The Gateway to Associations Is Through The ASAE

Happy Friday everyone!  Those who follow bizologie know that we are major advocates for association pages, and we occasionally have Professional Associations Spotlight segments like this one. So what happened when I came upon an association of…wait for it….associations?  Research magic, in the form of a database called the Gateway to Associations, a great free directory courtesy of the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE), was what happened.

Sure it’s easy to Google for associations; I do it all the time.  But I, like the rest of you, am lazy and rarely go past the second page of results unless I’m digging for info on an erudite topic.  Hence I was delighted when I tested the Gateway database, by doing a search for Association names containing: solar.  I received 18 links to titles including solar associations, corporations, and societies, and they all included the city where they are based.

In comparison if I google for: solar association, I receive 10 results on the front page, not including three advertisements plus a few more links categorized as news.   My results were by no means identical; each (first) page listed associations that the other didn’t, but culling information from multiple sources to acquire a more robust breadth of knowledge is a trademark of our work.

P.S.  Remember to be careful when searching with ultra generic keywords like “green” in a database.  Yes “green” can refer to tree-hugging innovation, but it can also refer to localities with lots of trees, or even just the color.

Two Free Resources for Advertising Data

I'm frequently asked for advertising data and have limited access to any paid advertising databases or publications. Below we'll talk about a couple of free resources, but this is a good time to remind ourselves how beneficial creative Googling can be. Using the same tactics we talked about for finding free market research reports, we can also find free advertising data. Using searches like "mobile advertising" or "top ad agencies" and then limiting to PDFs can help you locate all kinds of free reports or white papers. Image searching can be helpful as well. As an example, try this image search: emarketer mobile advertising. Lots of very helpful charts! These types of searches can also lead you to organizations that provide other free resources. Here are a couple of our favorite ones for advertising: IAB's Industry Data & Landscape--"The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) is comprised of more than 500 leading media and technology companies that are responsible for selling 86% of online advertising in the United States."  While some reports on the IAB's site are for members only, they have quite a few free reports.  On their Industry Data & Landscape page, you'll find revenue and trend reports, as well as more specific reports such as sports fans and mobile usage.  They've even got a brand new report out called "2012 Olympic Games Go Mobile: United Kingdom Vs. United States".

Duke University's Digital Advertising Collection--"The Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History in Duke's Special Collection Library acquires and preserves printed material and collections of textual and multimedia resources and makes them available to researchers around the world."  Aside from being a great, free resource, this site is lots of fun. Thousands of advertisements from magazines, billboards, bus benches and any other venue you can think of all the way back to the 1800s. They offer several ways to search their collection including company, product, date, publication, format, subject, medium, headline and audience. Once you've found an ad, you'll see a bit of information about it including dates, publications, medium, etc.

Three Key Business Plan Resources

People often conduct business research with the intent of using it to inform a business plan.  So where should you visit on the interwebs to find a good business plan how-to? 1.  The United States Small Business Administration has a thorough guide that walks you lists the major component of within a business plan, and if you need to bounce your plan off a sounding board, they can help you find a mentor too.

2.  In terms of sheer volume, Bplans.com offers hundreds of free sample business plans across most industry categories, making the odds reasonably good that you will find a comparable plan to give you inspiration.  Unfortunately their sample charts and financials are largely for show, unless you actually shell out money for plan-writing software that holds your hand througout the process.

3.  The Center for Business Planning has a selection of winner plans from the prestigious Venture Labs Investment Competition (formerly the Moot Corp Competition) which is hosted by none other than UT Austin.  While the companies are not necessarily real, the time and effort invested by the student compeitors certainly are, making this twenty-some-odd series of plans worth reading.

Note: As you're perusing the plans' intro page, it may not be readily apparent that links to the rest of the plan are available through the small blue Table of Contents box at the bottom of the page (see pic).

Knoema: Build & Explore Datasets

Earlier this month we had the opportunity to attend the "60 Sites in 60 Minutes" presentation at the Special Libraries Association's Annual Conference in Chicago. One site we loved was Knoema. Knoema lets you explore, build and share datasets. They currently have 835 datasets on a range of different subjects including things like: economics, demographics, energy, government debt, mortality, urbanization and lots and lots more. You can search their datasets by topic, source, name or publication date. All their content is ready to share via Facebook and Twitter or you can download to excel or embed into your own website. They've also got a great World Data Atlas which includes Country Profiles, Maps, Country Rankings, and Commodities. The Country Profiles are especially helpful with links to all kinds of datasets for demographics, economy, energy and more. Here's an example of all the datasets you'll see in a Country Profile:

For more about what you can do with Knoema, check out their intro video:

Biking in Style

This week we’re headed to Cycling for Libraries and of course, the first thing we did to prepare for the ride was to find the cutest cycling clothes and accessories around. Here are some of our favorites. April’s Picks (aka Not being a sporty girl, but wanting to look like Sporty Spice…)

Shopping for padded drawers is new for me. I was hoping that they would add a little junk in the trunk and I’d look like JLo. Turns out they made my butt look even flatter (which I seriously didn’t think could happen). Plus, as an added bonus, it feels like you are wearing a diaper. Knowing that I would really appreciate that padding after 12 days of 35 miles each, how was I going to make these cute?

Leave it to a fashionable, professional triathlete to figure out how to make it work – she added an adorable skirt! Check out Skirt Sports. I laughed when I read that this skirt would get you whistles, but I did get my first cycling cat call while wearing it the first time.

Bling out your bike with LED wheel valve lights. Check out the pink. I need to do some serious night riding now!

First off, how can you go wrong with that name like We Flashy, second these are really cute designs for guys and gals. It’s “reflective clothing for modern times” and they work the reflective material right into the pattern of the adorable clothes. I’m in love with this polka dot pullover.

Being a big fan of the handbag, I couldn’t just get any bag for my bike. Po Campo combines style and function. The ladies from Chicago know how to make a cute versatile bag. It can be used on the bike, to carry your yoga bag, or even as a diaper bag. The clutch is perfect, it goes from the handlebars to the bars seamlessly.

Po Campo is offering a 15% discount to our readers – just enter PoCampo15 when checking out at pocampo.com

Another accessory that is must, but is usually not very attractive is your helmet. Yakkay is making helmets into hats. Pick the color of your helmet and then pick the cover you want. Then, you can change the look by changing the cover. My favorite is the Tokyo Flower and Karen is a fan of the Tokyo Blue Stripe. We both want to check out the 60s shaped hat, you know the one that looks like a horse riding helmet. These could be perfect or so wrong.

Karen’s Picks:

From bells to bags, I love accessories!  Since we started training for Cycling for Libraries, I’ve been doing lots of research to find the cutest accessories around, and here are some of my favorites.

With all of the things you need to buy for your bike, who doesn’t love getting a good deal?  Chain Love offers primo pieces of cycling gear on their site for ridiculously low prices. Sign up for Instant Alerts so that you always know what the deal is.

I find the most adorable and unique things at museum shops, and these all weather bike lights from Stockholm’s Moderna Museet are no exception. Functional and adorable, they come in 4 cute color ways.

These horns, also from the Moderna Museet, are a blast. Cute and retro, they are sure to help you make any pedestrian or cyclist aware of your presence.

Electra makes some of my favorite bicycle bells. They have some really fun abstract designs and I love the simplicity and the pink color of this I Heart My Bike bell.

Helmet design has come a long way in the last 5 years and there are some great designs out there for women.  I’ve become a big fan of the Bern helmet and I love their color combos.

(Who doesn’t look great turquoise!)

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention some of the cute helmets for kids. I just got this adorable Nutcase helmet for my daughter. She hates hats, but she loves her cute helmet and refuses to take it off.  Nutcase also makes some fun helmets for adults. The best part is that on the back it says “I love my brain.” I can’t think of anything more fitting.

April already mentioned these, but I just wanted to say that Po Campo bike bags are the best!  Seriously, if there is one accessory you buy (apart from a helmet and lights), get one of these bags. They fit easily onto your bike rack, so you don’t have to worry about what to do with your bag, and when you’re done with your ride, you have a cute bag to carry around. I just picked up this cute satchel at Rocket Electrics in Austin. (They have last year’s styles if you’re looking for Po Campo vintage.)  Also, you can use our discount code if you buy at PoCampo.com. Enter the code PoCampo15 to get 15% off.

Me, my Bianchi, and my Po Campo bag.

Interested in seeing more great cycling clothes and accessories?  Check out these sites!

Cycle Chic

Cycle Fashion

By April Kessler and Karen Holt. April and Karen are librarians at The University of Texas at Austin and they departing tomorrow for Cycling for Libraries in the Baltics. They tweet @bizologie and @karenholt respectively, and you can follow their biking adventures on Librarian Lifestyle and bizologie.

Enchanted at SLA 2012

Guy Kawasaki was the keynote speaker at the SLA 2012 conference in Chicago this week. Guy is the former chief evangelist of Apple -- he was one of the original marketers of the Macintosh. He is a venture capitalist and now the co-founder of of the news site Alltop.com. I was among the thousands of information professionals that got to hear Guy tell us what it takes to really enchant. Will you only fly Virgin? Do you tell all your friends how Apple has changed your life? That is enchantment! Kawasaki's new book Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions is about how you can have that same effect on others. Whether you are an entrepreneur with a new idea, trying to get your dream job, convincing someone to write a check to your favorite charity, or selling the services of your library, you can use the power of enchantment.

It's not the same as being enchanted by Guy Kawasaki live and in person, but you can see him on YouTube and you can find his Enchantment PowerPoint deck on Slideshare.

bizologie Favorite Tools: Retirement Planning

Dreaming of retiring to that nice condo at the beach? Or maybe you'll use some of those golden years traveling the globe.  Either way, it's time to start planning. Well, it was probably time to start planning as soon as you finished high school, but let's not dwell on that. Let's continue imagining ourselves at the beach and start being smart about how to get there. Here are a couple of tools we love for making sure you're on track with your retirement plans:

• While Social Security certainly isn't going to allow you to live in the lap of luxury, it's still a good idea to understand what your benefits will be. In the past, the Social Security Administration sent out statements showing your expected benefits. They no longer mail out statements, but now you can set up an account on their website to keep track of everything. Once you've created your account, you'll be able to see your estimated benefits based on retirement age. You can create your account here.
• Next you'll want to use a retirement calculator to see if you're on target. We like the one at Principal Financial Group because it's easy to use and at the end gives you a nice PDF showing where you stand and some "what ifs" to help you meet your goal. Their calculator allows you to include your 401K, IRAs, social security benefits and any other accounts you have to give a prediction for where you'll be based on when you want to retire. It's a good idea to run several scenarios for retiring at different ages. I ran 6 or 7 different ones showing outcomes for ages 60, 65 and 70 as well as a few different contribution amounts. You'll find their calculator here and below you'll see an example of a retirement goal with their suggestion to help reach your goal.

• We've talked about Mint before as part of our 50 Apps in 50 Minutes presentation. It's a great way to keep up with your finances and they've got a nice little tool for setting goals. You can set goals for things like vacations, paying down credit card debt and saving for retirement. The retirement goal lets you add in your 401K or IRA accounts and set a date so you can tell quickly if you're on track.

A Go-to for Researching the Chinese Travel Market

When I'm conducting my research, i.e. scampering on the interwebs, sometimes a bizologie-related site takes me to another page, and another, and then I've suddenly encountered a new entry-worthy resource.  For example, last week I wrote on Hospitality Net, and while delving in its Columns area to decide if it was worth mentioning (which indeed I did), I found an article that was so condensed as to have most likely stemmed from a larger report. Sure enough it ultimately linked back to China Travel Trends.com, which made my not-so-inner business researcher weak in the knees.  The publication is a child of parent institutions Dragon Trail, "the premier brand engagement firm focused on travel and tourism," and "COTRI (China Outbound Tourism Research Institute), the leading advisory and resource firm to assist travel and tourism organizations to cater to Chinese tourists" (About).

So what are the must-see spots on this website? The Homepage's Blog & its Popular Posts sub-section together identify news and market trends that may be especially useful for future-gazers.  But best of all, via the Resources tab you can access the freely downloadable Essential China Travel Trends Book- now in its second (Dragon) edition- which is a huge compendium of market intelligence on both the consumer psychologies of Chinese travelers, as well as the economic, cultural, and political forces impacting the market.  Definitely worth a visit!

International Private Company Data

bizologie has covered how to research US private companies recently, but we know financials are almost impossible to find since US private companies are not required to report their financials with the SEC. Other countries have different requirements for private companies. And, many require full financial info be released. This is great news for business research. Thanks to FreePint and researcher Heidi Longaberger you can easily see what kind of private information is available for private firms in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, and the United Kingdom. The FreePint article Private company information outside the US: Western Europe, UK and Ireland has an easy to use chart detailing what private company information is available and links to where the information is provided! Most of the websites are available in English, and best of all most of the data is free or available for a small fee.

Find links to these international private company sources on the new bizologie Favorite Resources page.

Researching the Housing Market

The housing market has been in the news pretty regularly over the past few years, so today we thought we'd take a look at a few of our favorite resources for researching the housing market.

• The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the U.S. Department of the Treasury produce a monthly scorecard for the nation's housing market. These reports cover all kinds of things including new and existing home sales, mortgage rates and refinancing statistics, housing supply, number of mortgage delinquency rates and more. In addition to the monthly scorecards, they also produce spotlight reports on specific cities.
• Since 1997, Harvard University has been releasing "The State of the Nation's Housing". This is an amazing amount of information on the housing market put together by Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies."The Joint Center uses current data from the US Census Bureau, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Pew Research Center, the Conference Board, the Energy Information Administration, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, the Federal Reserve, CoreLogic, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, Moody’s Economy. com, the Mortgage Bankers Association of America, MPF Research, the National Association of Realtors®, the National Council of Real Estate Investment Fiduciaries, the National Low Income Housing Coalition, the National Multi Housing Council, Standard and Poor’s, Lender Processing Services, and Zillow.com to develop its findings." What a great one-stop-shop. Convenient and free!
• The Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University offers  market reports for all 25 Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) in Texas and covers "census data, employment and unemployment, major industries, business climate, education, transportation and infrastructure issues, growth patterns and much more."  It's pretty common for universities to offer this type of information, so a quick Google search for your home state's universities would probably yield similar results.
• The National Association of Realtors has a great Research & Statistics page with a quick reference Housing Indicators section as well as a more in depth Market Intelligence section which includes Local Market Reports for several big cities, state employment trends, home price monitors and more.
• We love Wolfram Alpha for all kinds of research as you can see here, so it's no surprise that they're a great resource for information on the housing market. In addition to offering demographic zip code information you can also see median home prices for the city of your choice or use it to compare cities.

Hospitality Net for Hotel Industry Research

Researching the hotel industry?  Then make sure to check in, time and again, with the Hospitality Net website.  The editors have it booked to capacity with such a phenomenal assortment of industry information that we find it hard to believe they have made so much information freely available.  It’s not unlike the rare joy of sitting in a swanky hotel lobby during a conference and realizing you don’t have to pay for the wifi. We particularly recommend seeing the following areas of the site: Industry News, which is conveniently further broken down by category. Market Reports, which are complimentary executive summaries of industry performance (including charts/graphs). The Columns, which have expert opinions, analysis, and consumer insight.

Power Searching with Google

Google is hosting a new MOOC -- Massive Open Online Course Power Searching with Google is a free online course featuring powerful techniques to solve real, everyday problems using Google. Visit the course homepage to learn more. By the end of this course, you'll know several new techniques that will make you a Google Power Searcher and help you find out information about whatever you can imagine.

Register now. The Google Lessons will be released daily starting on July 10. Work alongside a worldwide community, while you take the lessons on your own schedule during a two-week window.

How To Do Research On A Private Company

We've talked before about how finding information on a private company is much more difficult than researching public companies. So today we thought we'd take an example and walk through some different ways you can track down information. I'm intrigued by the idea of Getaround, a peer-to-peer car sharing company, so we'll use them as our example private company today. If you're not familiar with Getaround, you can check out their video below. It's a pretty fascinating idea. So, let's get started. Though, it probably seems obvious, the first thing I do when researching a private company is check out their webpage. In this case, Getaround's webpage is really helpful right from the get-go, linking me to several articles from The New York Times, TechCrunch and a couple of others. This gives me a great start. Just from these couple of articles, I can already see a few of their competitors and an estimate for the number of people using the service. And that's all from the front page. If I click on "Press" at the bottom of the screen, I'm taken to even more articles. Of course, if I'm Getaround, I'm only going to link to articles that reflect a positive opinion, so you'll definitely want to do an independent news search, but I've still got a great start.

If the company I'm researching has a technology slant (Getaround uses iPhone apps, etc.), I'll see if they're in Crunchbase (You can see our previous post about Crunchbase here.) Luckily for this post, Getaround is in Crunchbase and I can find out all kinds of things here.  I can see how much, when and from whom they got their funding, where they're located and who the important people at the company are. Crunchbase also shows me recent news articles, competitors and screenshots. For a free resource, you really can't beat it which is why they've earned a place on our Favorite Resources page.

CrunchBase Information

Getaround

Information provided by CrunchBase

Another of our favorite resources for private company research is BizJournals. You'll see a search box up at the top right corner; just plug in your company name and snap! Eleven articles about Getaround which include funding information, quotes from the founders and a bit of company history.

Lastly, it's sometimes helpful to run a Google search on the company you're looking for and limit your results to PDFs. In this case my search looks like this "getaround cars filetype:pdf".  These types of searches will take you to things like press releases, market research reports or contracts. You can do the same thing by limiting your search to PPT or XLS to find presentations and spreadsheets. You'll be surprised at all the things you can find if you're a savvy searcher.

All this for the low, low price of free.

bizologie Classifieds

We come across all kinds of job postings through connections or just daily Internet travels and thought we'd share some of the more interesting ones with a new segment called "bizologie Classifieds". Obviously, we have an interest in special librarianship, so we'll be focusing on those types of positions including non-librarian positions in the private sector that we believe an MSIS candidate would meet the qualifications for.  We'd love your participation, so if you know about an interesting job opportunity, please let us know about it via Twitter (@bizologie), on Facebook or you can email us: [email protected] or [email protected] Here are a few we think look interesting this week: Coordinator of Research Services, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY

Information Technology Specialist, Texas Library Association, Austin, TX

Open Source Officer, CIA, Washington, DC

Research Analyst, Fort Washington Investment Advisors, Cincinnati, OH

Research Analyst/Account Manager, Music Group, The NPD Group, Port Washington, NY

Research & Instruction Librarian, Science & Engineering Graduate Support, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Boston, MA

Happy job hunting! Be sure and check out tips for sprucing up your resume and LinkedIn profile here & here.

Introducing bizologie's New Favorite Resources Page

Today we're unveiling our new "Favorite Resources" page. We've spent lots of time over the past couple of years showcasing websites and tools we use regularly, so we've decided to gather them all together to make what we hope will be a go-to resource for our readers. As you know by now, one of our goals here is to provide free or low cost business research information for people or libraries without big budgets for expensive databases. We'll be continually adding new sites and tools as we go along, so if you'd like to add the new page to your bookmarks, we'll do our best to be your first stop for all your business research needs. Got a business research topic you'd like us to cover? Let us know on Facebook or Twitter @bizologie.

Stay Ahead With The Business of Fashion

Spiffed, dolled, gussied, or buttoned up, call it what you will.  The bizologie women have a severe weakness for clothing; it’s one of our beloved topics.  Today we’re paying homage to the Business of Fashion website, which is positively bursting at the seams with industry news, insight, and trend forecasting.  Founded in 2007 by Mr. Imran Armed, the website has built itself up to the point where it now deserves (and rightly so, in my opinion) being billed per Macleans Magazine, as “the Economist of fashion.” If you want articles particularly with a business research slant, look in the Archive (’07-present) where you will find several relevant categories to choose from, namely Global Briefing, Insight & Analysis, Intelligence, and Market Pulse.  From those categories you’ll find fabulously analytical articles like, “The Rise of New Business Models” or, “Online Fashion Retailers Tap Offline Opportunities,”  or, “Could Africa be the Next Frontier for Fashion Retail?”

No go throw on some shiny shoes and have a great weekend!

BP Statistical Review of World Energy

For those needing high-level energy data from a credible source, a great free resource to consult is the BP Statistical Review of World Energy.  This annual publication is released every June and provides data across a variety of energy sectors (oil, natural gas and coal, to name a few) using various data points, including consumption, production and reserves. Oil is the world’s most valuable commodity and thus, the section on oil is the most comprehensive.  Current and historical statistics are available not only on consumption, production and reserves on a worldwide basis (broken further down by regions and countries) but also on spot prices, refinery capacities and imports/exports.   Similar, less extensive data exists for the other energy sectors highlighted in the annual report – natural gas, coal, nuclear energy, hydroelectricity, renewable energy and primary energy.  Data in the print version goes back to 2001; most data in the on-line version goes back to 1965 and is available in either PDF or Excel formats.

In addition to providing helpful statistics, the Review also gives an analysis of the overall energy market at that place in time.  For example, the 2012 report states that in 2011, all the net growth took place in emerging economies, with China alone accounting for 71% of global energy consumption growth.  The 2012 edition also notes that while global energy consumption grew by 2.5% in 2011, it was well below the 5.1% growth seen in 2010.

The 2012 edition, with data as of December 31, 2011, is now available on the BP website. The print version of the 2012 BP Statistical Review of World Energy is also available free of charge; contact their Investor Relations office for additional information.

David Brackus is a Business Researcher with Jefferies & Company, Inc. in Houston, where he supports the firm’s Energy Practice.  He is a 2003 graduate of The University of Texas School of Information and is the 2012 Chair of the SLA Division of Petroleum and Energy Resources.

2012 Special Librarian Blog Award

"Salem Press once again surveyed the library blog landscape in search of exceptional thinking, writing, and information. Hundreds of blog nominations poured in [and] thousands of votes were cast." The public and the judges votes have been tallied and we're happy to report that bizologie won honorable mention in the Special Librarian Blog category. We may be the runner up but you won't see us with sad faces and runny mascara.  Apparently, the Special category was the most competitive this year, so we are very proud. The judges gave us points for focused coverage and strong personalities of the bloggers. Not too shabby. We thank all of you for voting and helping our little blog make a name for itself. It's pretty good to be a Great Special Libraries Blog! To see the full list of winners for all eight categories visit Salem Press.

Three Key Airline Industry Business Resources

Combine a handful of interviews, a family reunion, and the prep work for an impending relocation, and I’ve been doing a bit more air travel than usual.  It's no surprise then that air travel is on my mind.   Here are three great resources for keeping your head in the clouds of the airline business: Point A: Airlines for America (A4A):  This professional organization is a premier industry advocate.  Their Economics & Analysis pages have a fantastic assortment of reports and press releases with scads of business data, including economic impacts, industry outlooks, and (in the Special Topics section) M&A and Bankruptcy transactions.

Point B: The Middle Seat by WSJ:  We love the WSJ, and it’s no wonder why, with articles like "How Airlines Spend Your Airfare" (includes a spiffy infographic!).  The Middle Seat is the WSJ’s freely available thematic column for all things travel.  Each individual article may not be strictly business related, but those that are yield excellent charts, stats, and glimpses into how airlines are thinking.

Point C: The International Air Transport Association (IATA):  A representative leader in the industry, this group also puts out densely-packed and downloadable industry reports forecasts, and analysis, which also often include excellent charts/graphs.  You’ll find them somewhat buried in: Areas of Activity > Economics.

Still Not Sold on Social Job Hunting? Recruiters Are.

Most of you know by now that bizologie is a big believer in using social media not only for your job search, but also for career advancement. In a report out this month from Bullhorn Reach, recruiters reported that 77% of their available positions are posted on LinkedIn. And 21% are posted on all three of the biggest social networks (LinkedIn, Facebook & Twitter).

Granted, Bullhorn's bread and butter comes from social recruiting, but we still think it's a statistic worth noting. You can download their full report here.  And after reading, if you want to spruce up your LinkedIn profile, you can check out some of our tips here. We've also begun posting  jobs that we think are good fits for librarians in a new segment we call "bizologie classifieds" . The latest list is available here.