Chapter 10: Looking for a needle in a bottle of hay ===================================================
Experienced users regularly clip news from online services, and store selected parts of it on their personal computers' hard disks. They use powerful tools to search their data, and know how to use the information in other applications. Regular clipping of news is highly recommended. It is often quicker and easier to search your own databases than to do it online. Since your data is a subset of previous searches, your stories are likely to have a high degree of relevancy. There are many powerful programs for personal computers that let you search your personal data for information. Read Chapter 14 for more on this. While secondary research can never replace primary information gathering, it often satisfies most information needs related to any task or project. Besides, it points in the direction of primary sources from where more in-depth information may be elicited.
When your personal database fails to deliver —————————————————————— Regular "clipping" can indeed help you build a powerful personal database, but it will never satisfy all your information needs. Occasionally, you must go online for additional facts. When this happens, you may feel like Don Quixote, as he was looking "for a needle in a bottle of hay." The large number of online offerings is bewildering. To be successful, you must have a sound search strategy. Your first task is to locate useful SOURCES of information. The next, to decide how best to find that specific piece of information online. You must PLAN your search. Although one source of information, like an online database, is supposed to cover your area of interest, it may still be unable to give you what you want. Let me explain with an example:
You're tracking a company called IBM (International Business Machines). Your first inclination is to visit forums and clubs concerned with products delivered by this company. There, you plan to search message bases and file libraries.
What is likely to happen, is that the search term IBM gives so many hits that you almost drown. To find anything of interest in these forums, your search terms must be very specific.
General news providers, like Associated Press, may be a better alternative. Usually, they just publish one or two stories on IBM per week. Don't expect to learn about details that are not of interest to the general public.
AP's stories may be too general for you. Maybe you'll be more content with industry insiders' expert views, as provided by the NewsNet newsletters OUTLOOK ON IBM, or THE REPORT ON IBM.
The level of details in a given story depends in part on the news providers' readers, and the nature of the source. The amount of "noise" (the level of irrelevancy) also varies. In most public forums, expect to wade through many uninteresting messages before finding things of interest. We suggest the following strategy:
Step 1: Locate sources that provide relevant information,
Step 2: Check if the information from these sources is at a satisfactory level of details, and that the volume is acceptable (not too much, neither too little).