Whence come our information and opportunities?
Jinfo Blog

By Scott Brown

Abstract

Shifts in information sources and needs illustrate an ongoing challenge for information professionals and managers. Watching for new and emerging information sources and for opportunity is not nearly as clear-cut as it used to be.

Item

Tim Buckley Owen writes about the seeming paradox of a slumping job market and the growth of recruitment initiatives. Tim looks particularly at dismal employment figures in the financial sector, and contrasts that with Financial Times launching FT Jobs and LinkedIn expanding its Recruiter service to France.

What’s going on here?

Tim’s article, and the other pieces in this edition, got me thinking about a shift in information sources and needs – a shift that has been going on for a while, but which seems to be coming to the forefront again. Africa Hands and Robin Neidorf, in the FreePint Report: Review of The Big Free Three for News, discuss Bing News, Google News and Yahoo! News. They recognize the widespread use of these free news sources, and the potentially weighty implications of using these within the organisation. Think “free” means “free of care and worry”? You better think again. This review provides some important considerations for internal use of these sources.

In other shifts, social media continues to grow as a news source and a search destination. Perrin Kerravala’s review of FirstRain further highlights the importance of social information in our mix of information sources – good social information, delivered via features like FirstTweets. The FreePint Report: Product Review of FirstRain provides an updated look at the newest features available (last reviewed in August 2011).

Resources continue to emerge as well. Tim Reynolds writes about US government sources (like Science.gov) that aggregate information across scores of sources, creating new ways to search for information, and providing access to unique content generated by some of the most advanced research labs in the US. Finally, Tim Buckley Owen comments on Bloomberg and Thomson Reuters announcements of new indices to track Sukuk financial markets in the Islamic world. This type of information simply hasn’t been widely and readily available to this point – yet it’s exactly these types of markets that are emerging, and exactly this type of information that will be critical going forward.

These shifts illustrate the challenge for information professionals and managers everywhere. Watching for sources and for opportunity is not nearly as clear-cut as it used to be. We hope that FreePint’s writers and reviewers help you to identify those sources and opportunities more easily.

As always, I welcome your input!

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