Because private company financial data is so tricky to uncover we’re always really excited, time and again, to mention any tool that helps us accomplish that task. So what to do when you’re investigating how well a private company should be performing in a particular industry, but they’re not being forthcoming with figures?
The good news:
1) You can check out this free toy from Inc.com: its Profitability Report. For this content Inc.com sourced from Sageworks, which aggregates private companies’ financial data in order to “enable you to benchmark a company's performance to its peer group.”
2) Choose a category from the list and see a neatly laid out chart that includes several important numbers such as: Sample Size, EBITDA Margin, Sales per Employee, Current Ratio etc.
3) And if you’re a bit rusty on your accounting vocabulary, it provides simple explanations below each term.
Now the bad news:
1) Inc.com loudly touts a calculator feature, but unless I’m sorely mistaken, this calculator does not in fact exist as of this writing. Hopefully it will be available in the future.
2) Another important caveat is that the industries covered are verybroad. If you’re trying to open a new theater chain, pretty much the only relevant category is “Arts, Entertainment, and Recreation,” rather than “Theaters.” Hence the validity of this data could be questionable depending on the type of research you're doing.
3) I visited the Sageworks mothership directly to see if they had a better version of this tool. They didn’t, and instead they asked me to sign up for a single sample report. Meh.
As more and more companies are using social media to connect with their customers and spread the word about their products, it makes sense that as business researchers we need to keep these social sites on our radar. We wouldn't dream of not scouring the company website for insight, and now we should feel the same way about the company presence on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. Social Media is extremely important for researching smaller private companies and start-ups because you won't find reports or news on them elsewhere.
LinkedIn - Search for the company and link to the "Insightful Statistics about Employees" section to see which employees are on LinkedIn, where they have worked before and where they went after they departed. Look to see what Groups the company belongs to.
Facebook - Look for who the company "Likes" to see find vendors, partners, suppliers, and enthusiasts. Keep an eye on the timeline for product announcements and progress reports.
YouTube - Search for the company channel to see videos. You can see who works there and sometimes their customers. A video can tell you a lot about corporate culture.
Twitter- Consumers are using Twitter as a complaint line, so watch how the company handles those issues and interacts with the customer. You can use HootSuite or TweetDeck to follow multiple companies and/or keywords of interest.
Pinterest - The fastest growing social media site right now! Search for company name under the people search or just Google company name and Pinterest. Companies can show you in images what represents their values and culture.
The Offical Board - Organizational charts of the world's 30,000 largest corporations. Find contacts at companies and see the reporting lines.
CrunchBase- Free database of technology companies, people, and investors. You can find funding information here that you won't see anywhere else.
We bizologie girls love apps that make our lives easier, more fun or more enlightened. This week at the Texas Library Association's Annual Conference, we'll be presenting "50 Apps in 50 Minutes". You can check out our presentation below. A note on pricing and availability: it's been our experience that prices for apps change often, so if you like something that's a bit out of your budget, keep an eye on it as sometimes the prices drop temporarily or even permanently. Love something that's only an iThing? We saw several notes along the way indicating that an app's owner listed Android, etc. as "coming soon". So make a note of what you like and you may see it soon on other platforms.
1. Flipboard “creates a personalized magazine out of everything being shared with you. Flip through your Facebook newsfeed, tweets from your Twitter timeline, photos from Instagram friends and much more.” Free for iPhone & iPad
2. Easybib “Create accurate MLA, APA, and Chicago style citations in seconds by scanning a book bar code or by typing the name of a book. Build and manage your works cited. Once done, email your citations and then export your citations to EasyBib.com's popular bibliography management service.” Free for iPhone & Android
3. Time Traveler’s Investment Calculator “The Time Traveler’s Investment Calculator is a simple way to go back in time and choose a hypothetical investment strategy and see how you would have done.” 99¢ for iPhone
4. Biblion “Enter the World of Tomorrow and experience the 1939–40 New York World’s Fair through the collections of The New York Public Library! Biblion: The Boundless Library is designed to take you — all but literally — into the Library's legendary stacks, opening up hidden parts of the collections and the myriad story lines they hold and preserve. In this free app you will hold documents, images, films, audio, and essays directly from the collections right in your hands.” Free for iPad
5. Business Card Reader “Import contact information from a business card directly to your iOS address book.” iPhone, Android, BlackBerry & Windows Phone, $4.99
6. SimplyPostcards “Real postcards from your iPhone” Free app with extra cost for mailing postcards
7. PaperKarma "is the easy way to take control of your paper junk mail, cut your paper waste, and help save the Earth — by taking photos! Simply pull out your phone and snap photos of the offending mail. PaperKarma will figure out what it is and how to stop it." iPhone, Android & Windows, free
8. HomeSnap "Snap a photo of any home to find out all about it." iPhone, free
9. HBOGo "Get unlimited access to over 1,400 of your favorite HBO shows, including HBO original programming, hit movies, sports, comedy and much more—now available on iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch." Free
10. Reading Rainbow Coming soon from LeVar Burton. Follow their progress on Twitter @readingrainbow
11. ColorSmart by BEHR™ Mobile "is an easy and convenient way to find, coordinate or preview a BEHR® paint color for all of your paint projects." iPhone, iPad & Android, free
12. LeafSnap "is the first in a series of electronic field guides being developed by researchers from Columbia University, the University of Maryland, and the Smithsonian Institution. This free mobile app uses visual recognition software to help identify tree species from photographs of their leaves." iPhone & iPad, free
13. CardStar “Lighten your wallet and move your plastic loyalty cards, reward cards and membership cards to your phone so you never miss out on a reward, discount, or deal again.” iPhone, BlackBerry, Android, Windows, free
14. Prezi “View and present your prezis anywhere with simple, intuitive multitouch gestures.” iPad, free
15. TuneIn Radio “TuneIn is a new way to listen to the world through live local and global radio from wherever you are. Whether you want music, sports, news or current events, TuneIn offers over 50,000 stations and 120,000 shows for you to choose from. iPhone, iPad, Android, BlackBerry, Windows, free
16. Find My iPhone “If you misplace your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, or Mac, the Find My iPhone app will let you use another iOS device to find it and protect your data. Simply install this free app on another iOS device, open it, and sign in with your Apple ID. Find My iPhone will help you locate your missing device on a map.You can then choose to display a message or play a sound, remotely lock your device, or erase your data on it. “ Free
17. Mint “Allows you to track, budget and manage your money all in one place, so you can see where you’re spending and where you can save. Open an account, add your bank, credit, loan and retirement accounts and Mint will automatically pull in and categorize your transactions. It’s safe, secure and easy to keep your personal finances organized. “ iPad, iPhone & Android, free
18. Note Taker HD “is a powerful app for writing and organizing handwritten notes, diagrams, etc., on the iPad. It can also be used to annotate PDF files. It can shrink your writing so you can easily fit a lot of text on a page. You can read the reduced-size "ink" as if you had written those letters with a very fine pen. It gives you solid functionality and control to produce the pages you need.” iPad, $4.99
19. Word Lens “Instantly translate printed words from one language to another with your built-in video camera, in real time!” iPhone, free
20. Google Goggles “Search by taking a picture. Goggles uses image recognition technology to recognize objects and return relevant search results. Identifies products, famous landmarks, storefronts, artwork, and popular images found online. “ iPhone & Android, free.
21. InClass “Organize your schedule. Share your notes. Ace your classes. “ iPad, free
22. Byook “The successful union of books and movies. A byook stages fascinating stories by incorporating images, animations and sound effects. “ iPhone & iPad, $1.99 for Sherlock Holmes
23. Instapaper Save web pages for later offline reading. iPhone & iPad, $4.99 (optimized for iPhone but may work on Android, check site’s FAQs)
24. Instagram “Pick from one of several gorgeous filtered effects or tilt-shift blur to breathe a new life into your mobile photos. “ iPhone & Android, free
25. Foodspotting “is a visual guide to good food and where to find it. It’s the leading app for finding and rating dishes, not just restaurants.” iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, Windows, free
26. MapMyFitness “uses the built-in GPS technology of your iPhone to enable you to track your outdoor fitness activities and gets you closer to achieving your health and fitness goals. Step out your front door, hit the road or trail, and this app will effortlessly mark out your path along an interactive map and record essential metrics including duration, distance, pace, speed and elevation. Once you finish your workout, save your data and it automatically uploads to www.MapMyFitness.com where you can view your route, workout data, and a comprehensive workout history.” iPhone, Android, free
27. ShoeBox “Bring the albums, scrapbooks, and photo-filled “shoeboxes” out of the closet and into an online, shareable space where they can be organized and shared with family and friends.Photos scanned with ShoeBox are saved on both your iPhone and1000memories.com, where they can be stored and shared for free with friends and family. Connect your social media accounts to instantly share your photos through Twitter or directly onto your Facebook Timeline.” iPhone, free. Android coming soon
28. Star Walk “is a stellar augmented reality app that labels all the stars, constellations, and satellites you point your iPad at.” iPad, $4.99
29. Minds of Modern Mathematics “is a digital recreation of a 50-foot-wide wall installation that was part of the groundbreaking 1961 Mathematica exhibition sponsored by IBM and designed by the legendary design team, Charles and Ray Eames.” iPad, free
30. PicFrame “helps you combine multiple photos into amazing looking frames and share them with your friends and family via Facebook, Email, Instagram, Twitter, Flickr and Tumblr. With 60 fully adjustable frames, rounded corners, photo effects, shadows, plenty of patterns and an easy color picker you will always have a unique look.” iPhone & iPad, 99¢
31. Flixel Living Photos “Capture a moment, bring it to life with the swipe of a finger and instantly share with friends.” iPhone, free
32. Cupcake Wars Companion “Your Guide to Eating at Cupcakeries Featured on the Hit Food Network Show” iPhone $2.99
33. Hipmunk “takes the agony out of flight & hotel search. With Hipmunk you'll see all the relevant flights on a timeline, helping you visualize the right choice. Unlike every other app out there, Hipmunk doesn't just show you the cheapest flight first — the app instead sorts by "agony," which incorporates important factors like how long you'll be traveling and how many stops you'll make. Hotel results are shown on a map so that you can see exactly where you'll be staying. You can also turn on heatmaps that will show you the best areas to stay based on unique interests like food, landmarks, nightlife and more.” iPhone & Android, free
34. Silent Film Director “lets you create amazing vintage videos in minutes. You can add music, title cards, transitions, effects and more.” iPhone, free for a limited time, $1.99
35. North Shelby Library “This app allows you to connect directly to our blog, tweets, photos, videos, reading lists, and even the library staff. You can also access the library events calendar and find out what’s coming up for children, teens, and adults at North Shelby or Mt Laurel Public Library. “ iPhone, free
36. PulsePoint “empowers individuals, within covered communities, the ability to provide life-saving assistance to victims of Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA). Application users who have indicated they are trained in cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) are notified if someone nearby is having a cardiac emergency and may require CPR. If the cardiac emergency is in a public place, the application uses sophisticated location-based services to alert citizens in the vicinity of the need for CPR. The application also directs citizen rescuers to the exact location of the closest public access Automated External Defibrillator (AED).” iPhone, free
37. Square Register “Manage and grow your business with the Square Register app and accompanying free Square credit card reader. It’s the simplest way to accept credit cards and bring new customers to your door.” iPad, free
38. TripIt “‘automagically’ takes all your trip details and creates one truly helpful itinerary that’s there when and where you need it – on your Android, BlackBerry, Windows Phone, iPhone or iPad, sync'd with your calendar, and online at tripit.com.” Free
39. WolframAlpha “Across thousands of domains--with more continually added--Wolfram|Alpha uses its vast collection of algorithms and data to compute answers and generate reports for you.” iPhone, iPad, Android, Nook $2.99, extra apps additional
40. PhotoSync “will transform your photo handling forever. It‘s the first app that makes wireless transfer of your photos/videos from or to your computer and other i-Devices - a breeze. PhotoSync also transfers to Dropbox, Picasa/Google+, Facebook, SmugMug, Flickr, Box, Zenfolio, (S)FTP, WebDAV and iDisk. You need never use a cable again! “ iPhone & iPad, $1.99
41. Spotify “access to millions of tracks from thousands of albums and artists” iPhone, Android, Windows, BlackBerry, pricing varies
43. HearPlanet “Turn your phone into an Audio Guide to the World” iPhone & Android, $3.99
44. Bump Pay “Stop writing checks or messing with cash, and settle up with friends on the spot by simply bumping phones together. From the creators of the Bump app, now you can easily send and receive money in person with anyone who has a PayPal account.” iPhone & Android, free
45. Epicurious & Allrecipes Two free recipe apps both designed for the iPad
46. Goodreads “has more than 7,000,000 members who have added more than 200,000,000 books to their shelves. Our mission is to help you find new and interesting books by showing you what your friends are reading. Browsing Goodreads is like wandering through the world's largest library. Find thousands of book reviews and peruse the bookshelves of friends and other readers. Post your own reviews and keep track of what you have read and want to read.” iPad, iPhone, Android, Kindle Fire, Nook Tablet, free
47. Fast Customer “With one tap, we connect you with a customer service rep at more than 2,000 companies (and growing!) across the United States and Canada.” iPhone, Android, Kindle Fire, free
48. Google Catalogs “A new, rich, and engaging way to interact with all your favorite catalogs. Flip through pages of beautiful catalogs, discover inspiring photos and videos, save products that catch your eye, and create collages to share with your friends. “ iPad & Android Tablets, free
49. University of Texas Austin “Search for UT news, check out campus-related events, keep tabs on sports news and scores, tap into the UT directory, navigate campus maps, watch UT videos, and stay engaged with your University.” iPhone, free
50. NPR Music “Engage, explore and discover new music of all genres with the NPR Music app. Rock, Jazz & Blues, World, Classical and Hip Hop/R&B – you get music programmed by people and the quality storytelling you expect from NPR. You can read music news and reviews while listening to interviews, live concerts or exclusive streams of albums before they’re released. Multitask with the NPR Music app as your guide to new music.” iPhone & iPad, free
At bizologie free business resources are our specialty. Here are 24 of of my favorites that I will be highlighting at the 2012 Texas Library Association Conference:
Google Finance: Current, but most importantly, historical stock prices by day up to 35 years
Worldometers: Live statistics on population, government and economics, society and media, environment, food, water, energy and health
U.S. Commercial Service: Trade professionals in over 100 U.S. cities and in more than 75 countries that help U.S. companies get started in exporting or increase sales to new global markets
comScore: The press release page offers charts, graphs, and data on consumer and market trends for digital technologies and Internet web site market share rankings
BatchGeo: Make maps from a list of multiple locations, use addresses or zip codes
VisualBee Plugin: 50 free templates for PowerPoint, you put in text and then VisualBee does the design
LiveLoop Plugin: Real-time collaboration in PowerPoint. Sign up to test in private beta
Prezi: Cloud-based presentation software that is cross between whiteboard and slides
Zanran: Numerical search – find data and statistics
These were my favorite free business resources in 2010 and they are still some of the best resources available. These sites prove that sometimes you get more than you pay for.
Data.gov: Machine readable datasets from Uncle Sam
Economic Census 2007: Every 5 years, counts businesses, employees and payroll, down to the zip code
Aviary: Tools for editing images, audio, and video
Prezi: Cloud based presentation tool, cross between whiteboard and slides
Business School FAQ: Penn Libraries specific, but an excellent way to determine which resources print and databases have the answers to your business questions
Whether you are looking for a job or just staying connected to your professional community, social media is extremely important to your image. Social Media is your new online resume. According to Jobvite's Social Recruiting Survey, 89% of US companies will use Social Networking for recruiting. And, 58% of these companies recruit passive candidates, so even if you aren't looking, they are! Will they find you? How can you use social media for your career advancement?
First things first, check your online reputation because others are. Google yourself and see if what comes up is appropriate. Google has tips for you if you find something that needs to be removed. Use Reppler.com to help keep your Facebook page clean and safe. It reads your posts and rates how positive you are plus gives you tips on creating a more secure page.
Of the companies surveyed by Jobvite, 87% use LinkedIn and 2/3 use two or more networks for recruiting.
LinkedIn is really only useful if you build a robust profile and make it public so people can find you. Include detail and be keyword savvy by selecting words that are used in the industry.
Photo - add a professional head shot
Headline - slogan for your personal brand
Summary - highlight your unique skills and specialties
Experience - this should read like your resume
Groups - be a joiner and contribute questions and answers, create your own group, you can edit the visibility of each group for more privacy
Public Profile - claim your public profile URL and make it public then use address on cards, blogs, email sig
Make connections - add your business cards, search by company, schools, association, add the app to your phone
Ask for Introductions - write it up and then ask your contact to pass it on
Ask for recommendations
Add your company website, blog and Twitter account
Once you have your LinkedIn info added, you can use Re.vu to make a visual resume. A cool infographic of your work experience will really grab the hiring manager's attention.
Since recruiters also use Facebook and Twitter you need to make sure you have a professional presence there:
Add the Branch Out app to turn your Facebook friends into professional connections
Glassdoor has free salary information by title and company. There are also company reviews. If you sign up and provide your salary information, you get access to all the salaries and reviews. You can also see if your Facebook friends have any company connections.
If you need help reworking or updating your resume, check out these resume guidelines from the Career Design Center of the College of Natural Sciences at the University of Texas at Austin.
Happy bunnies 'n baskets weekend! This Friday we bring you the really fun love child of instantaneous-colorful-chart-generators and Twitter. It’s called AnalyzeWords, and it was developed by a team of researchers headed by professors at the Universities of Auckland and Texas. Using a program called Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count, they analyze junk pronoun words (which it turns out aren’t really junk) as amalgamated over a big swath of tweets, to figure out a communicator’s psychological state.
To play simply add the twitter handle of your entity du jour, click Analyze Tweets, and voila, immediately you have three spiffy little chart clusters categorized by Emotional Style, Social Style, and Thinking Style. As you can see from the picture, @JetBlue is quite chipper! Now if only it would also work when I submit the phone number of that cute guy I met at the gym yesterday…
We hope some of our readers will be joining us at the Texas Library Association's Annual Conference in Houston. We bizologie girls along with the Special Libraries Division of TLA will be presenting several sessions and we'd love to see you in the audience. Below you'll find descriptions and times for each program. Check back the week of the conference and we'll have our presentations posted here along with links to all the tools, apps and resources discussed at TLA. Hope to see you there!
Free Business Resources
(Net Fair I)
Wednesday 1:00 – 1:50 pm
Sometimes you actually get more than you pay for! Get links to 20+ free sites with business information covering marketing, energy, demographics, technology, and more.
April Kessler, Reference and Information Services, University of Texas at Austin
Leveraging Your Skills: Rewrite that Resumé and Market Yourself
Wednesday, 1:00 - 1:50 pm
Two career services directors discuss ways job seekers can expand their resumés to appeal to a broader audience of hiring managers in and out of libraries. Find out the practices to use and avoid during interviews.
Tara Lagulli, School of Information and Karen Landolt, Natural Sciences Career Services, University of Texas
Special Libraries Division and Reference Round Table
50 Apps / 50 Minutes (Net Fair I)
2:00 – 2:50 pm
We’ll introduce 50 apps – some for business and some for fun. All platforms, including Android and iPad will be discussed. Join us for a lively, fast-paced and fun presentation.
Laura Young, Research, Austin Ventures
Automation and Technology Round Table
Salary Negotiation: Yes You Can!
2:00 - 3:50 Pm
Find out the basics of salary negotiation from a corporate hiring manager who will tell you what employers consider during this process. Learn what to ask for and how to ask for it! A business meeting follows the program at 3:00 pm
Mike Millard, Austin Ventures
Special Libraries Division
Librarians on the Move: New Jobs for the Information Professional
4:00 - 4:50 pm
A panel of librarians offers an open Q&A with attendees. Panelists will share how they moved from libraries into new positions outside libraries. Find out what worked for them.
Claire Boetticher, Research Analyst, Exxon Mobile Tuan Nguyen, Library Sales Consultant, Mackin Educational Resources; Lindsey Schell, Vice President of Sales & Marketing, EBL--eBook Library; Beth Wagner, US EPA Region 6 Sunder Ram Library, DSI; and Laura Young, Research, Austin Ventures
Special Libraries Division and Reference Round Table
Business Reference: Using LinkedIn and Other Social Media Tools
10:00 - 10:50 Am
Find new ways to use social media tools to gather current information about companies at no cost. Learn to show your customers how to use LinkedIn, Twitter, and FaceBook for competitive intelligence.
April Kessler, Reference and Information Services, University of Texas at Austin; and Laura Young, Research, Austin Ventures
At an Austin area SCIP meeting I was inspired by the keynote speaker Dr. Jay Paap. Paap is a seasoned technology and innovation management professional and now a faculty member at Sloan Business School at MIT.
Most companies come up with an idea and then they ask CI to determine the market. Paap suggests putting this on its head. Use CI to gather information on how the market is changing to determine how companies could capitalize on that change and create a solution to solve a new problem. Paap is a proponent of using competitive intelligence early in the process of innovation. CI can "help anticipate needs by looking at leading industries and external forces affecting your customers" and "anticipate technologies by monitoring sources of disruption..."
"Innovation starts with intelligence." Competitive Intelligence can help companies manage risk by developing business cases when hard numbers are lacking. CI can be used to anticipate the drivers of innovation, adoption of new technology, competitors intentions, and it can provide inputs for project selection, execution, and review. CI "ensures that decision about innovative activities are based on the best available information."
Paap definitely understands the value of information and competitive intelligence. Seeing how CI informs innovation adds more value to the CI service and helps companies see the return on investment.
Last week Felix Salmon, a Reuters blogger writing for Wired Magazine’s Epicenter website, published a thorough and well-done article called For High Tech Companies Going Public Sucks. It investigates, with several examples, how the act of becoming publicly traded can consequentially destroy a high tech startup’s business model.
The story touches upon, among other things, the history of the IPO’s impact on high tech companies, why going public might be irrelevant to those companies that already have VC capital, and how conflicting interests from either VC or general-public investors results in a struggle for short-term profits over long-term best practices.
It ends on a positive note though, referencing potentially new SEC legislation that would change the tipping point at which a company would need to publicly sell its equity. This one’s definitely worth the read if you follow the industry. It almost makes me feel sorry for Mark Zuckerberg. Almost.
If you’re, oh say a VC firm, and therefore trying to stay- not just abreast but ahead- on the business frontier, then Trends Magazine is a good place to start. According to its About page, the Trends editorial staff of business experts, have a secret sauce of, among other things, “tips, inside information, privately distributed reports.” bizologie sure likes the sound of that!
The publication’s Economic Outlook reports take big-picture looks at primiarly our country, while its Research Library covers a range of relatively more focused topics like investments, nanotechnology, and energy. A couple of particularly tantalizing article titles include, “A New Trajectory for Moore’s Law” and “Solving the Global Water Crisis Moves Beyond the Technical Feasibility Stage”.
Of course only the introductory paragraphs are free, but we wouldn’t leave you bereft right after telling you all about the magazine. For those with limited pocketbooks, or perhaps those needing only the occasional article, the good news is that Trends is a current subscription in the Business Source Complete database, which as we have mentioned before, is likely freely accessible in your vicinity.
I use Investopedia regularly when I'm looking for definitions and formulas. They do an excellent job of explaining financial concepts in simple, understandable terms. But, Investopedia is more than just a dictionary. They are the experts in online financial education. The site offers news, calculators, and even a fantasy stock simulator. Their broad selection of tutorials covers everything from the basics of stock picking, and choosing between retirement plans, to real estate investment information like a condo-buying walk through. Now you can even find Investopedia videos on YouTube.
Here's a perfect example of how they can explain a confusing concept like Beta in just two minutes. Amazing combination of education and entertainment. That is hard to beat!
Since the wearing of the green is Saturday we had to reblog a post from our friends at Librarian Lifestyle on the cutest green fashions of the season. Happy St. Patrick's Day!
Have a big presentation coming up? Teaching a new class? Librarian Lifestyle has picked some of spring’s hottest looks that will make you look fabulous.
Not only will you stand out in the crowd with this jacket, this piece will look fantastic paired with spring’s other hot trends – gingham and stripes.
Gibson Linen One-Button Blazer $88
You're on the edge of your seat waiting for Ryan Seacrest to tell you who isn't going to be your next American Idol...right after these messages. Argh! But next thing you know, you're singing along with the commercial and wondering "Who's that band? What's this song?" In walks findthatsong. They do nothing but keep up with all the songs played in commercials. You can search their site by keyword if you know the song or band or product, but they also have a nifty little dropdown menu with the companies listed so you can click right through to someone like Apple or Volkswagen and see their most recent commercials and the songs attached. You'll see the artist, name of the song, a video of the commercial and a link right to iTunes to purchase the song if you like it. If you're my age (*cough* over 30? way over 30? *cough*), you probably remember feeling like a band "sold out" if they lent their song to a corporation (a.k.a. "the man"), but more recently, commercials have become a much more viable way for bands to get their music out there. Large radio stations have small, limited playlists so smaller bands have limited venues for promoting their music. And while you can fire up your Shazam app for this service as well, I find that I don't always have my smartphone ready in time to snag something from a 30 second commercial.
So, while you may not feel like the coolest kid on the block "discovering" new music from commercials, it's a pretty great service. I've recently fallen in love with the song Lowe's uses for their new service to store your paint colors:
Dearest darling GlobalData,
We adore you for devoting a bookmark-worthy Media Center to those of us who are perpetually jonesing for great industry news articles. You must have been following our blog entries like this one and this one, because you know that the best way to our hearts- ok actually probably the left hemisphere’s of our brains- is through freely available news and analysis.
You woo us not just with the standard page of Press Releases but also with an Expert Insights page covering categories like Alternative Energy and Medical Devices. Your headliner titles like, “Hydropower's Hold over Indian Renewables Market Set to Decline” make us all giddy and flustered with all that forecasting. And we love a company that is open to communication; email alerts for emergent research in our category of choice is such a turn-on.
Of course you might break up with us when you figure out that we librarians can’t afford to actually buy any of your full-length market research reports or take you up on one of those consultations, but there are plenty of fish in the sea.
Wouldn’t you know, watching the very smart movie Contagion last night would get me psyched to write this second installment on the CDC? This part deals with the National Center for Health Statistics, a CDC subset that works to, “compile statistical information to guide actions and policies to improve the health of our people. …Working with partners throughout the health community, we use a variety of approaches to efficiently obtain information from the sources most able to provide information” (About).
For someone trying to do business research through the NCHS website for the first time, be forewarned that these pages, understandably dense with information, have a nearly overwhelming barrage of links, terminology, and acronyms-that-all-sound-the-same. My advice is to acclimate to the site’s organization by starting at the beginning: use the left-side navigation menu to peruse the NCHS’s various Surveys and Data Collection Systems’s sub-pages on an individual basis to see which one might offer information that’s relevant to your research. If a particular survey sounds promising, then also stick to that left-menu’s Survey Results & Products link, or any comparable link, when they're available.
In this manner, I managed to drill down to a site that breaks the National Hospital Discharge Survey, one of the more exhaustive surveys, into spreadsheets of information based on popular aggregating factors. (Alas, I don't know if this url and my last link are persistent). For example, I downloaded a chart that gives me totals for “all listed procedures” from hospitals by category and age, meaning I see things like the number of appendectomies performed in the 15-44 age group. This type of information is great for those trying to compile a numerical justification for their newfangled product or pill.
Continuing my posts about search engines, there is a new site called FindThatFile. FindThatFile is a media file search engine. It locates media for you (documents, audio, video, etc). It has two flavors: edu.findthatfile.com specifically searching for library, education, and and government resources; and the broader www.findthatfile.com.
My first question is, why is this better than using Google tricks for limiting to file type and specific types of sites (filetype:ppt or site:gov)? I was skeptical that this new search engine would be different/better, but there are some features that make it worth checking out.
The site searches the web, FTP, upload services, torrents, emule and usenet. According to their About page, they "search more places than anyone else including 47 file types and 558+ file extensions including over 70 million domains. And, they "open each file, identify its author, title, contents, text extracts and all kinds of goodies that nobody else does."
FindThatFile also provides searching options to narrow your search by file type, date, and size. You can also sort your results by size, date, ratings, and sources. You can also get email alerts when new files are found based on your search. We Librarians do love the facets and alerts!
Business researchers are always looking for the numbers. We do love our charts, graphs, and tables. bizologie has shown you how to search Google for market research reports that might present that kind of information. Now there is Zanran, a new search engine that calls itself the Google for data.
"Zanran helps you to find ‘semi-structured’ data on the web... The numerical data that people have presented as graphs and tables and charts. For example, the data could be a graph in a PDF report, or a table in an Excel spreadsheet, or a barchart shown as an image in an HTML page."
Instead of a user searching for text on a page, Zanran searches the web for files that contain images with numerical content and the user searches that smaller universe. I love this idea. The only thing I see missing is searching for PowerPoint presentations. So much rich data can be mined from PPT files, it is a shame they are not included in the search. Zanran is still in Beta so maybe that will be added soon.
This search engine sounds similar to Wolfram Alpha. The difference is that Wolfram Alpha is looking to find the answer by analyzing the data, and Zanran presents a list of links that contain visual representations of numeric data that might answer the question. Zanran offers a hover over feature which allows you to see the PDF without waiting for the download. That save a ton of time when you are scanning a lot of documents. They also even pull out market research report links on the right. It still has a way to go, but this could be a great tool for competitive intelligence. Plus, you've got to love their office dog Freddie.
Happy Monday! We're starting out the week by revisiting a post on our Facebook page which deserves its proper due on our blog too. We all know that companies are researching us as much as we do them, but as Charles Duhigg's NYT article titled "How Companies Learn Your Secrets" explains in excruciating detail, the extent to which retailers like Target can hone in on select life events based on shifting purchasing habits is, well, fascinating.
We highly recommend devoting a solid 20 minutes of quality workload procrastination to reading the whole thing. Yes it's a bit long in parts, but stick with it through the obligatory rat-and-maze experiment because the case study on Febreze alone is worth the price of admission. Overall, depending on your metaporical empty-or-full-half-glass outlook when it comes to consumer psychology, you might come away a bit terrified, or you might want to try to cheat the system next time you buy groceries, or you might be jonesing to try that spiffy weight loss trick.
We’re lucky to live in a country where our government collects and disseminate scads of information for free, case in point, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Of course nothing is easy with our government, and the CDC website is no exception, mostly due to its sheer scale. So, having nothing better to do, being kind and selfless, I decided to spend some quality time frolicking through the CDC.gov realm in order to point out a couple highlights that are relevant to business researchers.
First and foremost, the Features -> Data & Statistics Page lends itself particularly well to background and/or market validation types of research. It has been going strong since 2007, and it covers a surprisingly wide array of topics concerning our health. Interested in opening up a recovery center? Check out the 2011 Painkiller Overdoses report. Selling hearing aids? Read the 2010 or 2011 Infant Hearing Loss report. Manufacturing air conditioners? See the 2009 Working in Hot Environments report.
These reports are presented in a format akin to the brief executive summary, with a sprinkling of impactful charts scattered among a handful of paragraphs (including citations). The bottom of the reports will also feature a series of links to related resources that might, depending on the institution, freely provide their own information too.
