Subscription Update - What's New and What's Coming
Jinfo Blog

By Catherine Dhanjal

Abstract

Find out what's new and upcoming in FreePint's Content, Community, and Consulting - including reviews on key news products, and articles on FreePint's research into news needs and preferences, a preview of our next FreePint Topic Series: Making Information Visible, and an update on FreePint's Community of Practice and consulting services.

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Content (Articles, Reports and Webinars)

The need for news is a constant in organisations, but every organisation takes a different approach to sourcing, delivering and valuing news content. As we start to wrap up the FreePint Topic Series: News, and Beyond, you'll find plenty of current content to answer your questions about news:

• Overview of specialist news sources for the pharma sector and the legal industry

• Detailed analysis from FreePint's seventh annual survey on news needs and preferences - introduction here, with links to chapters on purchase criteria, preferred suppliers, use of free resources and more

• In-depth review of market leading supplier, Factiva - introduction here, with links to chapters on Sources, Technology and Value

• In-depth review of niche supplier, BBC Monitoring Online - introduction here, with links to chapters on Sources, Technology and Value.

We also ran the FreePint Webinar "Right Suppliers, Right Needs", on the competitive landscape in the news sector. If you missed the session you can request access to the recorded version here.

News content isn't the only type of information that's consistently required across industries; company information also frequently falls into that category. Our reviewer takes a close look at suppliers of company information:

• In-depth review of Mergent Online - introduction here, with links to chapters on Sources, Technology and Value

• Product update on Orbis from Bureau van Dijk.

Preview of January 2015: Making Information Visible

We're excited about the development of the next FreePint Topic Series: Making Information Visible, which will run from January through March 2015. Watch for more detailed updates, and register your interest in this series to get notified about content, webinars and Communities of Practice in this series, plus receive special reports.

Co-producer of the series, James Mullan, will be a familiar byline to many, as he writes regularly for FreePint about intranets, collaboration and knowledge management. His most recent article asks if SharePoint is still relevant in today's organisations.

Community

We ran Communities of Practice (CoP) sessions on understanding the value proposition of investment in "current awareness" sources, tools and processes. Participants in the CoP worked through tools to articulate the criteria and objectives of current awareness initiatives, and then calculate a value equation that they can manage and that makes sense for their organisations. 

On 18th December, we're running a similar session on options for in-depth research using news content. The full description and registration options can be found here.

As we prepare the Making Information Visible Topic Series, we are developing CoPs that enable information managers to work together and share ideas on what "visibility" means in their organisations, and how they can make progress on improving the way that users find content.

Consulting

We've just launched a new consulting project with a customer looking to make 2015 the year they change the nature of organisational discussion about what "value" means. The first phase of the project involves a series of three web-based meetings with the information staff, to discuss:

• Stakeholders
• Objectives around information acquisition and usage
• Data collection
• Communication plans.

In between each session, the staff are completing and discussing worksheets that help them document these concepts so that they can create plans for development.

This initial process will be complete by the end of February, at which point the staff will have a practical action plan. Check-in and coaching calls over the next few months will keep them on track.

It's exciting to help information professionals rethink their position at the very strategic centre of their organisations and take the lead in defining "value". Best of all, this project takes only six hours of consulting time - already included in their FreePint Subscription at the Consulting level.

Editor's Note

Find out more about a FreePint Subscription, which at the Content level gives access to all FreePint articles, reports and webinars, at the Community level gives access to all FreePint Communities of Practice (as well as all FreePint Content), and at the Consulting level adds a credit for up to six hours of annual consulting time. Find out more.

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