Work harder to spend less
Jinfo Blog

15th July 2008

By Tim Buckley Owen

Item

‘Is “good enough” good enough?’ we’ve mused in the past http://www.vivavip.com/go/e4840. Now Outsell has tackled the same question in the latest of its Information Management Under Fire briefings (details at http://www.outsellinc.com/store/products/743 – price $795). ‘When information professionals... talk about the “best” source... they typically mean the highest quality, broadest scope of coverage, most timely products with sophisticated delivery platforms featuring lots of bells and whistles,’ Outsell believes. But it proposes a different definition of ‘best’ that includes ‘cost-to-value balance and a mindset that seeks out the lowest price option that will get the job done’. Reviewing low or no cost sources in news, legal, scientific/technical/medical, market research and company & financial information, the briefing wisely warns that ‘the irony of working to a good enough standard is that it requires additional due diligence to spend less money’. It also points out that end users are already on the ‘good enough’ bandwagon, and advises intermediaries to make sure they understand their user needs in detail. So what might constitute ‘good enough’? As one recent instance, Shirl Kennedy, editor of ResourceShelf (part of the FreePint family) offered half a dozen examples of niche statistics from authoritative US sources covering subjects as diverse as inter-country adoption and the wedding industry (http://digbig.com/4xehk). You could also consider investing in (gasp!) print copies of Euromonitor’s World Directory of Non-Official Statistical Sources – details at http://digbig.com/4xehm – or David Mort’s Sources of Non-Official UK Statistics, published by Gower – http://digbig.com/4xehn. They’re both a couple of years old – but the sources they cite don’t change that quickly so their age is no great problem. Inevitably, social networking is another potential source of good enough information, from your professional peers this time – but it seems it has yet to take off. New findings from Gartner http://digbig.com/4xehp suggest that the business potential of social networking remains largely untapped as yet. This view is reinforced by the 2008 Networks for Counsel survey, commissioned from the consultancy Leader Networks by LexisNexis http://www.lexisnexis.com/about/releases/1078.asp. It does find growth in online networking among legal professionals; however, although more than 40% are interested in joining a network designed especially for them, fewer than 10% feel they can rely on their current network to help them work more cost effectively. Then there’s always the old standby – free company reports. However, if you go down this route, the Economist warns, you may simply get what you pay for. ‘Remove the useful bits from annual reports – the accounts – and you are mainly left with a queasy stew of executive portraits and corporate mission statements,’ it declares. To be fair, it is talking specifically about private equity reports http://digbig.com/4xehq – but the malaise it describes is widespread. That due diligence really does matter.

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