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... to increase the value of information work in your organisation through improved skills.
Prezi: Set Your Presentations Free
Thursday, 13th June 2013
Prezi is rapidly gaining in popularity as a free web-based presentation tool offering a very different way to develop and present information. Yulia Aspinall examines what makes this tool popular, what it offers that PowerPoint doesn't, and how Prezi can give presenters' ideas and stories additional impact, greater memorability and lead to better audience clarity.
[ Full article ]
Posted in:
Collaborative and social tools
- Internal communications
- PR and external communications
- Visualisation
BYOD... Saving Money, But At What Cost?
Monday, 10th June 2013
Several FreePint editors, including myself, have written articles recently about how the idea of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) is changing the corporate IT landscape. BYOD provides many opportunities for companies including potential cost savings, but is there a downside to BYOD that we're only now seeing? How can companies COPE?
[ Full article ]
Posted in:
Information strategy
- Mobile
Good Guy, Bad Guy - Privacy Spells Opportunity
Wednesday, 5th June 2013
As Bloomberg continues its damage limitation exercise following use of customer data by some of its journalists, two commentators appear to take opposing views on the future of privacy. But whether you believe cyber-privacy is now a lost cause or should be pursued with increasing vigour, recent developments suggest that there are plenty of opportunities for info pros to seize - in both analytics and regulatory compliance.
[ Full article ]
Posted in:
Collaborative and social tools
- Regulatory compliance
- Competitive intelligence
- Social media sources
Newsle - Tells You When Your Friends Make News
Friday, 31st May 2013
Newsle, the news discovery tool likened to Google Alerts for news on your contacts, has this week received $1.65 million in venture capital and is set for expansion. What sets Newsle apart from the myriad of aggregators specialising in what your "friends" are up to, is the fact that it crawls the web for news from reputable sources only. It does not monitor news distributed by Facebook, Twitter and the like, giving the service a degree of credibility.
[ Full article ]
Posted in:
PR and external communications
- Media monitoring
- News sources
- People sources
- Search
- Social media sources
Could You Use Social Media Tools for Internal Communications?
Monday, 27th May 2013
Traditional forms of internal communications have been developing slowly but surely over the last few years. Now with the increased use of social media both internally and externally, organisations are looking at whether social media tools, especially enterprise social networks such as Yammer, Jive and Chatter can be used to facilitate internal communications.
[ Full article ]
Posted in:
Collaborative and social tools
- Internal communications
- Intranets
Moving from an Info Pro To a Big Data Career: Big Deal or Big Headache?
Wednesday, 22nd May 2013
As studies show a shortage of big data experts and an estimated 4 million roles in the sector predicted by 2018, Victor Camlek considers what big data jobs are likely to involve and which attributes and skills are required of information professionals considering a move into the world of big data.
[ Full article ]
Posted in:
Information strategy
- Training
Encouraging Collaboration Within Law Firms
Friday, 17th May 2013
Failure, that's a horrible word to use at the start of an article. But that's essentially what this article is going to be about and, more specifically, why (some say) internal collaboration tools within law firms are doomed to fail. However, failure can also be useful in understanding how tools such as intranets, or collaboration tools like Confluence, are used and what could drive future projects to success.
[ Full article ]
Posted in:
Collaborative and social tools
- Knowledge management
- Intranets
Taxpayer-Funded Research - Cheaper but Trickier?
Wednesday, 15th May 2013
Research Councils UK in Britain, and the Office of Science & Technology in the United States, have each instructed bodies that use taxpayers' money to fund research to start making all that research available free to users. This follows the Affordable Subscriptions for Periodicals campaign originally launched by Research Libraries UK and a new study published on ArXiv which concludes that the future of "elite" academic journal publishers may be doubt. More open access could mean a substantial reduction in costs for information professionals charged with acquiring research, but may also leave them with the challenge of deciding what's worth having.
[ Full article ]
Posted in:
Research
- Government sources
- Scientific, technical, medical sources
Do Intranets Really Need to be Social?
Tuesday, 14th May 2013
Social intranets have promised a lot but they have to some extent failed to deliver on this promise - so are social features such as activity streams, profiles and forums really necessary for internal communication? James Mullan reviews what you need to consider when planning to implement social tools on an intranet.
[ Full article ]
Posted in:
Collaborative and social tools
- Intranets
Gleaning Competitive Intelligence from Crowdfunding
Tuesday, 14th May 2013
With the US JOBS Act opening up the crowdfunding market to venture capital in the US, the business world has taken notice of the new market. This article suggests that crowdfunding platforms (based on the combination of crowdsourcing and microfinance) offer access to open source market data - ready to be mined by information professionals.
[ Full article ]
Posted in:
Research
- Company sources
- Competitive intelligence
- Financial sources
- Social media sources
Credit Where Credit Is Due
Tuesday, 7th May 2013
In contrast to investment ratings agencies such as Standard & Poors, consumer credit reporting services get a relatively clean bill of health, according to a report by the United States Policy & Economic Research Council (PERC) which compares its own assessment with another by the Federal Trade Commission. However, the low percentage of errors could still amount to a lot of missed business opportunities considering the number of credit subjects involved – a situation quite likely exacerbated by findings from FindLaw showing that over 20% of Americans have never bothered to check their credit scores for accuracy.
[ Full article ]
Posted in:
Regulatory compliance
- Company sources
- Financial sources
- People sources
IMS Acquires Semantelli, a Potential Big Data Booster Shot
Tuesday, 7th May 2013
Supplier of pharmaceutical trending information, IMS Health, has acquired social media analytics firm Semantelli. Victor Camlek examines the possibilities for big data analytics from the deal and the likely benefits for IMS customers.
[ Full article ]
Posted in:
Research
- Company sources
- Competitive intelligence
- Scientific, technical, medical sources
- Social media sources
Is It Time to Give Google+ Another Go?
Monday, 6th May 2013
There are still a lot of misconceptions about what Google+ is and how it can be used. James Mullan asks whether it is time to give Google+ another go and explores facets such as Communities, Circles and Sparks and how they can be used in a professional context. He also looks into the way that Google+ lends itself to smartphone and iPad use.
[ Full article ]
Posted in:
Collaborative and social tools
- People sources
- Social media sources
Competitive Intelligence: Deciphering Corporate Strategy using Secondary Sources
Wednesday, 1st May 2013
As part of FreePint’s series of articles on competitive intelligence focused on helping information professionals gain a competitive advantage over technology, Milan Dalal of the Brook Intelligence Centre explains how piecing together the clues contained within secondary sources can surface a company’s strategy. He details why there is an increasing need for this type of analysis, the sources to consider, and how to critically evaluate them. He also demonstrates how your opinions can add value to the process.
[ Full article ]
Posted in:
Research
- Company sources
- Competitive intelligence
- Financial sources
- Market sources
- News sources
Has LinkedIn Got its Finger on the Pulse of its Contacts?
Wednesday, 1st May 2013
There have been a number of very interesting announcements from LinkedIn recently. Amongst these was their purchase of Pulse, a newsreader application that aggregates news sources. How will this acquisition and other announcements such as the new LinkedIn Contacts App enhance our LinkedIn experience?
[ Full article ]
Posted in:
Collaborative and social tools
- Mobile
- News sources
- People sources
- Search
- Social media sources
Infographics: The "At a Glance" Research Source
Tuesday, 30th April 2013
One might think incorporating non-text sources into a research strategy of any sort would be almost a given considering the large amount of visual data available both online and in print but it does remain a neglected area. Infographics can be a valuable source for identifying and visualising trends, obtaining a quick picture of a situation, determining a starting point for research and much more. Jan Knight also highlights some of the popular tools for creating your own infographics.
[ Full article ]
Posted in:
PR and external communications
- Research
- Competitive intelligence
- Non-text sources
- Search
- Visualisation
Whistleblowing - Are You Getting the Help You Need?
Monday, 29th April 2013
Reportedly there is now unprecedented awareness of anti-corruption regulation but the UK fraud prevention service finds that the incidence of whistleblowing is still exceptionally low. Perhaps the current staff oversight model is broken; maybe information companies may face special challenges in dealing with internal corruption? Meanwhile consultation is underway on ways to better protect whistleblowers. This could present opportunities for information professionals to have their say and cement their place in their organisation’s risk and compliance function.
[ Full article ]
Posted in:
Information strategy
- Internal communications
- Regulatory compliance
- Compliance tools
The Inexorable Rise of Social Knowledge Management
Friday, 26th April 2013
One of the biggest challenges faced by information professionals is getting the right information to the right people at the right time. Whilst traditional knowledge management techniques have worked for many years, we're beginning to see a new trend: the use of Social KM techniques. James Mullan asks why social is so important and questions how employers can encourage staff to share information in the legal sector and elsewhere.
[ Full article ]
Posted in:
Collaborative and social tools
- Information services management
- Knowledge management
- Intranets
- Legal sources
- Social media sources
Social Media Disclosure Means More Headaches for Info Pros
Wednesday, 24th April 2013
The United States Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) has ruled that companies may use social media to disclose company information so long as investors know to look for it there. But, despite services like Thomson Reuters’ Accelus Disclosure Solutions, there’s always the risk of unauthorised premature announcements. Pressure from Ovum on European banks to improve their social media presence, and new UK rules on directors’ remuneration reporting, could also complicate the situation – not to mention findings from Pew that social media comment may not even be representative of opinion generally.
[ Full article ]
Posted in:
Collaborative and social tools
- Information strategy
- PR and external communications
- Regulatory compliance
- Company sources
- Financial sources
- Social media sources
The Importance of Knowledge Management and KM roles
Wednesday, 24th April 2013
In an organisation that has been using knowledge management for a while there are likely to be several roles that facilitate the creation and dissemination of knowledge, identify the KM strategy, choose the KM tools, help users make the most of the KM system, and much more. The question is, "Why are these roles so important?" James Mullan explores KM in organisations and identifies key roles and responsibilities.
[ Full article ]
Posted in:
Collaborative and social tools
- Information strategy
- Knowledge management
- Research
- Intranets
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