fine-tuning your search skills

Fine-Tuning Your Search Skills

Mary Ellen BatesBates Information Serviceswww.BatesInfo.com

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What we’ll cover:

Seeing 360° degrees of information Real-life example Decision points Tips and techniques

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Seeing 360° of information

Free open web

Fee-basedinvisible web

Free invisible web

Fee-basedvalue-added services

{notice the fuzzy lines}

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Free open web What you can find through search

engines

Free invisible web What you can find if you know where

to look

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Fee-based invisible web Pay-to-play databases

Fee-based value-added services Dialog, Factiva.com, LexisNexis, etc.

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Real-life example

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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

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Real-life example

Budgeting my time:Two hours total

15 minutes – open web30 minutes – invisible web (both free and fee)15 minutes – value-added fee-based services15 minutes – evaluation30 minutes – chart the results15 minutes – mop-up

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Real-life example

Open web Throw “horse feed” at a couple of

search engines and see what you get….

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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


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


Real-life example

Free invisible web SEC EDGAR database Annual reports of privately-held

companies Findarticles.com for random articles


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!


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


Real-life example

Evaluate information Executive summary Mop up – look for missing info-bits


Decision Points


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


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


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


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


Tips and Techniques


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


Tips and Techniques

Use HotBot.com to search multiple search engines FAST Google Inktomi Teoma


Tips and Techniques

What can the open web do best? Point of view Company info Association info Identify ambiguities, synonyms


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


Tips and Techniques

What do fee-based services do best? Deep research Published articles Value-added output Anything you need to retrieve again


Tips and Techniques

What do print sources do best? Less-frequently-updated info Info that’s difficult to display Research tools (e.g. Encyclopedia of

Business Info Sources, Fulltext Sources Online)


Tips and Techniques

Think about your time. It's the most valuable, most scarce resource you manage.


Mary Ellen offers a free “Tip of the Month” email update.

If you would like to subscribe, just ask ([email protected]) or go to www.BatesInfo.com/tip.html


Mary Ellen BatesBates Information [email protected]

fine-tuning your search skills

Documents

invisible webpay

couple of search engines

company web sites

informationfree open

horse feed industrywho

results15 minutes mopupreal

reallife examplethrough

datelimit sources