information, I mean the information you, the user, needs to find.

When and if you deploy a wiki for your enterprise think & plan for these challenges.

  • Quality content submission
  • Document/Record purges for unneeded, unwanted content
  • Taxonomies and Ontologies appropriate for your enterprise

And above all talk to your content users and find out what they need, how they get what they need and why they get it that way.  If you don’t know where you have been how do you go back to the good stops and avoid the bad ones?

Constance Ard February 3, 2009

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Lights Are On!

February 2, 2009

I borrowed the headline from an email I received this afternoon.  I count myself lucky that I got my power back after the 2009 Kentucky Ice Storm late Saturday afternoon.   There are still thousands without.

The problem is that Saturday night and Super Bowl Sunday just aren’t the best productive times for Answer Maven blogging and email responses.  Football really is extremely important.

I tried to keep up with my workload while staying at a neighbors during the outage.  The reality is that working from their home and working in my office are two totally different environments and productivity was not prime.

So today was busy!  Deadlines galore and necessary errands as well as client work.  It’s good to be busy.  Thus you are reading a rambling post about why I haven’t and can’t post something useful tonight.

Stay tuned for some possible posts about libraries and business plans or how volunteer work can positively impact a start-up information professional.  Those two topics are related to activities that I am working through this evening.

I know your curiosity is piqued.  I promise to give you some good inside details.  In the meantime, I hope you found this post entertaining and that you will come back for the good & useful stuff in a day or so when I’ve gotten my other deadlines met.

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