the challenges of finding quality business information in a rapidly changing world
TRANSCRIPT
This presentation is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License
The challenges of finding quality business information in a rapidly changing world
1st December 2010 , Karen Blakeman
[email protected] twitter.com/karenblakemanhttp://www.rba.co.uk/
Presentation available on: http://www.slideshare.net/karenblakeman/
and
http://www.authorstream.com/User-Presentations/karenblakeman/
Deluge of information!
• Web sites, blogs, wikis, Twitter........
• Government open data
• Re-use of information encouraged
• Mashups galore
• Social media becoming commonplace as a means of gathering and providing information, and marketing a new company or product
• New and innovative technologies in all sectors
• More scams both personal and business oriented in the current economic climate
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If the offer is so good that you can at last chuck in your job and chill out in [insert exotic location of your choice].....
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Authenticity and trust
• Is it official information? Are there definitions and scope notes?
• Look at the biography or profile of the author or publisher, if there is one. Check previous work, postings, tweets etc.
• Who is linking or referring to the article and what are they saying about it
• Is the source of the information given and is there an explanation of how the information has been processed?
• If information has been “published” via social media or social/professional networks:– who are they?
– who else is part of their network?
– look at the whole conversation
– timeline
– who else is contributing
• Look for clues, what isn’t there?
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Company information
• Check the official company register for the relevant country– Official Company Registers
– http://www.rba.co.uk/sources/registers.htm
• You know it makes sense!• “I have a certificate from Oober Doober Magnificent that will
give me a free iPad but I have to pay them £15 admin fees. The company registration number on the certificate is 597365. are they legitimate?”
• Company registration number does not exist• Company does exist but not with that registration number • Do a basic Google search including the terms hoax or scam!• Run a “whois” search on their web site
– http://whois.com/, http://whois.domaintools.com/
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“I am involved in foreign merger with a take-over from a Japanese company taking over a American company. The regulators dealing with the merger are called eastern equity division who look after mergers and acquisition. They have told me now to acquire my funds for the sale of the shares i need to pay first a 28% offshore withholding tax is this correct in a take over situation? thanks.”
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Basic Google search usually works. In this case number 3 in the list - a page from the Japan Financial Services Agency - reveals all.
Learn how to read URLs. This is a go.jp site - Japanese government and therefore official and genuine.
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A search on whois.com shows that the owner of the boiler room scam web site is hiding behind a “privacy protection” domain name registration service.
170 decibel klaxon alarms should start ringing in your head!
Business Essentials on the Web
http://bl-business-essentials.wikispaces.com/
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Scottish Business Information Service• http://www.scotbis.com/
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Guardian Databloghttp://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog
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Mostly related to hot topics covered in the current news – sources and scope of data usually stated in the blog
http://www.flickr.com/groups/guardiandatastore/pool/
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Check the descriptions with the Flickr image for information (if any) on data sources used
Blogs
• Many experts, academics, researchers, industry gurus have active blogs
• Great way to tap into expert knowledge especially with new and innovative technologies and industries
• But who are they?• Standard quality checks apply!
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Disclosure
Professor Chris Rhodes is my husband!
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Energy Balance http://ergobalance.blogspot.com/
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Follow links provided by the author on their blog to their profile or “about” page
Quality of comments
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Who is commenting? Are they sensible and informed comments and questions? Are there active discussions?
Where else are they active?
http://scitizen.com/
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Quality of other columnists?Are there reviewers and who are they?
A Forbes blogger?http://blogs.forbes.com/energysource/
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By invitation only and articles are reviewed (some rejected)
• http://uksnowmap.com/
• 9.55 am 2nd February 2009
• Google Earth & Twitter
• hashtag #uksnow
• Tweeters asked to include first half of post code and give the snowfall marks out of ten e.g. #uksnow RG4 3/10
• Potential quality issues:– geographical location of
tweeters
– awareness of how to enter uksnow details in a tweet
– different perceptions of heaviness of snow
– uksnow boredom
– update frequency
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#uksnow UK Snow Twitter Mashup – original maps
#uksnow Map - UK Snow Twitter Mashup (updated & improved version)
Taken at 8.49 am, Wednesday 1st December 2010
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Guidance on how to assess heaviness of snow
#uksnow – other issues
• Only records current snow fall
• No indication of existing snow on the ground
• Need a separate map for depth of snow on the ground?
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Google Maps – The Star Inn, Caversham (oops)
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The Star Inn is actually here
But it isn’t Google’s fault!
This is a private residence!
Yell.com/Multimap – Star Inn
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Need to know which sources are used in mashups and visualisations so can check where where errors are occurring.
Could the process of mashing the data lead to additional problems?
Wrong location in Yell.com
A typical news story!
Essential background information missing
What information do you need to assess the usefulness of this story?
“40% surveyed say Belgium makes the best chocolate Switzerland comes 2nd and the UK gets only 11% of the vote”
Belgium
Switzerland
UK
Which country makes the best chocolate
http://www.rba.co.uk/wordpress/2009/12/15/which-country-makes-the-best-chocolate/
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Who has conducted the survey? (Karen Blakeman, RBA Information Services)
Definition of “best”? Any type of chocolate?
Country where chocolate actually manufactured or where the manufacturing company has its HQ?
How was data collected? (Twtpoll, publicised on Twitter, Facebook and blog)
Number of responses? (47)
Tracking down the truth behind Twitter stories
Same rules apply
Ask the usual questions and try and put the information into context by tracking down the
timeline of the conversation
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This story was the result of a tweet from ceoSteveJobs
Story was removed soon after publication and when problems with the source were pointed out!
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iPhone 4 to be recalled: it’s true – the Daily Mail says sohttp://www.rba.co.uk/wordpress/2010/06/27/iphone-4-to-be-recalled-its-true-the-daily-mail-says-so/
Phil Bradley's webloghttp://philbradley.typepad.com/phil_bradleys_weblog/2010/06/fair-play-to-richard-ashmore.html
Email: [email protected]
Web site: http://www.rba.co.uk/
Blog: http://www.rba.co.uk/wordpress/
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LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/karenblakeman
or just Google “Karen Blakeman”
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