Newsletter No. 124
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Free Pint
"Helping 53,000 people use the Web for their work"
http://www.freepint.com/
ISSN 1460-7239 31st October 2002 No.124
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IN THIS ISSUE
EDITORIAL
MY FAVOURITE TIPPLES
By Penny Leidtke Sienkiewicz
FREE PINT BAR
In Association with Factiva
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JOBS
Senior Information Officer - Law
Head of Library and Information Services
Law Firm Information Service Post - Maternity Cover
TIPS ARTICLE
"Job Hunting Resources On The Web"
By Veronica Bezear
BOOKSHELF
"World Without Secrets: Business, Crime and Privacy
in the Age of Ubiquitous Computing"
Written by Richard Hunter
Reviewed by Stephen Lafferty
FEATURE ARTICLE
"What Does Well On The Web - A Personal View"
By Susannah Ross
EVENTS, GOLD AND FORTHCOMING ARTICLES
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>>> ABOUT FREE PINT <<<
Free Pint is an online community of information researchers. Members
receive this free newsletter every two weeks packed with tips on
finding quality and reliable business information on the Internet.
Joining is free at <http://www.freepint.com/> and provides access to
a substantial archive of articles, reviews, jobs & events,
answers to research questions and networking at the Free Pint Bar.
Please circulate this newsletter which is best read when printed out.
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EDITORIAL
It's all about your customers. That's who you've got to focus on all
the time. By customers I'm not just talking about people who buy
things from you, I also mean people in other departments who use your
services, someone interviewing you, members of your community, etc.
You've got to give them good reason to want to use your service
instead of those of your competitors, offer you that job, buy your
products, or partner with you on a project.
Two ways to shine immediately spring to mind ...
The first is through excellent customer service, which I talked about
in the last issue. This is the subject of an article I'm currently
writing called 'Good Grief', about how customers complaining and
giving you grief can be a great opportunity for you to get much closer
to them. It's also the reason we're running the 'Customer Service
Award' at Online Information 2002. We'll be writing to you separately
about that soon, but in the meantime don't forget to make your
nomination at <http://www.freepint.com/events/online-info-2002/>.
The second way to shine, other than by providing a great product and
great customer service, is to offer additional 'must have' features
and benefits, over and above your standard products. For instance,
I think it's great that the Chartered Institute of Library and
Information Professionals (CILIP), of which I'm a proud member, have
just launched their Information Centre which I visited on its opening
this Monday. A great facility, right in central London, which is a
valuable additional benefit to membership
<http://www.freepint.com/go/b20627>.
We're also trying to get closer to our customers by trying out live
customer service on the Free Pint Web site. Whenever you see the 'Live
Customer Support' button on the top-left of pages on the site, you'll
know we're online, ready to welcome your questions and feedback
<http://www.freepint.com/go/b20544>.
So, a way forward in a harsh economic climate is to make yourself
stand out by getting closer to your customers. Indeed, in today's
issue of Free Pint we have two articles that both recount experiences
of using the Web. One on using the Web for job hunting, and the other
about what works on the Web, and what doesn't.
Don't forget to check out our forthcoming 'Effective Writing Exchange'
workshop in November <http://www.freepint.com/exchange> and watch out
for news of our new central London venue for Exchanges in the New
Year. Please also spread the word about Free Pint by forwarding this
issue to your colleagues.
Regards
William
William Hann BSc(Hons) MCLIP, Founder and Managing Editor
Email: <william@freepint.com> Tel: +44 (0)1784 420044
Free Pint is a Registered Trademark of Free Pint Limited (R) 1997-2002
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Thursday 7th November 2002, West London, UK
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MY FAVOURITE TIPPLES
By Penny Leidtke Sienkiewicz
* <http://www.freeanswers.com> - searches the knowledge bases of
Adobe, Microsoft and Intuit for answers to software questions
that you pose in everyday language.
* <http://www.ita.doc.gov> - the main site for the International Trade
Administration of the U.S. Department of Commerce provides trade
statistics, state export data, country and industry information.
* <http://www.labtestsonline.org/index.html> - a peer-reviewed site
that explains various lab tests performed in a medical setting,
including how and why the test is conducted and how the results are
interpreted.
* <http://gungadin.cs.brandeis.edu/~weiluo/main3.htm> - search the
2001 Medline abstracts for biomedical acronyms or the associated
long forms. Results link to the citation or the full abstract or
submit long-form searches directly to PubMed.
* <http://edgarscan.pwcglobal.com/servlets/edgarscan> - free access to
the U.S. SEC's EDGAR filings, including extracted financial tables,
normalized financials, peer-group analysis, and stock trading data.
Financial data can be exported to an Excel spreadsheet. Searchable
by name, ticker symbol or SIC code.
* <http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/> - Astronomy Picture of the Day.
A different image every day with an explanation and links to other
pictures.
* <http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/Style.html>
- part of the tutorial on finding information on the internet, this
site provides basic guidelines for citing materials from electronic
resources using humanities and scientific styles. Links to the
original version of the style at the Columbia University site.
Penny Leidtke Sienkiewicz <on-targetinfo@erols.com> is the principal of
On-Target Information Services, a U.S.-based information research and
retrieval firm that addresses the information needs of the corporate,
financial, and legal communities.
Tell us about your favourite Web sites. Check out the guidelines at
<http://www.freepint.com/author.htm>, then email <penny@freepint.com>.
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TWO NEW WHITE PAPERS FROM FACTIVA
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e-learning. The Value of Metrics in the Corporate Communications
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the desktop environment can translate into tangible ROI measurements.
Read them at http://www.factiva.com/redirects/learning/freepint
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FREE PINT JOBS
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As well as the selected listings below, check out the weekly Bar
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TIPS ARTICLE
<http://www.freepint.com/issues/311002.htm#tips>
"Job Hunting Resources On The Web"
By Veronica Bezear
I am not a professional career counsellor. I have, however, used the
Web extensively in my quest to change jobs this year. This article
brings together my summary of what worked and what didn't. No promises
on definitely right or wrong answers, because in case you'd forgotten,
there aren't any absolutes when you're looking for a job, its all
about individuals.
I have divided this article into 3 stages: Advice, Advertisements, and
Research. Trying these approaches in the wrong order wasted me a
distressing amount of time. You might like to consider, before setting
off, the best plan for you.
ADVICE
------
Before starting on your job search, it is worth asking yourself some
crushingly obvious questions: Do I know what I'm good at? Do I know
what I'm looking for? Do I want another job doing what I'm doing now?
It is also worth checking if you think your job hunting skills are up
to the task ahead.
If you are unsure in any of these areas, you are probably going to
need some training, advice, encouragement or at least extra
information. There are a number of possible sources for this, online
or otherwise.
Firstly, government websites. The UK Online website, under the 'life
stages' page <http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page474.asp#5> gives
advice on relevant benefits, rights, and legislation. Or you can go
directly to the online UK job and job hunting advice centres at
<http://www.jobcentreplus.gov.uk>.
A second option is university websites. All universities have some
form of careers service. Most of them publish resources useful not
only to their own students but also to any other job hunting graduate.
Try the London University's Virtual Careers Library
<http://www.careers.lon.ac.uk/links/index.htm> or their online
helpsheets at <http://www.careers.lon.ac.uk/helpshts/help.htm> on
topics such as covering letters and interviews.
Thirdly, as well as magazine articles, published books on careers will
now often have accompanying websites with useful resources to
encourage you to read the book. Some of the best for me were:
<http://www.creativecareers.com> - an accompaniment to the book
'Careers for Creative and Unconventional People' by Carol Eikleberry;
<http://www.jobhuntersbible.com> - the awesome accompanying website to
"What Color is Your Parachute" by Richard Nelson Bolles; and my
favourite <http://www.asktheheadhunter.com> a companion site to the
book of the same name by Nick Corcodilos, offering a provocative view
on the whole process.
A fourth option, of course, is private firms offering career-related
services. I have not covered them in more depth here as I am presuming
that those intending to go down this route will normally be directed
to them by other means - I was fortunate enough to have access to an
outplacement service paid for by my employer.
In summary, personally, I spent four fruitless months firing
applications off with no responses whatever, before I had some help to
focus on my goals, my strategy and my general technique. If nothing
mentioned here is an issue for you, move straight on to the next
section.
ADVERTISING
-----------
This is the traditional approach - employers and agencies advertising
job opportunities; job seekers advertising themselves via CVs.
For an overview of this approach try Internet Magazine's summary and
site list for employers and job seekers at
<http://213.176.1.196:800/Default/www.internet-magazine.com/recruitment/index.asp>.
For a more in-depth UK view on this area try <http://www.onrec.com>,
the online site related to Online Recruitment magazine. This has a
list of recruitment sites, searchable by specific industry area.
Before you start on these sources, advertising is a great source of
leads, but you can waste *a lot* of time browsing vacancy lists.
Consideration such as the following can cut down on non-productive
time considerably:
* What is your priority? Is it location, role, salary, skills used, or
something else -- search on that first, and save the browsing for
when you need fresh inspiration.
* Does the site have an intelligent agent which will search for you
and notify you when new vacancies matching your criteria come up? --
not 100% foolproof but still useful.
* Does the site cover your desired jobs/salary levels? -- not to
insult your intelligence; but are you searching for arts/media jobs
on a site which covers mainly IT work?
* What kind of reputation does the site have? Try a general search
via one of the search engines to establish what people are saying
about it.
* If posting your CV (a facility now offered by most of the major
sites) advice on checking the privacy terms and conditions would
appear to be self evident.
Other points perhaps worth making are:
* Keywords - vital to mention the right keywords for your target job.
Potential recruiters will be searching a rather large database of
CVs (one UK site recently stated its database size has reached 0.5
million CVs). Your details may be way down a list or not mentioned
at all if you had not input the right relevant keywords.
* Keeping it updated - this is for relevance, saving you unwanted
calls, and ensuring against mistakes with a potential employer if
the site includes a facility to apply online for the job. For
instance, <http://www.reed.co.uk> offer to store not only a CV but
also a covering letter - risky if you are not keeping them up to
date as I discovered painfully.
* Commenting on sites dedicated to one agency - I have found contacts
with them fruitful. However, this seems to be only a supplement at
present to their person-to-person service and they may not be
advertising all the vacancies they have on their site. Don't expect
to interact with them entirely on-line, many still require an
appointment to register.
For the most comprehensive list of sites specifically advertising
library and information work, try the following link
<http://www.libraryjobpostings.org>. Use either of the overview sites
mentioned at the beginning of this section on advertising for listings
of more generalist agencies.
Finally, many employers themselves now advertise vacancies on their
websites. Some larger organisations offer facilities such as applying
online. The main benefit I have found for these types of job pages was
to double check on vacancies advertised elsewhere and monitor
target employers (I was searching in a particular geographic area).
Which brings me neatly on to the third use of the Internet in job
hunting -- research.
RESEARCH
--------
This is the approach which most advice sites will be recommending to
you, also the most time-consuming. Using the Web for research in job
hunting falls into two categories:
Firstly, generating opportunities. We have talked about monitoring the
jobs pages of target employers. Also of interest on their websites
should be organisational changes announced which may suggest people
moving on and jobs becoming available.
Time to mention speculative applications. In all my job hunting this
year I was never brave enough to try this, even though it was
professionally recommended to me.
If you feel like trying this approach, the general advice is
that your application needs to be well targeted and couched in terms
that focus on the employer's needs. A typical example is found at
<http://www.careerlab.com/letters/139.htm>.
Another useful opportunity-generating strategy you will hear quoted is
contacting people working in the field in which you want to be working
for advice. (NB this does not usually mean directly asking for a job).
Once again, I did not try this much, but was impressed how a
well-targeted keyword search could bring me the details of people I
had lost contact with years previously.
The second research use of the Internet is making the most of
opportunities. In preparing well-targeted application forms, and
interviews, the Internet proved a wonderful source for me on a number
of different aspects of the jobs I was going for, making for some very
productive interviews that were easier than they would otherwise have
been. The best focus seemed to be:
* Why the job is vacant - if it is a new role, why had it been created?
* Further details on the people mentioned in the job description or the
interview letter.
* The current problems of the organisation you are joining which they
may be expecting you to resolve.
* Further details on specific aspects of the role mentioned in the job
description.
CONCLUSION
----------
In conclusion, I have now found a new job. I did use these approaches
in the process, but after much work it was eventually the good old
local paper which yielded that vital lead. However I don't think I
would have been as successful in my pursuit of it without the facility
to research substantially on the Internet around the advertised
requirements for the job, prior to application and interview.
There are certainly some very helpful resources out there, including
free psychometric tests not even mentioned here. But if you don't want
to waste time, just like any form of online searching, it pays to plan
out your preferred strategy before you go online. Much further
discussion on this is probably appropriate at the Free Pint Bar
<http://www.freepint.com/bar>. Hopefully I shall see you there.
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Linguist turned information enthusiast, Veronica Bezear works
for the National Grid company as an On-line Document Manager. She is
currently in the process of changing jobs, and gratefully acknowledges
the help of the Jeannette Finney Partnership with the job hunting task.
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Related Free Pint links:
* "Employment/Recruitment/HR" resources in the Free Pint Portal
<http://www.freepint.com/go/p43>
* Post a message to the author, Veronica Bezear, or suggest further
resources at the Free Pint Bar <http://www.freepint.com/bar>
* Read this article online, with activated hyperlinks
<http://www.freepint.com/issues/311002.htm#feature>
* Access the entire archive of Free Pint content
<http://www.freepint.com/portal/content/>
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>>> NEW: CHOOSE YOUR CURRENCY FOR UK COMPANY RESEARCH <<<
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FREE PINT BOOKSHELF
<http://www.freepint.com/bookshelf>
"World Without Secrets: Business, Crime and Privacy
in the Age of Ubiquitous Computing"
Reviewed by Stephen Lafferty
The title of Richard Hunter's book refers to the growing availability
of information about the personal lives of consumers living in
capitalist democratic states. The book begins with the assumption that
"very little of consequence can't and won't be known about anyone or
anything". Hunter approaches the subject of the erosion of personal
privacy from two angles: the business and the governmental/police
justifications for retaining information on individuals. His argument,
that citizens in democratic countries had better take responsibility
for the power of surveillance technologies while they still can,
emerges from the discussion of the increasing possibilities for
deriving behaviour patterns from recombining archived data.
Hunter's first point, that people adapt at a slower rate than the
introduction of new technologies, is underlined using examples of
Amazon.com and Acme-Rent-A-Car of Connecticut. Neither set of
consumers, when they began relationships with either company, realised
that information collected about their shopping habits and movements
would be sold to third parties or used for law enforcement purposes.
Hunter then goes on to demonstrate how organisations that create and
retail information, such as Microsoft and record companies, are
responding to threats being posed by self-organising groups using the
Internet to communicate. Hunter calls these groups 'Network Armies'
and provides an analysis of how such groups coalesce and fight their
cause, using examples of the Open Source software movement and Linux
v. Windows, Napster and digital distribution of music and the
anti-capitalist protestors in Seattle and Genoa.
The discussion then moves on to identifying social groups within the
'world without secrets'. Hunter and a team of researchers at Gartner
identify four groups: 'Network Armies', the 'Lost and the Lonely',
'Conscientious Objectors' and the 'Engineered Society'. This analysis
implies that the world without secrets is inevitable and the area of
society to which you belong depends upon whether you support or oppose
the authority of the leadership that passes legislation to eliminate
barriers to information flow.
The last two chapters are dedicated to discussion of war when all
enemy movements are known; and the possibility of a war in cyberspace.
Parts of this book were written on or after September 11th 2001 and
Hunter considers the development of terrorist network armies and the
response that an 'engineered society' can make to such attacks. The
New York Electronic Crimes Task Force is used as a model network army
for terrorist threats from cyberspace, an Internet version of
Interpol with intercontinental crime-fighting agreements.
Richard Hunter believes that a world without secrets is inevitable.
He urges his readers to take responsibility for the ways that
technologies are implemented through democratic means, such as
building in limitations for information usage by the authorities.
This book makes a compelling argument for educating both the
authorities and the public about the type and uses of recorded
information and is an excellent introduction to contemporary
attitudes towards and policies of surveillance. Readers who are
interested in the freedoms that they enjoy in their societies should
read this along with Simson Garfinkel's 'Database Nation' and Michael
Caloyannides 'Desktop Witness' and be careful about to whom they give
their personal information.
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Stephen Lafferty has an MSc. in Library and Information Management and
has previously written on the subject of surveillance and privacy for
Free Pint <http://www.freepint.com/issues/030800.htm#feature>.
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Related Free Pint links:
* Find out more about this book online at the Free Pint Bookshelf
<http://www.freepint.com/bookshelf/secrets.htm>
* Read customer comments and buy this book at Amazon.co.uk
<http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0471218162/freepint0c>
or Amazon.com
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0471218162/freepint00>
* "World Without Secrets: Business, Crime and Privacy in the Age of
Ubiquitous Computing", ISBN 0471218162, published by John
Wiley & Sons Inc, written by Richard Hunter
* Search for and purchase any book from Amazon via the Free Pint
Bookshelf at <http://www.freepint.com/bookshelf>
* Read about other Internet Strategy books on the Free Pint Bookshelf
<http://www.freepint.com/bookshelf/strategy.htm>
To propose an information-related book for review, send details
to <bookshelf@freepint.com>.
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FEATURE ARTICLE
<http://www.freepint.com/issues/311002.htm#feature>
"What Does Well On The Web - A Personal View"
By Susannah Ross
I hear Jennifer Aldridge has set up a website in Ambridge (home of
'The Archers', in case you don't follow this particular soap). She is
making her research on local history available to anyone interested.
Provided she has organised her information well and has built a decent
website, I'd say her chances of succeeding are pretty good. These are
big provisos, but the important thing is that she has identified good
reasons for setting up a website: she has something to offer and the
Web enables her to reach her market in a way that no other medium can.
She is not investing capital or employing people, at least to start
with, so if the site fails it will probably be only her pride that is
hurt.
How different from the dotcom mania of little more than two years ago.
Reams of print have been written about it, and websites have been set
up to document it so that we can learn from the mistakes made. One of
the fatal mistakes seems to have been the assumption that because
technically you could reach millions of people, you would. On top of
that huge assumption was piled another: that you could then persuade
people to do things they had never done before, like order and pay
online for food chopped up and ready to cook for their evening meal.
At least with a mailshot you know you will reach people, even if
there's no guarantee that your offer will be read, still less taken
up.
So, what does well? It helps to start with something that you know can
be done. One business that has made good use of the Web, easyJet,
started with an idea that had already been tried in the United States:
no-frills air travel. It used a website - rather than travel agents
or its own offices - to sell tickets as part of a strategy of
operating more cheaply than the traditional airlines. The rest of the
strategy included aiming to fill every plane and getting people to
accept that the main reason for flying was simply to get from A to B.
The website was important, but only one of several means to an end.
Established businesses that go online just because they feel they
ought to have a presence on the Web usually make a poor show of it.
They tend to regard the Web as somewhere to put their PR material.
They don't really want to communicate with individuals and they
produce sites headed by meaningless slogans like "making life better
for people" and filled with waffle that is of little use to the
outsider. These sites not only tend to produce less information than
a telephone call would elicit, they may actually damage the image of
the company.
If the aim is to sell, the Web tends to favour products and services
that are easily described, packaged and priced - like travel tickets,
CDs and books. That includes pornography, one of the few successful
Web businesses, in the sense that porn sites make money. The Web is
an effective medium for pornography, I imagine, because it provides
easier access to an established market than the traditional plain
envelopes or corners of shops. Customers were already willing to pay
for it and presumably were only too glad to receive the material
directly into a computer at home or at work.
Not everything that does well sells well. News is a product well
suited to the Web in that it consists of short bits of information
that can be updated every minute, but customers are not used to paying
for it in the same way as they are for other products. Although they
buy newspapers and magazines, subscribe to television channels and pay
the BBC licence fee, they tend to expect news to be free at the moment
of delivery. There is so much news on the Web that customers will lap
it up if it's free, as it is at BBCi, but do without or go elsewhere
if it's not. So news does well, but it has to be perceived to be
pretty special to sell well or sell at all. The Wall Street Journal
is rare in that it has persuaded users to subscribe to read its
stories online and is reckoned to be making money from its website.
Surveys suggest that many Web users still do not feel confident enough
to pay for things online. So selling online may not be the main
function of a business website. Big businesses like Sainsbury's use
their websites to cultivate their customers with specialised
information, deals and competitions, as well as to sell. The selling
is an extension of their existing service. The Wine Society uses the
Web to allow members to do what they have always done - buy wine, read
about wine, check their reserves - but in a new way, which for some
will be more convenient than the telephone or the post.
Where customers feel that the main reason for a particular online
operation is to cut costs, rather than improve service, a website can
backfire. Some banks give customers a discount to do online what they
are used to doing by post or in person. If there is no such incentive
or if the process isn't quicker than the traditional means, customers
may feel that the organisation is making life easier for itself at
their expense and go elsewhere. When my seven-year-old Psion returned
from a repair job with a note saying that if I wanted an invoice I
could get it online, my heart sank. But the method was so efficient
and the printing out so painless that I accepted it. It helped that
the rest of their customer service was so good.
A website can be a great asset for small businesses and individuals.
They may not want to get into operating online payments, but they can
make good use of the Web if they have an easily identifiable product,
good credentials and clear aims. Small hotels seem to do well on the
Web. A small business I know in Oxfordshire, Shackell Pianos, who sell
and restore grand pianos, substantially increased their business when
they set up a website. So did my singing teacher Catharine Robinson.
Their products are easily found by search engines and the information
on their websites cuts out a lot of telephone enquiries.
In fact, it may be easier for small enterprises to do well on the Web
as their focus is clearer than that of big businesses, who are tempted
to try to do too many different things with their websites. For the
same reasons, local websites seem to do well. They have a clear
identity, create a feeling of community and are better bets for
advertisers than less targeted sites.
To decide what does well on the Web, remember what the Web does well.
One of its peculiar strengths is the ability to track users. Amazon
does things that only a super-assistant in a book shop could, like
tell you what other books were bought by people who bought this one.
Another strength is the ability to bring together a range of
information that would be almost impossible to assemble in print. A
site like CNet selling computer products not only has the
manufacturer's description of each product, it also has its own review
and comments from customers who have used it.
The test is whether the website does the job better than the
alternative. I'm surprised to read surveys showing car hire near the
top of the kinds of business that do well on the Web. When I wanted
to hire a car in Italy for my summer holiday, I struggled with the
websites of some of the biggest car hire companies in the world. They
asked irrelevant questions, took ages to register the required
information and dealt scantily with insurance, local charges and
taxes, which tend to be high in Italy. Then I remembered the
telephone and did a deal in a few minutes.
The greatest strength of the Web is its ability to give an almost
infinite number of people access to the same information at the same
time. The Web provides a hitherto impossible ease of communication to
people with a common interest wherever they happen to be. Hence the
success of Friends Reunited at one end of the scale and some fairly
nasty people at the other. It is good at bringing together and
catering for people with every kind of interest, need or hobby.
Which brings us back to Jennifer Aldridge and the local and family
history of Ambridge. Her project is just the kind of thing that does
well on the Web. All she has to do is make sure that she's got a good
website. That, of course, is another story.
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Susannah Ross and Julia Swann run a website consultancy called Select
Ideas <http://www.selectideas.co.uk/consult> specialising in small
enterprises and individuals. Susannah is the author of "A Simple Guide
to Writing for Your Website" (ISBN 013041557X Prentice Hall 2001) and
offers training in writing for the Web
<http://www.selectideas.co.uk/ross>. She also offers courses in
business writing through the writing company Clarity
<http://www.clarity.co.uk>.
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- Publication Date: 31st October 2002
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