My Favourite Tipples from a business analytics professional
Jinfo Blog

By Denise Carter

Abstract

My Favourite Tipples are shared by Denise Carter, owner of DCision Consult, a competitive intelligence & business analytics service provider to the pharmaceutical & biotechnology industries. She shares her favourite online resources in areas from mind mapping to data visualisation.

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As a researcher working across competitive intelligence and knowledge analytics in the biopharmaceutical field, I need tools that can save me time in managing my client projects. The more time I can devote to searching for data and then analysing the results and putting together all the pieces so that I can deliver the best answers to my clients' questions, the better!

• ReadCube: I came across ReadCube whilst doing some initial information gathering for one of the first projects I had when I started DCision Consult and I found it incredibly user-friendly.
  
  It can be downloaded and used for free, although I do pay the small annual premium charge so that I can share my documents across my different devices. I particularly like the features where I can upload PDFs directly from my computer, or add a reference directly from PubMed. I also appreciate that I can organise by folders and sub-folders and have one reference in multiple folders. I use ReadCube almost daily to organise my secondary information resources for individual projects and add annotations.

• Easel.ly: I love visualising data. I've used Easel.ly to create a number of infographics and I find it very straightforward to use, both using templates or just going freestyle, plus it's easy to export the finished documents. And it's free!

• MindNode: When I'm thinking through a large project or a complex topic I love using a mind mapping tool to break down the project or subject into more manageable chunks. I picked this one as it was free for Mac. It's not super sophisticated but it is quick and simple to use and has enough basic features for my needs, including a few export options.

• theSkimm: An American client forwarded this, primarily as a style example of a quick news email alert that had some personality. Most days if I have time, I do "skim" through it. It does have its own style but it is generally an informative and well-summarised selection of the top stories of the past 24 hours. There is a US focus but it covers world events too.  

 For fun:

• The Arts Desk: I make no apologies for being a huge TV addict. There is nothing I love more than watching a good detective drama, especially a Nordic Noir or three. I series link everything on BBC Four at 9pm on a Saturday.
  
  When I'm not watching TV I love reading TV reviews - amongst my favourites are those of The Arts Desk. It's free but I do pay the optional small annual fee to support their journalists. The Arts Desk covers much more than TV though and their music, comedy and theatre reviews help me keep up-to-date with the cultural scene in the UK.

An article in Jinfo which I found particularly interesting: 

• "Librarians and data scientists - rivals, replacements or reciprocal relationship?" Amy Affelt's article was a very insightful look into the name versus the skills debate, and how information professionals need to become much better at selling their many and diverse skills that have so much value in today's information economy.  

Contribute Your "My Favourite Tipples"

Would you like to share your "My Favourite Tipples" with the Jinfo audience? For contributor guidelines email catherine.dhanjal@jinfo.com or visit the Publish with Jinfo page.

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