The exponential growth of information sources and tools for the business researcher is both a blessing and a curse. It’s a blessing because,with a little bit of knowledge and skill, we can find a great deal of information about our industry, our customers, our competitors, etc. However, it’s also a curse because we can spend a great deal of time doing so, and still walk away from the process wondering if we found the “best” information for our needs or used our time most productively.
This concept is particularly true for specific industries. For example, according to a recent article in Baltimore’s Business Journal, "health information websites drew 69 million unique visitors in July" – an increase of 21% from 2007. This is an example of an industry category that is outpacing the Internet as a whole in terms of growth. Obviously, this translates to significant challenges and opportunities for business researchers in the health care and information industries in gathering information about industry participants and significant and relevant trends.
With all of the requirements of professional business research, it is challenging at best to become and remain current and knowledgeable regarding the available sources, tools and techniques for productive information collection – which is the foundation of what we do and how we help our companies form reliable perspective regarding their respective marketplaces. While the commercial online services are adding thousands of documents on a daily basis and tens of thousands of documents (at least) are being posted to the web, even the brightest and most capable research professionals struggle to stay on top of these growing and evolving resources.
In order to address this challenge, business researchers must focus on using the traditional information sources that will deliver the insights we and our clients need: news and business content; legal and regulatory information; intellectual property records; and public records. In addition, we can use the web search engines and specialized tools – such as RSS feeds, alerting tools and website checking services – to search and monitor web-based sources, such as online discussion groups; blogs; federal, state and local government websites; industry and professional association websites; and company websites, among others.
Those of us with the expertise and focus required can drink from the information fire hose without drowning, and turn challenges into opportunities. Ongoing training and education around information sources and research tools and techniques is critical to our ability to take advantage of them. One particularly valuable source of this type of training and education is Web Search University, being offered in September in Washington, D.C. I recommend you take advantage of it, if possible – I believe it will be well worth your investment. In fact, I might see you there – I need a refresher.