Social Media – Navigating the Maze

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Social Media – Navigating the Maze

Everyone by now has heard of Web 2.0.  It represents a shift from read only information on static websites to the sharing of user generated content.   It incorporates a dizzying array of applications and tools.   What exactly is it all about?

It is helpful to group the tools into broad categories according to function. 

Social Networking sites give you the opportunity to connect with others – friends, people with similar interests, potential customers – and to grow your connections.  Three top sites, in terms of both profile and user numbers are Facebook,  Twitter, and  LinkedIn.   LinkedIn was created specifically for professional networking, and remains the premier business oriented site.  However, Facebook via its “page” feature and Twitter are becoming increasingly important for business promotion. 

Social Bookmarking sites (such as del.icio.us, Furl, and Reddit) allow you to organize your favorite sites, tag them for keywords, and keep them all in one place.  You also have the ability to share them with others.   Feel free to look at my own del.icio.us bookmarks – I save lots of useful research tools.  Taking the concept one step further, Social Recommendation sites encourage users to submit items they like and give others the opportunity to vote on them.  Digg, StumbleUpon, and Yahoo Buzz fall into this category.

Social Content sites include YouTube (video), Flickr (photos), and SlideShare (presentations), to name a few. Users create and manage the content, generally making it available for public use.  This group also includes Wikis – collaborative websites that can be directly edited by anyone with access to them

Blogs - a blend of the words “web log” – are a type of web site or part of a website. They are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material.  Most blogs are interactive, allowing visitors to leave comments and even messages for each other via widgets on the blogs.  The material you are currently reading is in blog format.

Groups, forums, message boards, chat rooms were Web 1.0 vintage networking vehicles, but still host a huge volume of online conversations.  Each provides a venue for communities of users with a common interest to share thoughts and information.   They vary on such measures as real time versus post, free or fee, and requirements for moderator approval of posts. 

You can use a tweet to inform followers of a blog post that is also available through LinkedIn or a Facebook page, and save it to a bookmarking site for future reference.  It’s all interconnected!

Fifth in a series

Search Engines – Beyond Google

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Search Engines – Beyond Google

When looking for information, do you consider which search engine to use?  You’re probably familiar with Google, Bing, and Yahoo, but there are thousands of others.  Each will yield different results – it may be productive to have several in your toolkit. 

How do search engines work?  They are powered by “bots” that actively crawl for keywords and meta description in files located on the Internet.  When you type in a keyword, the generated results are from the latest search that is stored in the search engine’s data base.

New search engines are launched virtually every day, each with slightly different features.  Some specialize in searching the “deep web”, information that conventional search engines cannot index either because it is password protected or dynamically generated by directly querying the data base.  Others take a “semantic” approach, interpreting the meaning of a query rather than relying strictly on keywords and algorisms.  Some are “aggregators”, combining results from multiple search engines.  Some “cluster” the results, grouping them in relevant categories, making it easy to hone in on your desired nuance.  Another group focuses on a particular category of content, defined either by type of media (social, image, audio, video) or subject matter (people, news, business, science).   There is a lot of overlap between categories.

Google is my preferred general purpose search engine, mainly because it is one step ahead of the other big guys in introducing new concepts.  But there are others I use on a regular basis, depending on the task at hand.  Here are a few. (The numerous social media tools will be covered in a future post.)

Pipl is a deep web search engine focusing on, as it sounds, people.  I just pulled up my exact date of birth, my master’s thesis, and other documents from years ago.  It is often useful for sorting through individuals with similar names.

Biznar is another deep web engine focusing strictly on business related information, returning the most relevant results from over 60 authoritative collections.  Results are grouped into clusters, such as topic, author, publication or date.   

Silobreaker focuses on news and current affairs, aggregating news, blogs, research, audio, video and other digital media content.  The “trends” feature tracks buzz around a topic, and the “network” tab maps out the relationship between related people and companies, often leading to interesting threads for additional research. 

Wolfram Alpha is an interesting product, describing itself as a “computational search engine”.  It focuses heavily on scientific material, but is constantly adding business oriented content, U.S. retail sales for example.   Its power is analyzing and packaging content.  Although it frequently tells me it doesn’t understand my question, it is a gold mine when it has the information. 

Click here for a list of many, many more!

Fourth in a series

Google – Are You Using All the Features?

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Google – Are You Using All the Features?

Have you looked beyond the Google search box lately?  Explored past the header categories, to the “more”, and the “even more” pulldowns?  Google is continually adding features to make it easier to find what you are looking for on the internet. 

This is why the company hosts the world’s most popular search engine.  According to The Nielson Co., Google has a 65.1% market share, while Bing has moved into second place (13.9%), followed by Yahoo (13.1%).  Google is my search engine of choice for all purpose research.  And depending on the task, I often make use of its advanced features. 

Google has options to narrow your search by media type (images, video) or content type (news, blogs, products).  You can also specify the time frame (the latest, or within the past day, week, month or year).  It provides market summaries and time lines of trending topics.   Here are some other research tools:

Maps.  In addition to directions, Maps offers traffic info, web cam footage, bike routes, real estate listings, and more.  I use the “street view” to check out businesses and locations of interest.  (Drag the little yellow figure on top of the zoom bar into the map.)

Books.  You can view a search term and a few lines of context within a number of (but not all) books.  This is often sufficient information to answer a question, or to determine whether a book is relevant for purchase.  Related books are also suggested.

Scholar.  From one place, you can search across many disciplines and sources for scholarly literature: articles, theses, books, abstracts and court opinions.  Sources include academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities and other web sites.  However, only a portion of the content is freely available. 

Patents.  Google and USPTO have entered into an agreement to make bulk patent and trademark information available to the public at no charge. The listing includes over 7 million entries.

Translate.  This free service provides instant translations of words, sentences and web pages between any of 57 supported languages.

Labs.  This is Google’s experimental area.  It features some nifty tools that are not quite ready for prime time. 

Wonder Wheel.  Search terms related to the current query  are presented in a graphic display, providing additional relevant keywords and thus more options to gain information.

Third in a series

Search the Internet Like a Pro – Part II

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Search the Internet Like a Pro – Part II

An earlier blog presented basic pointers on effectively searching the internet.  Here are some additional tips to get you quickly to the content you need, using various “operators” in the search field.

Site Specific Search.  You can search a specific website for content that matches a certain term even if the site doesn’t have a built-in search feature.   (And often a search box leads to press releases rather than site content.)  Simply add the site: operator followed by the site’s domain name to your query.  To quickly locate references to biomass on Department of Energy’s website, use the following query.  (biomass site:energy.gov)

Domain Specific Search.  The site: operator can also be used creatively to narrow search results.  For example, my initial search for “solar panel” returned a lot of commercial sites wanting to sell me a system.   When I used the example query to exclude .com domains, most of the results were non-profits with an “org” extension.  (“solar panel” -site:.com)

Specific Document Types.  If you want to find results that are of a specific type, you can use the operator “filetype:“.  Virtually every extension is searchable in Google.  For example, you might be looking for presentations related to geothermal technology.  I found 58 using the following query.  (“geothermal technology” filetype:ppt)

Word Definitions.   If you need to quickly look up the definition of a word or phrase, simply use the “define:” command.  Results will be returned from on-line glossaries, as well as a list of related terms.  (define:photovoltaic)

Similar Sites.  Use the related: operator to find pages that are similar to a specified site.  Just follow the command with a web address.  (related:altenergy.org)

Location of Words within Web Sites.   A cluster of operators will let you target precisely where on a site the words of interest appear.  They include intitle:, inurl:, intext;, and inanchor: (for links to the page).  These useful in relatively specific circumstances, but can be powerful.  Just follow the operator with the query term.  (inurl:geothermal)

You should be a pro by now!

Second in  series

Search the Internet Like A Pro – Part I

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Search the Internet Like A Pro – Part I

Are you frustrated by not quickly finding what you need on the Internet?  Do you type a few words into Google and hit search?  Then try another couple of words after scrolling through pages of results that don’t answer your question?   Here are some tips to target and streamline your searches. 

Exact Phrase.  Let’s say you are looking for material on renewable energy.  Instead of just typing renewable energy into the Google search box, you might be better off searching explicitly for the phrase.  To do this, simply place the search phrase within double quotes.  (“renewable energy”)

Multiple Words.  The more specifically you can define the concept, the better.  Google allows up to ten words in a search, not counting “stop” words like the and a.  Use them.  This query would target information on the latest developments in renewable energy in this country.  (“renewable energy” trends “United States”)

Exclude Words.  Google lets you exclude words from a search by using the minus (“-“) sign.  (While the corollary inclusive plus (+) function is available, it is not frequently needed in Google.)   The sign is placed before the word, with no intervening space.  The following example would eliminate references to solar energy. (“renewable energy” -solar)  

This OR That.  By default, Google will include all the terms specified in the search.  If you only want one of multiple words to match, use the OR operator.  The OR must be capitalized. This is helpful when a concept is commonly referred to by different terms.  (“renewable energy” OR “sustainable energy”)

Fill in the Blanks.  The wild card – * – can be quite powerful.   It tells Google to try to treat the star as a placeholder for any unknown term(s) and then find the best matches.  (* is the most cost effective renewable energy)

These concepts can be combined to create extremely targeted queries.  Be sure to watch the syntax.  Note also that these tips are Google specific – functionality may differ in other search engines.  Happy searching!

First in a series

The Model City of the 21st Century

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The Model City of the 21st Century

Yesterday I attended a thought provoking conference sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation and Tulane University – New Orleans as the Model City for the 21st Century: New Concepts of Urban Innovation.  Amy Liu, Deputy Director of the Brookings Institution, made a keynote presentation. 

She identified three factors essential for model cities in the modern era.  The first is prosperity, manifested in a variety of measures including productivity, inclusiveness, and environmental sustainability.  Second is resilience, or the ability to bounce back from adversity.   A city must shore up the factors that let you bounce – innovation, human capacity, infrastructure, and amenities that lead to a desirable quality of life.  Underlying all of these is good governance.  The third essential ingredient is the ability to move to the next economy.   The future economy will entail a new growth model, as it is becoming increasingly apparent that the force that brought us out of previous economic slumps – domestic consumption – will not be our answer this time.   

Two key sectors were identified.  We must tap into consumer demand outside of the United States, rebalancing the economy to be more export oriented and less consumptive.  Exports represent a tremendous opportunity for small and medium size businesses, which now represent only a tiny percentage of our international trade.  Moreover, jobs in logistics and trade are high paying in relation to many other industries.  Secondly, we must move toward a low carbon economy, taking advantage of changes already underway in the energy sector.  The demand for green products and a sustainable environment can generate activity in many areas – finance, higher education, science/engineering, and entrepreneurship. 

New Orleans has strategic strengths to build upon, and a post Katrina spirit to make us a model city.

Tech Tools for Working Smarter

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Tech Tools for Working Smarter

Working smart is essential to the success of a small business. Incorporating a variety of technical tools can more than replace clerical support.

Meeting scheduler. Setting up a multi person meeting via e-mail can be extremely frustrating. An on-line scheduling service such as Doodle makes it a snap. Indicate possible meeting times on the tool, e-mail to participants, and their color coded availability responses highlight the best date. Doodle also works for simple polls.

Web conferencing. Save time and money by meeting over the web rather than in person. DimDim is the product I use. It offers audio, video, screen sharing, and whiteboard functionality, with no software installation. The VoIP platform eliminates phone charges. Best of all, it’s free for up to five participants. Customizable pro and webinar versions are also available.

Organization. Tired of hunting for the notes from the last meeting? Evernote offers a tool for capturing information in one place– documents, scans, web pages, photos, screen shots. Everything is processed, indexed, and made searchable, even handwriting. You can add tags or group into notebooks for customized organization. Notes are searchable from anywhere, with apps for mobile devices.

No excuses!

Google Public Data Explorer

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Google Public Data Explorer

Compiling commonly used government statistics can be a tedious process.   I was excited to discover a new Google product that makes it a snap…Google Public Data Explorer.  http://www.google.com/publicdata/home  The application is still in Google Labs, their playground for products under development, but it shows real promise.  Data sets are limited at this point, but new choices are being added.

Guided by the most frequent queries for information of this type, Google tapped into statistics from agencies including the World Bank, Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Bureau of Economic Analysis, and Centers for Disease Control.   Featured are a variety of metrics relating to population, employment, GDP and personal income, world development indicators, cancer rates, and others.  Most can be broken down into subsets for further analysis. 

Here is the result of a query comparing the trend in unemployment for the metro New Orleans area to the nation as a whole.  http://bit.ly/av4WH4   Creating the entire graph required less than a minute, including adjustments to the time period displayed.  Note the Katrina related spike. 

This example shows how various states compare on cancer rates:   http://bit.ly/9bW64j  I had no idea that Maine led the nation!

The tool has nice features.  Data may be displayed as a line graph, bar chart, map, or bubble diagram.  There is the option to export for incorporation into a web site or e-mail.  (Although WordPress does not support the snippet currently generated; hence the links above.)  And if desired, the saved query automatically updates as new data is added.

Forbes' Best Places for Business and Careers

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Forbes’ Best Places for Business and Careers

Forbes just released another ranking, The Best Places for Business and Careers.  New Orleans rated very poorly, coming in at #190 out of 200 large metro areas.  While a low ranking is cause for concern in the economic development community, many seem to disagree with the assessment.  New Orleans has become a hub of entrepreneurial activity.  Educated, engaged young professionals are drawn to the city by the desire to make a difference. 

How was this list derived? As Forbes explains, “we ranked areas on 12 metrics including costs (business and living), job growth (past and projected), income growth, educational attainment and projected economic growth.  We also factored in quality-of-life issues like crime, cultural and recreational opportunities as well as net migration patterns. Lastly we examined the percentage of subprime mortgages handed out over a three-year stretch and the number of highly ranked four-year colleges in the area, per our annual college rankings.” While the exact methodology is not explained, metro rankings are presented on each of three scales, cost of doing business, job growth, and educational attainment. 

New Orleans didn’t rate too poorly on the Cost of Doing Business, an index based on the cost of labor, energy, taxes, and office space.   According to Sperling’s Best Places, our overall cost of living index (which covers overlapping variables) is 91, or 9% lower than the national average.

We ranked much lower, 137th, on Projected Job Growth, based on 3 year annualized figures.  It is not possible to examine the data, which is attributed to Moody’s Economy.com, a proprietary source. This ranking seems a bit curious, given that New Orleans is perceived to be riding out the recession better than most places, largely due to post hurricane spending. 

Lower still is Educational Attainment, defined as the share of the population over 25 with a bachelor’s degree or higher.  We ranked 147th.  There is no arguing with the stats here – only 23.5% of our adult population has a college degree compared to 27.7% nationwide. 

As for the other variables, crime likely cancelled out any plusses derived from our culture, in-migration, or dearth of subprime lending.  We had 3 universities listed in Forbes’ top 600 – Tulane (168th), Loyola (280th) and Dillard (494th).    

Let’s keep promoting the non-statistical stories that highlight our positive trends!

Free Company Information

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Free Company Information

I’m often asked about free sources of company information.  Does no cost data exist?  The answer is yes – up to a point.

Basic company information can be obtained through several web based sources. Searchable by name, geography, or industry Hoover’s provides profiles for larger businesses, both US and international.   ZoomInfo offers similar data via a quick search by company name.  If you are looking for information on a small business, Manta can be useful, with 64 million listings across the globe.  For publicly traded companies, Corporate Information has company snapshots and investment quality ratings.

Other sites can be useful for finding suppliers by industry.  Kompass and Alibaba have an international focus, and are searchable by name, industry, and geography.  Business.com and AllBusiness offer industry based company listings, as well as a wealth of other information.  For industrial companies, Thomas Register and MacRae’s Bluebook are helpful. 

Don’t overlook the public library!  Many libraries subscribe to ReferenceUSA, a company data base including over 14 million U.S. businesses.  RefUSA is searchable by name, SIC or NAICS code, geography, business size, and other categories.  It provides data generally found in company data bases, including company profile, top executives, products/services, number of employees, and estimated sales.  It also contains a credit rating score and UCC filings (property pledged as collateral to creditors).  Searches may be downloaded, but there is a limit on the number of records.

A wealth of information can be found on publicly traded companies.  Their mandatory filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission can be found on EDGAR.  Annual reports also contain great data, and are available via AnnualReports.com or Public Register OnLine. 

Also check corporate registrations; the Secretary of State generally houses this data.  Louisiana has an easily searchable listing – LA Corporations DataBase.  And don’t forget to review the company’s own website. 

Unfortunately, more sophisticated information – credit reports, expert analyses – is not available for free.   Many “free” sources encourage you to purchase in-depth data.  Fair enough.