included the cost of a long distance call to Oslo.
I read some stories, while they scrolled over the screen. All
was captured to a file on my hard disk for later study. The size
of this file grew to 32.000 characters, or almost 15 single-spaced
typewritten pages (A-4 size). If I had spent less time reviewing
the lists of available stories, seven minutes would have given a
larger file.
When I had entered my user ID and password, a menu of stories
came up on my screen. The headline read "News from CompuServe."
The two first items caught my attention, and I requested the
text. One had 20 lines about an easier method of finding files in
the forum libraries. The other had ten lines about how to write
addresses for international fax messages.
The command GO APV brought me directly to Associated Press News
Wires. You'll find such tricks by reading the online services' user
manuals. This command produced the following menu:
AP Online APV-1
1 Latest News-Updated Hourly
2 Weather
3 Sports
4 National
5 Washington
6 World
7 Political
8 Entertainment
9 Business News
10 Wall Street
11 Dow Jones Average
12 Feature News
13 Today in History
I entered "9" for business news, and got a new list of stories:
AP Online
1 Women, Minority Businesses Lag
2 Child World Accuses Toys R Us
3 UPI May Cancel Worker Benefits
4 Drilling Plan Worries Florida
5 UK Stocks Dip, Tokyo's Higher
6 Dollar Higher, Gold Up
7 Farm Exports Seen Declining
8 Supermarket Coupons Big Bucks
9 Cattlemen Tout Supply, Prices
0 Tokyo Stocks, Dollar Higher
MORE !
The screen stopped scrolling by "MORE !". Pressing ENTER gave a new
list. None of them were of any interest.
Pressing M (for previous menu) returned me to the APV-1 menu
(the videotext page number is given in the upper right corner of
each menu display). I selected "World" for global news, which gave
me this list:
AP Online
6 Two Killed In Nagorno Karabakh
7 Yugoslavia Fighting Rages On
8 Storm Kills Five In Japan
9 Afghan Rebels Going To Moscow?
0 19 Killed in Guatemala Quakes
MORE !8
Oh, a storm in Japan! Interesting. I was due to leave for Japan in
a couple of weeks, and entered 8 at the MORE ! prompt to read. A
screenful of text was transferred in a few seconds.
"This is for later study," I said, pressed M to return to the
menu, and then ENTER to get the next listing:
AP Online
1 Bomblets Kill American Troops?
2 No Movement On Hostage Release
3 Baker Plans Return To Syria
4 Baker, King Hussein To Confer
5 Madame Chiang Leaving Taiwan?
6 Baker Leaves Syria for Jordan
7 Klaus Barbie Hospitalized
8 Iraq Denounces U.S. Threat
9 Yelstin Said Resting At Home
0 SS Auschwitz Guard Found Dead
MORE !
Here, I used another trick from the user manual. Entering "5,6,9"
gave three stories in one batch with no pauses between them. Five
screens with text. If I had read the menu more carefully, I might
probably also have selected story 0. It looked like an interesting
item.
"This is enough of the Associated Press," I thought, and typed
G NEWS. This gave me an overview of all available news sources ("G
NEWS" is an abbreviation for "GO NEWS," or "GO to the main NEWS
menu"):
News/Weather/Sports NEWS
1 Executive News Service ($)
2 NewsGrid
3 Associated Press Online
4 Weather
5 Sports
6 The Business Wire
7 Newspaper Library
8 UK News/Sports
9 Entertainment News/Info
10 Online Today Daily Edition
11 Soviet Crisis
First, a quick glance at 6. The service presented itself in these
words: "Throughout the day The Business Wire makes available press
releases, news stories, and other information from the world of
business. Information on hundreds of different companies is
transmitted daily to The Business Wire's subscribers."
Then #7: "This database contains selected full-text stories
from 48 newspapers from across the United States. Classified ads
are NOT included in the full-text of each paper."
The list of newspapers included Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune
and San Francisco Chronicle (known for many interesting inside
stories from Silicon Valley).
Choice 8 gave news from England. There, I selected UK News
Clips, which gave the following options:
U.K. News Clips
93 stories selected
1 RTw 09/19 0818 YUGOSLAV AIR FORCE HITS CROATIAN COMMUNICATIONS
2 RTw 09/19 0755 CROATIA BATTLES CONTINUE AS EC PONDERS PEACE FORCE
3 RTw 09/19 0753 ARAB PAPERS SAY MOSCOW WANTS MIDEAST PARLEY DELAYED
4 RTw 09/19 0749 DOLLAR STANDS STILL, SHARES DRIFT LOWER IN ...
5 RTw 09/19 0729 EARNINGS GLOOM REVERSES LONDON STOCKS' EARLY GAINS
6 RTw 09/19 0716 SOVIETS NEED 14.7 BILLION DOLLARS FOOD AID, EC SAYS
7 RTw 09/19 0707 IRA SAYS IT KILLED TIMBER YARD WORKER IN BELFAST DOCKS
8 RTw 09/19 0706 BRITISH CONSERVATIVE CHIEF PLAYS DOWN TALK OF ...
9 RTw 09/19 0630 FINANCE RATES
10 RTw 09/19 0603 REUTER WORLD NEWS SCHEDULE AT 1000 GMT THURSDAY ...
The numbers in column four are the release times of the stories.
They flow in from the wires in a continuous stream.
Next stop was the UK Newspaper Library. Here, you can search in
full-text stories from The Daily and Sunday Telegraph, Financial
Times, The Guardian, UK News (with selected stories from The Daily
& Sunday Telegraph, Financial Times, The Guardian, The Times/Sunday
Times, Today, The Independent, Lloyd's List and The Observer).
Searching the UK Newspaper Library costs US$6.00 for up to ten
hits. You get a selection menu of the first ten stories found. A
menu with an additional ten stories costs another $6.00, etc. You
pay US$6.00 to read the full text of selected stories. These rates
are added to CompuServe's normal access rates.
The news service Soviet Crisis was my final destination. This
was just a few weeks after the attempted coup in Moscow, and I was
eager for reports.
I found the following interesting story from OTC NewsAlert:
OTC 09/19 0750 FIRST ENGLISH LANGUAGE SOVDATA DAILINE IS LAUNCHED
This selection gave me three screens with information about a new
online service. Briefly, this is what it said:
"The SovData DiaLine service includes an on-line library of more
than 250 Soviet newspapers, business and economic periodicals,
profiles of more than 2,500 Soviet firms and key executives that
do business with the West, legislative reports and other
information."
It also said that part of the database was available through Mead
Data Central (Nexis/Lexis), and that it would be made available
through like Data-Star, FT Profile, Reuters, Westlaw, and GBI.
Undoubtedly, the name has changed by the time you read this.
Finally, a fresh story about the fate of KGB. I read another
fifty lines, entered OFF (for "goodbye CompuServe"), and received
the following verdict:
Thank you for using CompuServe!
Off at 09:03 EDT 19-Sep-91
Connect time = 0:07
Seven minutes. Fifteen typed pages of text. US$6.00. Not bad!
An overwhelming choice
----------------------
I am confident that your "daily online newspaper" will contain
other stories. If you're into computers, you may want to start with
Online Today, CompuServe's daily newspaper. It brings short,
informative news stories about the computer industry.
NewsBytes is another interesting source for computer news. It
offers global headline news from its bureaus around the world. The
articles are sorted in sections called APPLE, BUSINESS, GENERAL,
GOVERNMENT, IBM, REVIEW, TELECOM, TRENDS and UNIX. A favorite!
Newsnet is also available through Genie, ZiffNet on CompuServe,
NewsNet, Dialog, in the newsgroup clari.nb on Usenet, and various
BBS systems around the world. I read it through a Norwegian BBS
(EuroNet in Haugesund).
For general news, start with major newswires, like Associated
Press, Agence France-Presse, Xinhua, Reuters, and the like. You
will find them on many commercial services including NewsNet,
CompuServe, and Dialog.
FROGNET - The French Way
------------------------
If you know French, check out FROGNET. This French language service
brings daily news from Agence France Press, and often has added
excerpts from the French dailies.
FROG is distributed by the services of the French embassy in
Washington. It covers world affairs, European and French items,
assembled, naturally, from a French point of view.
The service is free. To subscribe, send a message through the
Internet to FROG@GUVAX.GEORGETOWN.EDU . It should contain your
answers to the following electronic application form. Replace the
%s with your inputs (This is French, right?):
NOM: %
PRENOM: %
NAISSANCE:../../..%
ARRIVEE:../../..%
DEPART:../../..%
EMAIL: %
ECOLE D'ORIGINE: %
QUALITE: %
ADRESSE DE RECHERCHE: %
PAYS: %
STATE: %
UNIVERSITE: %
RECHERCHE: %
MOTSCLES: %
DOMAINE: %
Complicated? OK, here's some instructions in "French ASCII":
* Pour les dates veuillez utiliser le format Francais
(DD/MM/YY). Arrivee: c'est la date d'arrivee dans le pays
ou vous etes actuellement.
* QUALITE: Etes vous VSN, PHD, MASTER, INGENIEUR, POST-DOC ...?
* ECOLE D'ORIGINE: Diplome obtenu en France
* PAYS: US, Australie ....
* STATE: pour les US en 2 lettres (NY, TX, CA)
* UNIVERSITE: actuelle ou societe
* RECHERCHE: Soyez explicite !
* MOTSCLES: (ex: Neuronaux, polymeres, TVHD...)
* DOMAINE: En 3 lettres confere nomenclature ci-dessous
Nomenclature de la National Science Foundation.
AGR AGRICULTURE
BIO BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
HES HEALTH SCIENCES
ENG ENGINEERING
CIS COMPUTER AND INFORMATION SC.
MAT MATHEMATICS
PHY PHYSICAL SCIENCES
AST Astronomy
ATM Atmospheric & Meteorological Sciences
CHE Chemistry
GEO Geological Sciences
PHS Physics
OPH Other Physical Sciences
PSY PSYCHOLOGY
SOS SOCIAL SCIENCES
HUM HUMANITIES
HIS History
LET Letters
FLL Foreign Languages & Literature
OHU Other Humanities
EDU EDUCATION
EDG Education General
TED Teacher Education
TEF Teaching fields
PRF PROFESSIONAL FIELDS
BUS Business & Management
COM Communications
PFO Other Professional Fields
OTH OTHER FIELDS
News is more than news
----------------------
After some time, your definition of the notion "news" may change.
Since so many conferences are interesting sources, they should also
be a part of your news gathering strategy. Check in regularly to
read what members report about what they have seen, done, heard, or
discovered.
By the way, professional news hunters have also discovered
this. Online conferences are popular hunting grounds for reporters
of the traditional press.
FidoNet has many conferences with specialized news contents:
ANEWS News of the US and World
BBNS BBS News Service
BIONEWS Environmental News
EL_SALVADOR Analysis and News About El Salvador
NICANET Analysis and News About Nicaragua
PACIFIC_NEWS Pacific News
PANAMA Analysis and News About Panama
BITNET has mailing lists like:
CHINA-NN CHINA-NN@ASUACAD China News Digest (Global News)
CURRENTS CURRENTS@PCCVM South Asian News and Culture
INDIA-L INDIA-L@TEMPLEVM The India News Network
PAKISTAN PAKISTAN@ASUACAD Pakistan News Service
SEDSNEWS SEDSNEWS@TAMVM1 News about Space from SEDS
TSSNEWS TSSNEWS@PSUVM Tunisian Scientific Society News
RFERL-L (on LISTSERV@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU) distributes the RFE/RL
Research Institute Daily Report. It is a digest of the latest
developments in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. The
report is published Monday through Friday by the RFE/RL Research
Institute, a division of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Inc. in
Germany.
Some mailing lists bring a steady flow of news from various
sources. SEASIA-L@MSU - The Southeast Asia Discussion List - is one
example. The list is "designed to facilitate communication between
researchers, scholars, students, teachers, and others interested in
Southeast Asian studies with an emphasis on current events."
SEASIA-L defines Southeast Asia loosely as Burma/Myanmar across
to Hong Kong and down through Australia and New Zealand. Regularly,
it brings full-text news stories from Inter Press Service, regional
news agencies, and newspapers/radio. Some examples:
On Jul. 30, 1992, a full-text story from IPS: "PHILIPPINES:
RAMOS URGES REPEAL OF ANTI-COMMUNIST LAW." On Aug. 13, 1992, full-
text story from The New Straits Times (Singapore): "Schoolgirs
involved in flesh trade, says Farid." On Aug. 31, "ANTI-VIETNAMESE
FORCE TURNS UP IN CAMBODIA" (Reuter).
SEASIA-L also brings "underground" reports like "The Burma
Focus," a bimonthly newsletter published by the All Burma Students'
Democratic Front.
ECUADOR brings news from Ecuador. Daily news bulletins from
"Diario Hoy" are posted to the list. Send rone@skat.usc.edu your
subscription request.
Many CompuServe forums have news sections. If you're into Hot
News and Rumors about Amiga Computers, read messages in section 3
of the Amiga Tech Forum.
Consumer Electronics Forum has the section "New Products/News."
The Journalist Forum has "Fast Breaking News!" The Motor Sports
Forum has "Racing News/Notes." The Online Today Forum has "In the
News."
NewsNet's list of newsletters that you can read or search
online is long, and back issues are also available. For example:
Africa News, Agence France-Presse International News, Applied
Genetics News, Asian Economic News, Asian Political News,
Business Travel News, Catholic News Service, CD Computing
News, Computer Reseller News, Electronic Materials Technology
News, Electronic Trade & Transport News, Electronic World
News, High Tech Ceramics News, Inter Press Service
International News, International Businessman News Report,
News From France, Northern Ireland News Service, Online
Product News, Sourcemex -- economic news on Mexico, and
XINHUA English language news service (China).
The Inter Press Service's newsletter International News focuses
on Third World countries, and news from Europe/North America of
interest to these countries (also available through Impress on
Nexis).
Usenet brings news from Bangladesh, India and Nepal in
misc.news.southasia. The ClariNet hierarchy gateways newsgroups
from commercial news services and "other official" sources, like:
biz.commodity Commodity news and price reports.
feature Feature columns and products
canada.briefs Regular updates of Canadian News in Brief.
biz.economy Economic news and indicators
biz.top Top business news
books Books & publishing.
briefs Regular news summaries.
bulletin Major breaking stories of the week.
consumer Consumer news, car reviews etc.
demonstration Demonstrations around the world.
disaster Major problems, accidents & natural disasters.
economy General economic news.
entertain Entertainment industry news & features.
europe News related to Europe.
fighting Clashes around the world.
hot.east_europe News from Eastern Europe.
hot.iraq The Gulf Crisis
hot.panama Panama and General Noriega.
news.top Top US news stories.
news.top.world Top international news stories.
news.trends Surveys and trends.
news.urgent Major breaking stories of the day.
A feed of ClariNet news is available for a fee and execution of a
license. (Write info@clarinet.com for information.)
UUCP has which brings regular news bulletins from Poland
(Contact: przemek@ndcvx.cc.nd.edu).
Behind the news
---------------
In an effort to garner new subscribers and retain current readers,
magazine publishers turn to online services to create an ancillary
electronic version of their print product.
Their readers are being transformed from passive recipients of
information into active participants in publishing.
You can "talk" to BYTE's writers on BIX, and with PC Magazine's
writers through ZiffNet on CompuServe. Their forums function as
expert sources. Here, you will often learn about products and trends
sometimes before the magazines hit the newsstand.
InfoWorld, an American computer magazine, runs the InfoWorld
OnLine service on CompuServe. Enter GO INF to get to the following
menu:
InfoWorld On-Line INFOWORLD
WELCOME TO INFOWORLD
1 About InfoWorld Online
2 Read Current Week's News - 1/13/92
3 Read Prior Week's News - 1/06/92
4 Download Current Week's Reviews,
Comparisons and Test Drives ($)
5 Download Prior Week's Reviews,
Comparisons and Test Drives ($)
6 Searching Help
7 Search Review/Comparisons/
Impressions/Test Drives
8 Comments to InfoWorld
InfoWorld highlights comprehensive computer product comparisons and
reports. You can browse this or previous weeks' comparisons and
reviews, or search the entire collection. You can search by company
name, product, software and hardware category.
Britain's two best-selling PC magazines share the PC Plus/PC
Answers Online forum on CompuServe (GO PCPLUS).
PC Magazine, another American magazine, has several forums on
CompuServe. They also operate a bulletin board. People from AI Expert
Magazine can be encountered in the AI Expert Forum. Dr. Dobb's
Journal is in the Dr. Dobb's Journal Forum.
The Entrepreneur's Small Business Forum (CompuServe) is managed
by representatives from the magazine. Live Sound!, a magazine devoted
to the MIDI sound field, occupies section and library 9 of the MIDI B
Vendor Forum.
Time magazine has a forum on America Online. There, readers can
discuss with magazine reporters and editors, and even read the text
of entire issues of Time electronically before it is available on
newsstands.
The Online World shareware book, the one you're reading just now,
also has a forum. For information about how to join, send email to
LISTSERV@vm1.nodak.edu (or LISTSERV@NDSUVM1 on BITNET). In the text
of your message, write the command "GET TOW MASTER".
Chapter 10: Looking for a needle in a bottle of hay
===================================================
Experienced users regularly clip news from online services, and
store selected parts of it on their personal computers' hard disks.
They use powerful tools to search their data, and know how to use
the information in other applications.
Regular clipping of news is highly recommended. It is often
quicker and easier to search your own databases than to do it
online.
Since your data is a subset of previous searches, your stories
are likely to have a high degree of relevancy.
There are many powerful programs for personal computers that
let you search your personal data for information. Read Chapter 14
for more on this.
While secondary research can never replace primary information
gathering, it often satisfies most information needs related to any
task or project. Besides, it points in the direction of primary
sources from where more in-depth information may be elicited.
When your personal database fails to deliver
--------------------------------------------
Regular "clipping" can indeed help you build a powerful personal
database, but it will never satisfy all your information needs.
Occasionally, you must go online for additional facts.
When this happens, you may feel like Don Quixote, as he was
looking "for a needle in a bottle of hay." The large number of
online offerings is bewildering. To be successful, you must have
a sound search strategy.
Your first task is to locate useful SOURCES of information. The
next, to decide how best to find that specific piece of information
online. You must PLAN your search.
Although one source of information, like an online database, is
supposed to cover your area of interest, it may still be unable to
give you what you want. Let me explain with an example:
You're tracking a company called IBM (International Business
Machines). Your first inclination is to visit forums and clubs
concerned with products delivered by this company. There, you
plan to search message bases and file libraries.
What is likely to happen, is that the search term IBM gives so
many hits that you almost drown. To find anything of interest
in these forums, your search terms must be very specific.
General news providers, like Associated Press, may be a better
alternative. Usually, they just publish one or two stories on
IBM per week. Don't expect to learn about details that are not
of interest to the general public.
AP's stories may be too general for you. Maybe you'll be more
content with industry insiders' expert views, as provided by
the NewsNet newsletters OUTLOOK ON IBM, or THE REPORT ON IBM.
The level of details in a given story depends in part on the news
providers' readers, and the nature of the source. The amount of
"noise" (the level of irrelevancy) also varies. In most public
forums, expect to wade through many uninteresting messages before
finding things of interest.
We suggest the following strategy:
Step 1: Locate sources that provide relevant information,
Step 2: Check if the information from these sources is at a
satisfactory level of details, and that the volume
is acceptable (not too much, neither too little).
Step 3: Study the service's search commands and procedures,
PLAN, and then SEARCH.
Start by asking others!
-----------------------
Step 1 is not an easy one. Start by asking other online people for
advice. This may be the fastest way to interesting sources.
If looking for information about agriculture and fisheries,
visit conferences about related topics. Ask members there what they
are using.
If you want information about computers or electronics, ask in
such conferences.
| When you don't know where to start your search, ask others! |
| Their know-how is usually the quickest way to the sources. |
If this doesn't help, check out GEnie's Home Office/Small Business
RoundTable, a hangout of online searchers. Visit CompuServe's
Working From Home Forum, which has a section for information
professionals (#4), and the section for new librarians in the
Journalism Forum.
Patent searchers are a very specialized group. They discuss
common problems on Dialog's DialMail. Their bulletin board is named
PIUG.
Buy user manuals
----------------
Some online services send free user information manuals to their
users. Others charge extra for them. If they do, buy! They're worth
their weight in gold.
The user manuals from Dialog, Dow Jones News/Retrieval and
CompuServe make good reading. The last two also publish monthly
magazines full of search tips, information about new sources, user
experiences, and more. Dialog distributes the monthly newsletter
Chronolog.
NewsNet customers periodically receive a printed listing of
available newsletters by subject area, and a presentation of their
information providers. The NewsNet Action Letter (monthly) is also
distributed by mail.
On some services, you can retrieve the help texts in electronic
form. Doing that is not a bad idea. It is often quicker to search a
help file on your disk, than to browse through a book.
Monitor the offerings
---------------------
Professional information searchers monitor the activity in the
online world. They search databases for information about new
sources of information, and regularly read about new services.
On most online services, you can search databases of available
offerings, and a section with advertisements about their own
'superiorities'. Keep an eye on what is being posted there.
NewsNet lets you read and search the following newsletters:
Worldwide Videotex Update, Worldwide Databases (#PB44), Online
Newsletter, The Online Newsletter, and The Online Libraries and
Microcomputers.
The last two are also available as a database from Information
Intelligence, Inc., (P.O. Box 31098, Phoenix, AZ 85046, U.S.A.
Tel.: +1-602-996-2283). You can read the text on NewsNet about one
week before it appears in print.
These two newsletters can also be read and searched on Dialog
and Data-Star, as part of the Information Access PTS Newsletter
Database. Information Access is a full-text database with many
specialized newsletters for business and industry.
On CompuServe, you can get to Information Access through the
IQuest gateway to NewsNet.
Subscribing to THE ONLINE NEWSLETTER costs US$50.00 per year
(10 issues) for companies, and US$35.00 for personal use (1991).
For both newsletters, the price is US$75.00.
These newsletters are also available on CD-ROM. The disk
contains four databases: the Online Newsletter, Online Hotline,
Online Libraries and Microcomputers, Major Online Vendors and
*Joblines* with more than eight thousand full-text articles from
January 1980 until today.
The CD-ROM version is delivered with a menu-driven searching
program. Each word in every article and headline has been indexed
and can be located in all databases. The price for subscriptions
of the printed version is US$99.95. Price for nonsubscribers:
US$199.95.
The September 1991 issue of The Online Newsletter had the
following index (partial):
*****************************
*NEW & FORTHCOMING DATABASES*
*****************************
10) MULTIMEDIA CIA WORLD FACT BOOK (CD-ROM) [REVIEW]
11) NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS ON CD-ROM (CD-ROM) [REVIEW]
12) WORLD CERAMICS ABSTRACTS (ORBIT)
13) GENE-TOX (TOXNET/NLM)
14) UK TRADEMARKS (ORBIT) [RENAMED]
15) BRS ADDS DATABASES TO ITS OFFERINGS
16) CURRENT PATENTS (ORBIT)
17) NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE ON CD-ROM (CD-ROM)
18) ALUMINUM STANDARDS DATABASE [AAASD] (STN
19) PLASNEWS (STN INTERNATIONAL)
20) EPIC ANNOUNCES NEW DATABASES
21) DISCLIT: AMERICAN AUTHORS (CD-ROM - OCLC)
22) CROSS-CULTURAL: CRIME AND SOCIAL PROBLEMS (CD-ROM)
23) INTERNATIONAL PHARMACEUTICAL ABSTRACTS (CD-ROM)
24) RINGDOC (CD-ROM - SILVERPLATTER)
25) CODUS (ESA-IRS)
26) MOODY'S COMPANY DATA (CD-ROM)
27) FEDERAL NEWS SERVICE (DIALOG)
28) INPADOC DATABASE TO BE MADE AVAILABLE IN JAPAN (DIALOG)
29) SOFTWARE CD: DESCRIPTIONS & REVIEWS (CD-ROM)
30) MONARCH NOTES ON CD-ROM (CD-ROM)
An earlier issue of the newsletter reviewed The Encyclopedia of
Information Systems and Services, a three-volume "bible" for online
users and producers (9th edition):
EISS covers more than 30,000 organizations, systems, services,
more than five thousand databases, publications, software products,
etc. Their international listing covers 1,350 information
organizations in 70 countries, and has 535 pages.
Topics: online host services, videotex/teletext information
services, PC oriented services, data collection and analysis
services, abstracting and indexing services, computerized
searching services, software producers, magnetic tape/diskette
providers, micrographic applications and services, library and
information networks, library management systems, information on
demand services, transactional services (new category), document
delivery services, SDI/current awareness services, consultants,
associations, research and research projects, and electronic mail
applications.
Contact: Gale Research Company, 645 Griswold, Detroit, MI
48226, U.S.A. Tel.: +1-313-961-2242. Price per set: US$ 420.00.
The European Common Market
--------------------------
Many services bring news and information from the European Common
Market. The Common Market's free database service, I'M-GUIDE, is
a good place to start.
I'M-GUIDE is available through ECHO in Luxembourg by telnet to
echo.lu . At the question "PLEASE ENTER YOUR CODE," enter ECHO and
press Return.
You can search I'M-GUIDE for information sources, send email
inquiries to ECHO, and more. Searches can be done in English,
French, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Danish, and Portuguese.
If you have problems using I'M-GUIDE, call the ECHO Help Desk
in Luxembourg at +352-34 98 11.
More sources about sources
--------------------------
The "Internet-Accessible Library Catalogs and Databases" report is
available by email from LISTSERV@UNMVM.BITNET. Put the following
command in the TEXT of your message:
GET LIBRARY PACKAGE
Cuadra/Elsevier (Box 872, Madison Square Station, New York, NY
10159-2101, U.S.A. Tel.: +1 212 633 3980) sells a Directory of
Online Databases, which lists databases available around the world.
The catalog can be searched on Orbit and Data-Star.
The Online Access Publishing Group Inc. (Chicago) sells "The
Online Access Guide." Annual subscription for this printed manual
costs US$18.95 (six issues - 1992).
The LINK-UP magazine is another interesting source. If living
in North America, contact Learned Information Inc., 143 Old Mariton
Pike, Medford, NJ 08055-8707, U.S.A.. If living elsewhere, contact
Learned Information (Europe) Ltd., Woodside, Hinskey Hill, Oxford
OX1 5AU, England, if you live outside North America. Tel.: +44 865
730 275. Price: US$25.00 for six issues/year (1993). An online
version is available through ZiffNet's Business Database Plus on
CompuServe.
Two monthly magazines, Information World Review (price: GBP
30/year) and FULLTEXT SOURCES ONLINE from BiblioData Inc. in the
United States, is also available through Learned Information.
(BiblioData, P.O. Box 61, Needham Heights, MA 02194, U.S.A.)
FULLTEXT SOURCES ONLINE publishes their listing of full-text
databases twice per year. The price is GBP 50 GBP per booklet or
GBP 90 per year.
The newsletter SCANNET TODAY (c/o Helsinki University of Techn.
Library, Otnaesvaegen 9, SF-02150 ESBO, Finland) presents news of
Scandinavian databases by country. Subscription is free.
Computer Readable Databases from Gale Research is available
both in print and online through Dialog. Write to Gale Research
Company, 645 Griswold, Detroit, MI 48226, U.S.A.
Many electronic journals and newsletters are available through
the Internet, covering fields from literature to molecular biology.
For a complete list, send a message to LISTSERV@ACADVM1.UOTTAWA.CA
with the following commands in the BODY of your text:
GET EJOURNL1 DIRECTRY
GET EJOURNL2 DIRECTRY
Practical hints about online searching
--------------------------------------
We cannot give a simple, universal recipe valid for all online
services. What is the best approach on one service, may be useless
on others.
Most services offer full online documentation of their search
commands. You can read the help text on screen while connected, or
retrieve it for later study.
Make a note about the following general tricks:
In conferences and forums:
--------------------------
Many services have commands for selective reading of messages.
For example, on CompuServe you can limit your search to given
sections. You can also select messages to be read based on
text strings in the subject titles. The command
rs;s;CIS Access from Japan;62928
displays all messages with the text "CIS Access from Japan"
in their subject titles starting with message number 62928.
Online searching often starts by selecting databases. The
next step is to enter search words (or text strings), and
a valid time frame (as in "between 1/1/90 and 1/1/91").
The following sample search terms are used on NewsNet:
VIDEO* search for all words starting with
VIDEO. "*" is a wild-card character
referring to any ending of the word.
VIDEO* matches words like VIDEOTEXT
and VIDEOCONFERENCE.
SONY AND VIDEO The word SONY and the word VIDEO. Both
words must be present in the document
to give a match.
SONY WITHIN/10 VIDEO Both words must be present in the text,
but they must not be farther apart than
ten words. (Proximity operators)
IBM OR APPLE Either one word OR the other.
Many services let you reuse your search terms in new search
commands. This can save you time and money, if there are too
many hits. For example: if IBM OR APPLE gives 1,000 hits,
limit the search by adding "FROM JANUARY 1st.," or by adding
the search word "NOTEBOOK*".
In file libraries
-----------------
The commands used to find files are similar to those used in
traditional databases. Often, you can limit the search by
library, date, file name, or file extension. You can search for
text strings in the description of the contents of a file, or
use key words.
Example: You're visiting a bulletin board based on the BBS
program RBBS-PC. You want a program that can show GIF graphics
picture files. Such files are typically described like this:
VUIMG31.EXE 103105 07-15-91 GIF*/TIFF/PCX Picture Viewer/Printer
From left to right: file name, size in bytes, date available,
and a 40 character description.
You can search the file descriptions for the string "gif". You
do this by entering the term "s gif all". This will probably
give you a list of files. Some will have the letters GIF in
the file name. Others will have them in the description field.
Using ANDs and ORs
------------------
Boolean searching may seem confusing at first, unless you already
understand the logic. There are three Boolean operators that
searchers use to combine search terms: AND, OR, and NOT.
Use the Boolean operator AND to retrieve smaller amounts of
information. Use AND when multiple words must be present in your
search results (MERCEDES AND VOLVO AND CITROEN AND PRICES).
Use OR to express related concepts or synonyms for your search
term (FRUIT OR APPLES OR PEARS OR BANANAS OR PEACHES).
Be careful when using the NOT operator. It gets rid of any record
in a database that contains the word that you've "notted" out. For
example, searching for "IBM NOT APPLE" drops records containing the
sentence, "IBM and Apple are computer giants." The record will be
dropped, even if this is the only mention of Apple in an article,
and though it is solely about IBM.
Use NOT to drop sets of hits that you have already seen. Use
NOT to exclude records with multiple meanings, like "CHIPS Not
POTATO" (if you are looking for chips rather than snack foods).
Often, it pays to start with a "quick-and-dirty" search by
throwing in words you think will do the trick. Then look at the
first five or 10 records, but look only at the headline and the
indexing. This will show you what terms are used by indexers to
describe your idea and the potential for confusion with other
ideas.
Use proximity operators to search multiword terms. If searching
for "market share," you want the two words within so many words of
another. The order of the words, however, doesn't matter. You can
accept both "market share" and "share of the market."
Searching by email
------------------
MCI Mail and MCI Fax have a program called Information Advantage,
under which online services and newsletters can deliver search
results and other information over the online services. Dialog,
Dun & Bradstreet, NewsNet, and Individual Inc. have signed up for
the program.
You can request a search by direct email to say Dialog. The
search results will be returned to you via MCI Mail or MCI Fax.
With Dun and Bradstreet, you call them for a credit report and
they send it to you. With History Associates, you send them a
message via MCI Mail, and they report to you.
Using BITNET discussion lists through Internet
----------------------------------------------
To get a directory of Internet/BITNET mailing lists, send the
following email message:
To: LISTSERV@VM1.NODAK.EDU
Subject: (keep this blank)
Text:
LIST GLOBAL
You will receive a LONG list of available sources of information. A
recent copy had over two thousand lines of text. Each mailing list
is described with one line. All these mailing lists can be used by
email through the Internet. Here is a random selection:
Network-wide ID Full address List title
--------------- ------------ ----------
AESRG-L AESRG-L@UMCVMB Applied Expert Systems Research Group List
AGRIC-L AGRIC-L@UGA Agriculture Discussion
AIDSNEWS AIDSNEWS@EB0UB011 AIDS/HIV News
ANIME-L ANIME-L@VTVM1 Japanese animedia and other animation news.
BANYAN BANYAN-L@AKRONVM Banyan Networks Discussion List
BRIDGE BRIDGE@NDSUVM1 Bridge Communication products
CHEM-L CHEM-L@UOGUELPH Chemistry discussion
EJCREC EJCREC@RPIECS Electronic Journal of Communication
FAMCOMM FAMCOMM@RPICICGE Marital/family & relational communication
SOVNET-L SOVNET-L@INDYCMS USSR electronic communication list
The column "Network-wide ID" contains the names of the mailing
lists. "Full address" contains their BITNET email addresses. "List
title" is a short textual description of each conference.
Keep the list on your hard disk. This makes it easier to find
sources of information, when you need them.
Subscribing to mailing lists
----------------------------
Each line in the list above refers to a mailing list, also often
called 'discussion list'. They work like online conferences or
message sections on bulletin boards, but technically they are
different. (Read about KIDLINK in Chapter 2 for background
information.)
All BITNET mailing lists are controlled by a program called
LISTSERV on the host computer given in column two above (for
example @UMCVMB). They offer "conferencing" with the following
important functions:
* All "discussion items" (i.e., electronic messages sent to the
lists' email address) are distributed to all subscribers.
* All messages are automatically stored in notebook archives.
You can search these log files, and you can have them sent
to you as electronic mail.
* Files can be stored in the lists' associated file libraries
for distribution to subscribers on demand.
Where to send a subscription request, depends on where you are
communicating from relative to the host running the LISTSERV. If
this host is your nearest BITNET LISTSERV, then send the request
to the address in column two by replacing the list name by LISTSERV.
Example:
AESRG-L@UMCVMB is administered by LISTSERV@UMCVMB. Subscribe
(or signoff) by email to LISTSERV@UMCVMB.BITNET .
If there is a LISTSERV closer to where you live, then you should
subscribe to the nearby system rather than to the remote. This
helps keep the total costs of the international network down.
Example:
You live in Norway. The nearest LISTSERV is at FINHUTC. To
subscribe to AESRG-L@UMCVMB, send to LISTSERV@FINHUTC.BITNET .
Use the addresses in column two when sending messages to the other
members of the discussion lists, but do NOT send your subscription
requests to this address!! If you do, it will be forwarded to all
members of the mailing list. Chances are that nothing will happen,
and everybody will see how sloppy you are.
So, you subscribe by sending a command to a LISTSERV. The
method is similar to what we did when subscribing to Infonets in
Chapter 7. If your name is Jens Jensen, and you want to subscribe
to SOVNET-L, send this message through the Internet (assuming that
NDSUM1 is your nearest LISTSERV host):
To: LISTSERV@NDSUVM1.BITNET
Subject: (You can write anything here. Will be ignored.)
Text: SUB SOVNET-L Jens Jensen
When your subscription has been registered, you will receive a
confirmation. From this date, all messages sent to the list will be
forwarded to your mailbox. (Send "SIGNOFF SOVNET-L" to this address,
when you have had enough.)
Some lists will forward each message to you upon receipt. Others
will send a periodic digest (weekly, monthly, etc.).
To send a message to SOVNET-L, send to the BITNET address in
column two above. Send to
SOVNET-L@INDYCMS.BITNET
Review the following example. Most BITNET lists will accept these
commands.
Example: Subscription to the China list
---------------------------------------
CHINA-NN is listed like this in the List of Lists:
CHINA-NN CHINA-NN@ASUACAD China News Digest (Global News)
Scandinavians may subscribe to CHINA-NN by Internet mail to
LISTSERV@FINHUTC.BITNET . North American users may send their mail
to LISTSERV@NDSUVM1.BITNET .
If your name is Winston Hansen, write the following command in the
TEXT of the message
SUB CHINA-NN Winston Hansen
When you want to leave CHINA-NN, send a cancellation message like
this:
To: LISTSERV@NDSUVM1.BITNET
Subject: (nothing here)
SIGNOFF CHINA-NN
NOTE: Send the cancellation command to the address you used, when
subscribing! If you subscribed through LISTSERV@FINHUTC, sending
the SIGNOFF command to LISTSERV@NDSUVM1 will get you nowhere. Send
to LISTSERV@FINHUTC.
Never send the SIGNOFF command to the discussion list itself!
Always send to the LISTSERV.
Monitoring the action
---------------------
THINKNET is an online magazine forum dedicated to "thoughtfulness in
the cybertime environment." It brings reviews of significant and
thought-provoking exchanges within our new electronic nation.
This electronic publication is free. If you're interested in
philosophy, subscribe by sending a message through Internet to
thinknet@world.std.com . Write the following in the TEXT of the
message:
SEND THINKNET TO Your-Full-Name AT UserId@Your-Internet-Email-Address
Example:
If your email address is opresno@extern.uio.no and your name
Odd de Presno, use the following command:
SEND THINKNET TO Odd de Presno AT OPRESNO@EXTERN.UIO.NO
THINKNET is also available through the Philosophy conference on The
Well, and on GEnie in the Philosophy category under the Religion
and Ethics Bulletin Board. (Hard copy versions can be bought
through THINKNET, PO BOX 8383, Orange CA 92664-8383, U.S.A.).
If you're on The Well, read the topic "News from Around Well
Conferences" to learn about new developments.
These are some mailing lists that may help you locate sources
of interest:
NETSCOUT (NETSCOUT@VMTECMEX) The BITnet/Internet scouts.
Subscribe by email to LISTSERV@VMTECMEX.BITNET
with the following in the TEXT of your message
SUB NETSCOUT yourfirstname yourlastname
This is where you can discuss and exchange information
about servers, FTP sites, Filelists, lists, tools, and
any related aspects.
HELP-NET (HELP-NET@TEMPLEVM) BITNET/CREN/INTERNET Help Resource.
Send email to LISTSERV@TEMPLEVM.BITNET with the text
SUB HELP-NET yourfirstname yourlastname
The list's main purpose is to help solve user problems
with utilities and software related to the Internet
and BITNET networks. The library contains several good
help files for novice networkers. A great place for
new Internet users!
Other sources available through the Internet
--------------------------------------------
The Interest Groups List of Lists is available by electronic mail
from mail-server@nisc.sri.com . Send a message with the following
text in the message body:
Send netinfo/interest-groups
Note that as of April 1993, the file was over 1,100,000 bytes in
size. It will be returned to you in moderately sized pieces.
You can search the List of Lists by email. Say you're looking
for a mailing list related to Robotics. To find out, send a message
to LISTSERV@VM1.NODAK.EDU containing the following commands:
//ListSrch JOB Echo=No
Database Search DD=Rules
//Rules DD *
search robotics in lists
index
search robotics in intgroup
index
search robotics in new-list
index
Replace the search word 'robotics' with whatever else you may be
looking for.
The Usenet list of news groups and mailing lists is available on
hosts that run Usenet News or NetNews servers and/or clients in the
newsgroups news.announce.newusers and news.lists.
The members of news.newusers.questions, alt.internet.help,
alt.internet.access.wanted, and alt.internet.new-users readily
accept your help requests.
Alt.internet.services focuses on information about services
available on the Internet. It is for people with Internet accounts
who want to explore beyond their local computers, to take advantage
of the wealth of information and services on the net.
Services for discussion include:
* things you can telnet to (weather, library catalogs,
databases, and more),
* things you can FTP (like pictures, sounds, programs, data)
* clients/servers (like MUDs, IRC, Archie)
Every second week, a list of Internet services called the "Special
Internet Connections list" is posted to this newsgroup. It includes
everything from where to FTP pictures from space, how to find
agricultural information, public UNIX, online directories and
books, you name it.
Dartmouth maintains a merged list of the LISTSERV lists on
BITNET and the Interest Group lists on the Internet. Each mailing
list is represented by one line. To obtain this list, send a
message to LISTSERV@DARTCMS1.BITNET . Enter the following command
in the text of the message:
INDEX SIGLISTS
InterNIC Information Service maintains an announcement-only service
at LISTSERV@is.internic.net called net-happenings. It distributes
announcements about tools, conferences, calls for papers, news
items, new mailing lists, electronic newsletters like EDUPAGE, and
more. To subscribe, send a message to the LISTSERV containing this
command:
subscribe net-happenings Your Name
InterNIC's automated mail service is at MAILSERV@RS.INTERNIC.NET.
It allows access to documents and files via email. To use it, send
email to the Mailserv with the word "HELP" in the subject field of
your mail.
How to get more out of your magazine subscriptions
--------------------------------------------------
PC Magazine (U.S.A.) is one of those magazines that arrives here by
mail. We butcher them, whenever we find something of interest. The
"corpses" are dumped in a high pile on the floor.
To retrieve a story in this pile is difficult and time
consuming, unless the title is printed on the cover.
Luckily, there are shortcuts. Logon to PC MagNet on CompuServe.
Type GO PCMAG to get the following menu:
PC MagNet
1 Download a PC Magazine Utility
2 PC Magazine Utilities/Tips Forum
3 PC Magazine Editorial Forum
4 PC Magazine Programming Forum
5 PC Magazine After Hours Forum
6 PC Magazine Product Reviews Index
7 Free! - Take a Survey
8 Submissions to PC Magazine
9 Letters to the Editor
10 Subscribe to PC Magazine
Choice six lets you search for stories. Once you have a list with
page/issue references, turning the pages gets much easier.
PC Magazine is owned by the media giant Ziff-Davis. PC MagNet
is a part of ZiffNet on CompuServe. So is Computer Database Plus,
which lets you search through more than 250,000 articles from over
200 popular newspapers and magazines. The oldest articles are from
early 1987. The database is also available on CD-ROM, but the discs
cover only one year at a time.
CDP contains full-text from around 50 magazines, like Personal
Computing, Electronic News, MacWeek and Electronic Business.
Stories from the other magazines are available in abstracted form
only.
To search the database, CDP, you pay an extra US$24.00 per
hour. In addition, you pay US$1.00 per abstract and US$1.50 per
full-text article (1992). These fees are added to your normal
CompuServe access rates.
ZiffNet also offers Magazine Database Plus, a database with
stories from over 90 magazines covering science, business, sport,
people, personal finance, family, art and handicraft, cooking,
education, environment, travel, politics, consumer opinions, and
reviews of books and films.
The magazines include: Administrative Management, Aging,
Changing Times, The Atlantic, Canadian Business, Datamation,
Cosmopolitan, Dun's Business Month, The Economist, The Futurist,
High Technology Business, Journal of Small Business Management,
Management Today, The Nation, The New Republic, Online, Playboy,
Inc., Popular Science, Research & Development, Sales & Marketing
Management, Scientific American, Technology Review, UN Chronicle,
UNESCO Courier and U.S. News & World Report.
In the next chapter, we will present another ZiffNet magazine
database: the Business Database Plus.
Magazine Index (MI), from Information Access Company (U.S.A.),
is another source worth looking at. It covers over 500 consumer and
general-interest periodicals as diverse as Special Libraries and
Sky & Telescope, Motor Trend and Modern Maturity, Reader's Digest
and Rolling Stone. Many titles go as far back as 1959.
Although most of the database consists of brief citations, MI
also contains the complete text of selected stories from a long
list of periodicals. It is available through Dialog, CompuServe,
BRS, Data-Star, Dow Jones News/Retrieval, Nexis, and others.
Say you so often get references to a given magazine that you
want a paper subscription. Try the Electronic Newsstand, which is
available by gopher or telnet to gopher.netsys.com. If these
Internet commands are unavailable, try mail to staff@enews.com.
Finding that book
-----------------
Over 270 libraries around the world are accessible by the Internet
telnet command. Some of them can also be accessed by Internet mail.
This is the case with BIBSYS, a database operated by the Norwegian
universities' libraries.
I am into transcendental meditation. I'm therefore constantly
looking for books on narrow topics like "mantra". To search BIBSYS
for titles of interest, I sent mail to genserv@pollux.bibsys.no .
The search word was entered in the subject title of the message. By
return email, I got the following report:
Date: Fri, 21 Jul 93 13:54:18 NOR
From: GENSERV@POLLUX.BIBSYS.NO
Subject: Searching BIBSYS
Search request : MANTRA
Database-id : BIBSYS
Search result : 5 hits.
The following is one of the references. I have forwarded it to my
local library for processing:
Forfatter : Gonda, J.
Tittel : Mantra interpretation in the Satapatha-Brahmana
/ by J. Gonda.
Trykt : Leiden : E.J. Brill, 1988.
Sidetall : X, 285 s.
I serie : (Orientalia Rheno-traiectina ; 32)
ISBN : 90-04-08776-1
1 - UHF 90ka03324 - UHF/INDO Rh III b Gon
The Danish library database REX may be accessed through most
international packet switching networks. Its Network User Address
(NUA) is 23824125080000. When connected, enter RC8000 and press
return. Press ESC once. The system will respond with ATT. Enter KB
REX, and you're ready to search Dansk Bogfortegnelse since 1980,
Dansk Musikfortegnelse since 1980, and ISDS Denmark.
BARTON is the library system of Massachusetts Institute of
Technology. Its database contains everything received since 1974
except magazine articles, brochures, and technical reports from
sources outside M.I.T. Phone: +1-617-258-6700 (1200 bps). Press
ENTER a couple of times to access the system.
On CompuServe, there is a section for book collectors in the
Coin/Stamp/Collectibles Forum, and a Weekly Book Chat section in
the ScienceFiction & Fantasy Forum. In the Electronic Mall, you can
buy books directly from Ballantine Books, Penguin Books, Small
Computer Book Club, The McGraw-Hill Book Company, Time-Life Books
and Walden Computer Books.
On the Internet, Roswell Computer Books Ltd. (Canada) has an
online bookstore with a database of over 7,000 titles (1993).
Gopher to nstn.ns.ca, select "Other Gophers in Nova Scotia", and
then "Roswell Electronic Computer Bookstore". Failing access to
gopher, send your email requests to roswell@fox.nstn.ns.ca .
The Book Review Digest (GO BOOKREVIEW) is CompuServe's database
of bibliographical references and abstracts of reviews (since
1983). You can search by title, author, and keywords found in the
text of book reviews. CompuServe also offers book reviews through
Magazine Database Plus.
"Books in print" is a North American bibliographic reference
database. It is available on BRS and CompuServe.
South African Bibliographic and Information Network has a
gopher service at info2.sabinet.co.za.
FidoNet has COMICS (The Comic Book Echo), BITNET the list Rare
Book and Special Collections Catalogers (NOTRBCAT@INDYCMS). NewsNet
has the COMPUTER BOOK REVIEW newsletter and on The Well you'll find
the "Computer Books" conference. OCLC's WorldCat is a reference
database covering books and materials in libraries worldwide.
Bookworms may appreciate the BITNET discussion list DOROTHYL
(LISTSERV@KENTVM.KENT.EDU), and especially if they like Agatha
Christie, Josephine Tey and Dorothy L. Sayers.
On Usenet, you will find alt.books.reviews, k12.library,
alt.books.technical, rec.arts.books, and misc. books.technical, and
more.
On the Internet, there are a rapidly growing number of library
online public-access catalogs (OPACs) from all over the world. Some
provide users with access to additional resources, such as
periodical indexes of specialized databases. More than 270 library
catalogs are now online (1992).
An up-to-date directory of libraries that are interactively
accessible through Internet can be had by anonymous ftp from
ftp.unt.edu (then: cd library). File name: LIBRARIES.TXT. Check out
the end of Chapter 12 for how to get the file by email (ftpmail).
You will also find full electronic versions of books. This book
is one example. Many texts are courtesy of Project Gutenberg, an
organization whose goal is to develop a library of 10,000 public
domain electronic texts by the year 2000.
Since books are often quite large, they are somewhat bulky for
email transfer. If you have direct Internet access, use anonymous
ftp instead.
Many books are available through the /pub/almanac/etext
directory at oes.orst.edu. For more about how to use the Almanac
information server, send Almanac@oes.orst.edu the following email
command:
send guide
For a list of books, add the line
send gutenberg catalog
Among the offerings, you'll find The Complete Sherlock Holmes
Mysteries, The Unabridged Works of Shakespeare, Aesop's Fables,
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, The Holy Bible, The Love
Teachings of Kama Sutra, The Holy Koran, The Oedipus Trilogy
(Sophocles), Peter Pan, Roget's Thesaurus (1911), and The World
Fact Book (1990 - CIA).
If quite impossible to locate a given book, try the Rare Books
and Special Collections Forum at EXLIBRIS@RUTVM1.BITNET.
Non-Chinese speaking people will probably classify Chinese
poems as 'rare'. Many of them are impossible to read, unless your
computer can handle the special characters, and you know their
meaning.
Still interested? If yes, subscribe to CHPOEM-L@UBVM.BITNET .
Be prepared to use your Big5 and GuoBiao utilities.
Chapter 11: Getting an edge over your competitor
================================================
We must be willing to risk change to keep apace with rapid
change.
The key is moderation and balance, supported by sufficient
information to allow meaningful feedback.
It requires adaption by management and staff in developing
the necessary skills and vision.
This chapter starts with how to use the networks to manage
projects. Next, it treats how to monitor competitors, prospects,
suppliers, markets, technologies, and trends. It winds down with
marketing and sales by modem.
Project coordination
--------------------
So far we have mainly been looking at sources of information. Let
us start this chapter with some words about 'online conference
rooms' for project coordination.
Several services offer rental of private conference areas to
businesses. Corporations have discovered them to be an efficient
way of coordinating a group of people, who are far apart from each
other geographically. They are also useful when team members are
constantly on the move and hard to gather face to face.
Many international companies use such services regularly. The
applications are different. They range from tight coordination with
suppliers and subcontractors, to development of company strategies
and new organizational structures.
Renting an online conference room has advantages over doing it
in-house. The company does not have to buy software, hardware,
expensive equipment for communications, and hire people for to run
and maintain a conferencing system. The more international the
business, the better.
For ideas about how to set up and operate a coordination
conference. Study how volunteer organizations do it. One place to
check out is KIDPLAN, one of several coordination conferences used
by KIDLINK (see Chapter 2 and 5).
KIDPLAN is usually most active during April and May each year.
This is when their annual projects are being closed down, and new
projects are started. Read the dialog between coordinators to get
an idea of how the medium is being used.
Old conference messages are stored in notebook files. You can
therefore have the full coordination dialogs sent you by email.
Send all requests for notebook files to
LISTSERV@VM1.NODAK.EDU
Getting notebook files is a two-step process. In your first message
to the LISTSERV, ask for a list of available files. Do this by
using the following command in your email:
INDEX KIDPLAN
The LISTSERV will return a list of files. The following part is of
particular interest:
101/2/ KIDPLAN LOG9105B ALL OWN V 80 2397 91/05/14
23:40:22 Started on Wed, 8 May 91 00:11:09 CDT
102/2/ KIDPLAN LOG9105C ALL OWN V 80 3141 91/05/21
20:44:16 Started on Wed, 15 May 91 01:24:51 CDT
104/2/ KIDPLAN LOG9105D ALL OWN V 80 2685 91/05/28
22:34:31 Started on Wed, 22 May 91 17:01:21 +0200
Don't bother about the details. You just want file names, and
dates. The file LOG9105B contains all messages from 8 May 1991
until 15 May.
If you want all these three files, send another message to
LISTSERV with the following lines:
GET KIDPLAN LOG9105B
GET KIDPLAN LOG9105C
GET KIDPLAN LOG9105D
The files will be forwarded to your mailbox.
Note: Some mailbox services have restrictions on the size of
incoming mail. This may prevent you from receiving large notebook
files. If this happens, contact your local postmaster for help.
Some email systems are unable to forward your return-address
correctly to LISTSERV. If you suspect that this is the reason for
lack of success, try the following commands:
GIVE KIDPLAN LOG9105B TO Your-Correct-Return-Address
GIVE KIDPLAN LOG9105C TO Your-Correct-Return-Address
GIVE KIDPLAN LOG9105D TO Your-Correct-Return-Address
Making it work
--------------
Making online conferences and task force meetings work, can be a
challenge. Most of the dialog is based on the written word. The
flow of information can be substantial thus causing an information
overload for some participants.
To overcome this, many companies appoint moderator-organizers
for their online conferences. This person:
Adds value by setting agendas; summarizing points; getting
the discussion(s) back on track; moving on to the next
point; mediating debate; maintaining address and member
lists; acting as general sparkplug/motivator to keep things
flowing by making sure that contributions are acknowledged,
relevant points are noted, new members are welcomed, silent
"Read-Only Members" are encouraged to participate, and the
general atmosphere is kept appropriate to the goals of the
conference/task force meeting.
Great online conferences don't just happen. Hard work is required.
A few people must be responsible for getting the meetings fired up
and keep the discussion rolling.
The meeting's organization may depend on the number of
participants, where they come from, the exclusivity of the forum,
and the purpose of the "meeting."
In large meetings, with free access for outsiders, the best
strategy may be to appoint a Moderator-Editor. This person
Filters contributions, gathers new information, summarizes
scattered contributions, does background research.
Filtering may be needed in conferences that are open to customers
and media. The main purpose, however, is to help participants cope
with the absolute flow of information.
A conference can have an educational purpose. If so, you may
bring in someone who can add value by bringing experience and
expertise to the group.
You will also need someone to do all the dirty jobs everyone
expects to be done - but never notices until they are not done.
This person must keep the show running by serving as a benevolent
tyrant, sheriff, judge, mediator, general scapegoat, and by playing
a role in setting the general policy and atmosphere of the meeting.
Now, back to the 'normal' applications of the online resource.
Monitoring what others do
-------------------------
The best business opportunities are outside your company, in the
external world. We need to monitor customers and markets, find
technologies to help develop and build products, research new
business actions, find new subcontractors and suppliers, people to
hire, and persons to influence to boost sales.
In this marketing age, where sales calls cost hundreds of
dollars and business-to-business marketers use the telephone or
the mails to reach prospects, complete and accurate market lists
are most valuable commodities.
There are many other questions: What are our most important
customers and their key people doing? What new products are they
promoting? Who are their joint-venture partners? What else may
influence their willingness to buy from us?
What prices are our major suppliers offering other buyers?
Should we get other sources for supplies? What major contracts have
they received recently? Will these influence their ability to serve
our needs?
What new technologies are available now and how are they being
used by others?
Threats are the reverse side of opportunities. What are our
competitors doing? What products and services have they launched
recently? Are they successful? What are our competitors' weaknesses
and strengths? What relationships do they maintain with our most
important customers? How is their customer support functioning, and
what methods are they using in their quality assurance?
Each company has its own priorities when it comes to watching
the external environment. The information needs are different from
company to company, depending on what products and services that
are offered, the technological level of the company, the markets
that they address, and more.
Needs and priorities also differ by department and person, for
example depending on whether a user is the president, a marketing
manager, product manager, sales man, or has a position in finance
or production.
Remember your priorities when going online to search. You
cannot possibly capture and digest all information that is there.
Your basic problem remains to find the right information in the
right form at the right time.
Build your own, local 'database'
--------------------------------
It does not take much effort to check one hundred different topics
from multiple online sources on a daily basis. The computer will do
it for you.
Also, you do not have to read all stories as carefully as you
would with printed material. Most experienced users just read what
is important now, and save selected parts of the retrieved texts on
their hard disks for later reference.
We handle printed material differently. Most of us make notes
in the margins, underline, use colors, cut out pages and put into
folders. These tricks are important, since it is so hard to find
information in a pile of papers.
Not so with electronic information. With the right tools, you
can locate information on your computer's hard disk in seconds.
In seven seconds, I just searched the equivalent of 2000 pages
of printed text for all occurrences of the combined search words
'SONY' and 'CD-ROM'!
My tool was the shareware program LOOKFOR (see Chapter 14). It
searched through 4.2 megabyte on my 80486-based notebook computer.
If you use an indexing program, the search may be completed even
faster.
I guess you can see it coming. My personal databases usually
give more direct value during my working day, than what I have on
paper, and have available online.
My hard disks contain megabytes of texts retrieved from various
online services, but only what I have decided to keep. This private
database therefore contains more relevant information per kilobyte
than the online databases I'm using. Searching the data often gives
enough good hits to keep me from going online for more.
| I repeat: You will often get better results when searching your |
| own subset of selected online databases, than by going online |
| to get information. It is usually easier and faster. |
On the other hand, your in-house database will never be fully up-
to-date. Too many things happen all the time.
Also, the search terms used for your daily intake of news will
never cover all future needs. Occasionally, you must go online to
get additional information for a project, a report, a plan.
Updating your database means going online often to find new
supplementary information.
| Regular monitoring gives the highest returns, and is required |
| if you want to have an edge over your competitors. |
For beginners, the best strategy will often be to start with the
general, and gradually dig deeper into industry specific details.
Let us now review some good hunting grounds for information, and
how to use them.
Clipping the news
-----------------
Several online services offer 'clipping services'. They select the
news that you want - 24 hours a day - from a continuous stream of
stories from newspapers, magazines, news agencies and newsletters.
Several services make news immediately available, when they
have been received by satellite. The delay previously used to
protect the interests of print media is disappearing quickly.
Online services usually deliver news sooner than in print media,
radio or TV.
You select stories by giving the online service a set of search
terms. The hits are then sent to your electronic mailbox, for you
to retrieve at will.
'Clipping' gives an enormous advantage. Few important details
escape your attention, even when you cannot go online daily. The
stories will stay in your mailbox until you have read them.
'Clipping' on CompuServe
------------------------
CompuServe's Executive News Service (ENS) monitor more than 8,000
stories daily. They use sources like Deutsche Press-Agentur, Kyodo
News Service, TASS, Xinhua News Agency, the Washington Post, OTC
News-Alert, Reuters Financial News Wire, Associated Press, UPI and
Reuters World Report, IDG PR Service, Inter Press Service (IPS),
Middle East News Network and European Community Report.
One of them, Reuters, has 1,200 journalists in 120 bureaus all
over the world. They write company news reports about revenue,
profit, dividend, purchases of other companies, changes in
management, and other important items for judging a company's
results. They write regular opinions about Industry, Governments,
Economics, Leading indicators, and Commerce.
Reuters also offers full-text stories from Financial Times and
other leading European newspapers. Its Textline is a database with
news from some 1,500 publications in over 40 countries. It includes
Reuters' own news services, and has translated abstracts of stories
from some 17 languages. The database reaches back 10 years and is
updated at around one million articles per year. (Textline is also
available on Nexis, Data-Star, and Dialog.)
Another one, the IDG PR Service, sends out high-tech related
news gathered by the staffs of IDG's magazines. InterPress Service
covers Third World countries. Middle East News Network integrates
the contents of 28 information sources covering this region of the
world.
The Executive News Service lets you define up to three
'clipping folders'. Supply up to seven 'key phrases' that define
your interests. These key phrases will be used when searching
stories as they are sent. Hits will be 'clipped' and held in a
folder for you to review at your convenience.
Each folder can hold 500 stories. When creating a clipping
folder, you set an expiration date and specify how many days a
clipped story is to be held (maximum 14 days).
To browse the contents of a folder, select it from the menu.
Stories can be listed by headlines or leads. Select those you want
to read, forward to others as email, or copy to another folder.
Delete those that you do not need.
Defining key phrases is simple. The important thing is not to
get too much nor too little. General phrases will give you many
unwanted stories while too narrow phrases will cause you to miss
pertinent stories. Let me illustrate with an example:
The phrase APPLE COMPUTERS will only clip stories that have the
words APPLE and COMPUTERS next to each other. This may be too
narrow. Specifying just APPLE or just COMPUTERS would be too
broad. Entering APPLE + COMPUTERS is a better phrase since the
words can appear anywhere in the story, and not necessarily
next to each other.
ENS carries an hourly surcharge of US$15/hour over base connect
rates.
Clipping on NewsNet
-------------------
NewsNet greets users with this opening screen:
-----------------
- N E W S N E T -
-----------------
W O R K I N G K N O W L E D G E
***New--Electromagnetic Field Litigation Reporter (EY86) tracks
developments in every important legal action involving
electromagnetic radiation from power lines, cellular phones,
VTDs, and radar and microwave equipment.
***The title of HH15 has been changed to Cancer Researcher
Weekly. This service was formerly entitled Cancer Weekly.
***Important work in the blood field throughout the world is
covered by Blood Week (HH44), including research, literature,
and upcoming events.
***TB Weekly (HH45) is an internationally-focused newsletter
that concentrates on tuberculosis-related news and research,
including business developments.
New Services on NewsNet:
TB Weekly (HH45)
Blood Weekly (HH44)
Electromagnetic Field Litigation Reporter (EY86)
Chapter 11 Update (FI82)
Tobacco Industry Litigation Reporter (HH48)
Trade and Development Opportunities (GT50)
For details on new services, enter READ PB99# or HELP followed by the
service code.
NewsNet's clipping service, NewsFlash, will automatically search
all new editions of newsletters selected for monitoring. The hits
will be sent to your mailbox, and be retained there for up to ten
weeks besides the current week.
Your selection of newsletters can be extended to include news
stories from United Press International (UPI), Reuters News Reports,
Associated Press, Business Wire, PR Newswire, and others.
For some time, I clipped newsletters in the telecommunications
group using the keywords 'Victoria' (an American communication
project) and 'KDD' (the Japanese telecom giant). When I called
NewsFlash to check, it typically reported:
NEWSFLASH NOTIFICATION
****************************************************************
4 Total Newsflash hits. Use STOP to stop and delete all.
New Hits = 4 Saved Items = 0
TE01 7/17/89 == VICTORIA == Headline #1
COOKE SELLS CABLE HOLDINGS TO 6-MEMBER GROUP FOR NEARLY $1.6 BILLION
Jack Cooke's cable systems will be sold to 6-member consortium
TE11 7/17/89 == VICTORIA == Headline #2
BOCs' PROGRESS TOWARD INTELLIGENT NETWORK ARCHITECTURE INTERTWINED
WITH DIFFICULT INTERNETWORKING NEGOTIATIONS, PENDING DECREE COURT
EC89 7/18/89 == KDD == Headline #3
KDD OPENS NY/LONDON OFFICES
TOKYO, JAPAN, 1989 JUL 14 (NB) -- Kokusai Denshin Denwa (KDD),
EC89 8/22/89 == KDD == Headline #4
FOREIGNERS CAN BUY INTO KDD
TOKYO, JAPAN, 1989 AUG 17 -- The Japanese government is planning
Enter Headline numbers or ALL to read, MORE, AGAIN, SAVE, STOP, or HELP
-->
NewsNet's databases grow by more than 400 stories per day. Your
search profiles may contain an almost unlimited number of subjects.
Delivery of hits is concurrent. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days
a week.
Sprintmail's clipping service (U.S.A.) scans stories from more
than 15 international newswires. FT Profile's E-mail Alert searches
daily on that particular day's issue of the Financial Times.
Dow Jones News/Retrieval has NewsScan (//CLIP). It can deliver
by fax or email to a mailbox on another online service. On GEnie,
use QuikNews Express, a personalized news clipping service that is
integrated with the Quik-Comm System email service.
Clarinet, a commercial news service available through Usenet,
also has a clipping program.
When clipping is impossible
---------------------------
Many services do not offer clipping. Here, your alternative is
various methods of regular selective reading.
Many conferencing systems let you select messages by keywords.
BIX has Keyword Indexer. It let you search public conferences after
a key word or phrase and report hits. Then it offers you to review
(or retrieve) messages of interest.
CompuServe's forums have efficient 'read selective' and 'quick
scan' commands. Another trick is to limit your reading to specific
message sections.
The high forum message volume is a special problem on this
service. Old messages are regularly deleted to make room for new
ones. (Often called "scroll rate.") Some popular forums do not keep
messages for more than a couple of days before letting them go. You
must visit often to get all new information.
Many bulletin boards can be told to store unread messages about
given topics in a compressed transportation file. This file can
then be retrieved at high speed. Special communication programs
(often called offline readers) and commands are available to
automate this completely.
Powerful scripts (see Chapter 12) can do automatic selection of
news stories based on the occurrence of keywords (e.g., a company
name) in headlines. I have developed such a system for selecting
news from the Online Today magazine on CompuServe.
Subscription services
---------------------
It is useful to dig, dig, and dig for occurrences of the same
search words, but digging is not enough. Unless you periodically
scan "the horizon," you risk missing new trends, viewpoints and
other important information.
It can be difficult to find good sources of information that
suits your needs. One trick is to watch the reports from your
clipping services. Over time, you may discover that some sources
bring more interesting stories than others. Take a closer look at
these. Consider browsing their full index of stories regularly.
If your company plans exportation to countries in Asia, check
out MARKET: ASIA PACIFIC on NewsNet. The newsletter is published
monthly by W-Two Publications, Ltd., 202 The Commons, Suite 401,
Ithaca, NY 14850, U.S.A. (phone: +1-607-277-0934). Annual print
subscription rate: US$279.
The index itself may be a barometer of what goes on. Here is an
example. Note the number of Words/Lines. Do these numbers tell a
story?
July 1, 1993
Head # Headline Words /Lines
------ ---------------------------------------------------- ------------
1) THE PHILIPPINES IS AT A TURG POINT 616/78
2) CHINA AND KOREA WILL LEAD REGIONAL ECONOMIC BOOM 315/41
3) ASIAN COMPENSATION IS STILL LOW, BUT RISING QUICKLY 303/38
4) CONSUMER GOODS WON'T BE ALL THE CHINESE BUY 221/29
5) WOMEN BEAR THE BRUNT OF CAMBODIA'S TROUBLES 284/34
6) TAIWAN MAKES A MOVE TOWARD THE CASHLESS SOCIETY 243/29
7) TIPS ON MANAGING CULTURAL HARMONY IN ASIA 264/37
8) TAIWANESE BECOME MORE DISCERNING, HARDER TO REACH 217/27
9) DIRECT MARKETING HEADED FOR GROWTH IN SINGAPORE 205/27
10) TOURISM IN MALAYSIA WILL GROW 610/76
11) CHONGQING: FUTURE POWERHOUSE 2708/342
It is a good idea to visit NewsNet to gather intelligence. Review
indexes of potentially interesting newsletters. Save them on your
hard disk for future references. You never know when they may be of
use.
The newsletters within computers and electronics bring
forecasts of market trends, evaluation of hardware and software,
prices, information about IBM and other leading companies. You will
find stories about technological developments of modems, robots,
lasers, video players, graphics, and communications software.
The Management section contains experts' evaluation of the
economical climate with forecasts, information about foreign
producers for importers, tips and experiences on personal
efficiency, management of smaller companies, and office automation.
Other sections are Advertising and Marketing, Aerospace and
Aviation, Automotive, Biotechnology, Building and Construction,
Chemical, Corporate Communications, Defense, Entertainment and
Leisure, Education, Environment, Energy, Finance and Accounting,
Food and Beverage, General Business, Insurance, Investment, Health
and Hospitals, Law, Management, Manufacturing, Medicine, Office,
Publishing and Broadcasting, Real Estate, Research and Development,
Social Sciences, Telecommunications, Travel and Tourism, Transport
and Shipping.
Several newsletters focus on specific geographical areas:
* MARKETING RESEARCH REVIEW (Analyzes and evaluates commercially
available marketing research and technology assessment reports.
Publisher: High-Tech Publishing Co., U.S.A.)
* GERMAN BUSINESS SCOPE and THE WEEK IN GERMANY
* NEWS FROM FRANCE
* COUNTRY RISK GUIDE: EUROPE
* EASTERN EUROPE FINANCE, and EASTERN EUROPEAN ENERGY REPORT
* EUROPEAN COMMUNITY: BUSINESS FORECAST
* INVESTEXT/EUROPEAN REGION
* PRS FORECASTS: EASTERN EUROPE, and WESTERN EUROPE
* AFRICA NEWS ON-LINE
* PRS-FORECASTS: MID-EAST & NORTH AFRICA
* PRS-FORECASTS: SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA
* THE EXPORTER (Published by Trade Data Reports. Monthly
reports on the business of exporting. Functionally divided
into operations, markets, training resources, and world
trade information.)
* MID-EAST BUSINESS DIGEST
* LATIN AMERICA OPPORTUNITY REPORT
* COUNTRY RISK GUIDE: SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA
* COUNTRY RISK GUIDE: ASIA & THE PACIFIC
* PRS FORECASTS: ASIA & THE PACIFIC
* PRS'S POLITICAL RISK LETTER
* SALES PROSPECTOR (Monthly prospect research reports for sales
representatives and other business people interested in
commercial, and institutional expansion and relocation
activity. Separate services grouped by geographic area in
the United States and Canada.)
Many newsletters are focusing on technology intelligence:
Sensor Technology
-----------------
Provides updates on research being conducted in this rapidly
evolving technology. Besides analyzing advances in the field,
it offers ideas on how this technology can improve products and
services.
Advanced Manufacturing Technology
---------------------------------
Reports on desktop manufacturing, computer graphics, flexible
automation, computer-integrated manufacturing, and other
technological advances that help increase productivity.
High Tech Materials Alert
-------------------------
Reports on significant developments in high-performance
materials, including alloys, metallic whiskers, ceramic and
graphite fibers, and more. Concentrates on their fabrication,
industrial applications, and potential markets.
Futuretech
----------
Provides briefings on focused, strategic technologies that
have been judged capable of making an impact on broad
industrial fronts. Includes forecasts of marketable products
and services resulting from the uncovered technology and its
potential impact on industry segments.
Advanced Coating & Surface Technology, Electronic Materials
Technology News, Flame Retardancy News, High Tech Ceramics News,
Innovator's Digest, Technology Access Report, Inside R&D, Japan
Science Scan, New Technology Week, Optical Materials & Engineering
News, Performance Materials, Surface Modification Technology News,
Genetic Technology News, Battery & Ev Technology, and much more.
Newsletters on CompuServe
-------------------------
Many newsletters are being made available through forums' file
libraries on CompuServe. Consequently, they are a little harder
to locate. Some examples (1993):
Abacus Online - Quarterly newsletter on executive computing.
(In the Lotus Spreadsheet forum, Library 3.)
Anime Stuff - News and reviews of Japanese animation software.
(Comics/Animation Forum, Library 5.)
Communique - The quarterly newsletter of the International
Association of Business Communicators U.K. Chapter. (PR and
Marketing Forum, Library 8.)
Distance Education Newsletter - Analyzes the impact of elec-
tronic communication on academic research. (Telecommunications
Forum, Library 13.)
Hint: To find newsletters in the IBM PC oriented forums, enter GO
IBMFF to search. Select "Keyword" as search criteria, and enter
"newsletter". Add further keywords to narrow the search to your
areas of interest. CompuServe also has other file find services.
Databases with an international orientation
-------------------------------------------
Information Access provides reference databases to businesses. You
can search 10 databases with full-text stories, abstracts, and
indexes from international magazines.
PROMPT (Overview of Markets and Technology) is the largest of
them. It provides international coverage of companies, markets and
technologies in all industries.
The other databases cover areas like Aerospace and Defense,
Advertising and Marketing, New Product Announcements, Industry
Forecasts and Time Series.
The Information Access' databases are available through online
services like Dialog, Data Star, Financial Times Profile (England),
Nikkei in Japan and on the Thomson Financial Networks. They are
regularly published on CD-ROM.
ZiffNet offers the Business Database Plus through CompuServe.
Here, you can search in full-text stories from around 550 North
American and international publications for industry and commerce
(1993).
The articles are about sales and marketing ideas, product news,
industry trends and analysis, and provide company profiles in areas
such as agriculture, manufacturing, retailing, telecommunications,
and trade. This is a partial list of the database's magazines:
Agra Europe, Agribusiness Worldwide, Air Cargo World, Belgium:
Economic and Commercial Information, Beverage World, Beverage
World Periscope Edition, British Plastics & Rubber, British
Telecom World, Business Perspectives, CCI-Canmaking & Canning
International, CD-ROM Librarian, Chain Store Age - General
Merchandise Trends, Coal & Synfuels Technology, Communication
World, Communications Daily, Communications International,
Consultant, Cosmetic World News, Dairy Industries International,
Direct Marketing, The Economist, Erdol und Kohle, Erdgas,
Petrochemie: Hydrocarbon Technology, EuroBusiness, Euromoney,
Europe 2000, European Cosmetic Markets, European Rubber Journal,
Financial Market Trends, Financial World, Finnish Trade Review,
Food Engineering International, Forest Industries, Gas World,
Graphic Arts Monthly, The Printing Industry, High Technology
Business, IDC Japan Report, Inc., International Trade Forum,
Investment International, Israel Business, Japan Economic
Newswire, Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of
Marketing Research, Kyodo, Market Research Europe, Medical World
News, MEED Middle East Economic Digest, Middle East
Agribusiness, OECD Economic Outlook, The Oil and Gas Journal,
Oilweek, Petroleum Economist, Plastics World, Purchasing World,
Report on the Austrian Economy, Restaurant-Hotel Design
International, Royal Bank of Scotland Review, Seafood
International, Soviet Aerospace & Technology, Supermarket
Business Magazine, swissBusiness, Training: the Magazine of
Human Resources Development, World Economic Outlook, World Oil.
Dialog's ASIA-PACIFIC DATABASE covers business and economics in
Asia and the Pacific. It contains over 80,000 references from
newspapers, magazines and other sources in North America and
international.
The Asia-Pasific Dun's Market Identifiers on Dialog is a
directory listing of about 250,000 business establishments in 40
Asian and Pacific Rim countries.
The Middle East News Network publishes daily news, analysis and
comments from 19 countries in the Middle East produced by Arabic,
Hebrew, Turkish and Persian press. You can read these news through
Reuters (e.g., on NewsGrid/CompuServe), Down Jones News/Retrieval,
and Information Access.
The Jerusalem Institute for Western Defence provides a monthly
newsletter with research of the Arab press. It has unedited quotes
from around the Arab world. Write LISTSERV@jerusalem1.datasrv.co.il
to subscribe (Command: sub arab-press Firstname Lastname).
The International Reports financial newsletter may be read and
searched on NewsNet, Information Access, and Mead Data Central.
NewsNet also has Brazil Service, Mexico Service, Country Risk
Guides and Weekly International Market Alert.
Use CompuServe's Consumer Report to spot trends in the consumer
markets for appliances, automobiles, electronics/cameras, home.
EventLine (IQuest, CompuServe) monitors international conferences,
exhibitions, and congresses. The Boomer Report concentrates on the
habits of the "the baby-boom generation."
Affaersdata in Sweden offers the Swedish-language service
"Export-Nytt," which brings short news stories about export/import
from all over the world. Information providers are the Swedish
Export Council, the Norwegian Export Council, and the Suomen
Ulkomaankauppaliitto in Finland.
Orbit has an English language database of Japanese technology.
It contains abstracts of articles, patents and standards from more
than 500 Japanese magazines.
Dow Jones News/Retrieval brings full-text stories from the
Japan Economic Newswire. The Business Dateline contains news from
more than 150 regional business publications in the United States
and Canada.
The ABI/Inform business database (UMI/Data Courier) contains
abstracts and full-text articles from 800 business magazines and
trade journals. The sources include the Asia Pacific Journal of
Management, Business Korea, and the World Bank Research Observer.
Market research reports from Frost & Sullivan are available
through Data-Star. It produces over 250 market reports each year,
in 20 industrial sectors. These reports cover results of face-to-
face interviews with manufacturers, buyers and trade association
executives, supplemented by a search and summary of secondary
sources.
Glasnost in the former Soviet Union produced a long list of new
online information sources, including:
The Soviet Press Digest (stories from over 100 newspapers),
The BizEkon Reports (financial news from 150 business and
financial magazines),
SovLegisLine (law),
BizEdon Directory (detailed information about over 2,500
companies, who want to do business with foreign companies),
Who's Who in the Soviet Union and
The Soviet Public Association Directory.
Some of these may have changed their names now. Contact Mead Data
Central (Nexis/Lexis), Data-Star, FT Profile and Reuters for more
information.
DJNR also offers full text from the Paris-based International
Herald Tribune, publications like the Guardian and others from the
United Kingdom, and from sources in the former Soviet Union (like
Soviet Press Digest, BizEkon News, Moscow News, and others.)
E-EUROPE is an electronic communications network for doing
business in Eastern Europe countries, including CIS. Its purpose is
to help these countries in their transition to market economies. It
links business persons in Western Europe-Asia-North America with
those in Eastern Europe.
Subscription is free and for anyone. To subscribe to E-EUROPE,
send email LISTSERV@PUCC.PRINCETON.EDU (or a LISTSERV closer to
you) with the body the message containing this line
SUB E-EUROPE YourFirstName YourLastName
E-EUROPE also offers International Marketing Insights (IMI) for
several countries in this region, including Russia, Hungary, Czech,
Germany, Estonia, Poland, Bulgaria, and Lithuania.
The IMI reports important developments that have implications
for traders and investors. Typically brief and to-the-point, they
are prepared by American Embassies and Consulates.
The reports cover a wide range of subjects, such as new laws,
policies and procedures, new trade regulations, changing dynamics
in the marketplace, recent statements by influential parties and
emerging trade opportunities.
For a list of E-EUROPE IMI offerings, send the following
commands to LISTSERV@PUCC.PRINCETON.EDU:
GET E-EUROPE IMI
IMI update notices are not posted to E-EUROPE, but you can
subscribe to updates to these files.
The English-language newsletter "St. Petersburg Business News"
is published in Russia by the Committee for foreign economic
affairs of LECC. For information and subscription, send email
to aag@cfea.ecc.spb.su .
The Financial Izvestia weekly, the joint publication of London
Financial Times and Moscow-based Izvestia, is available by email.
The complete feed includes the full text of all articles published
in the Russian language newspaper, and financial and statistical
tables on the commodities and financial markets. Write Legpromsyrie
at root@sollo.soleg.msk.su for information.
Several Russian newspapers, including Commersant Daily, Nega,
and press services like Postfactum and Interfax, have digests or
complete editions available for Relcom network subscribers, usually
for a nominal fee.
Interested in the European Common Market?
-----------------------------------------
Pergamon Financial Data Services, NewsNet, and others, offer Dun &
Bradstreet European Marketing Online. It contains company profiles
of around two million European companies.
Pergamon's ICC U.K. Company Databases contains data on over
140,000 British companies with up to ten years' financial history,
addresses, key people, mother firms/subsidiaries, stock quotes.
Its Comptex News Service brings daily business news from the
European arena.
The UK Company Library on CompuServe has financial information
about more than 1.2 million British companies from sources like
Extel Cards, ICC British Co. Directory and Kompass UK.
Data-Star offers Tenders Electronic Daily, a database of
European Community contract offers.
Investext offers a series of bulletins authored by Europe
Information Service (EIS): European Report (biweekly), Tech Report
(Monthly), Transport Europe (monthly), Europe Environment
(bimonthly), European Energy (bimonthly), European Social Policy
(monthly), and Multinational Service (monthly).
Investext is available through Data-Star, Lexis/Nexis, Dow
Jones News/Retrieval, Dialog, NewsNet, and others.
The German Company Library (on CompuServe) offers information
about some 48,000 German companies from databases like Credit
Reform and Hoppenstedt's Directory of German Companies. Its
European Company Library contains information about over two
million companies in the area.
Nexis (Mead Data Central International) brings news and
background information about companies and the different countries
in Europe. Their Worldwide Companies database contains company
profiles, balance sheets, income statements, and other financial
data on the largest companies in 40 countries.
Nexis also has Hoppenstedt German Trade Associations directory,
four more newsletters from the Europe Information Service: Europe
Energy, Europe Environment, Transport Europe and European Insight,
a weekly brief on European Community-related happenings, and
Notisur, a biweekly news and analysis report on South American and
Caribbean political affairs.
LEXIS (also Mead) has databases with information about English
and French law, and other law material from Australia, New Zealand,
Ireland, Scotland and North America.
Their Martindale-Hubbell Law Directory has information on over
700,000 lawyers and law firms worldwide. The directory can be used
for referrals, selection of associate counsel, and evaluation of
competitive counsel.
Check out KOMPASS EUROPE when planning exports to the EEC. Its
database contains details about companies in Sweden, Denmark,
Germany, United Kingdom, Holland, Belgium, France, Spain, Italy,
Sweden and Norway. (On Dialog)
ILINK has the EEC-I conference (Discussion about the European
Common Marked). Profile offers full-text searches (and a clipping
service) in stories from Financial Times. The database is being
updated daily at 00:01.
Those exporting to the EEC need to master German, French,
Italian, and Spanish besides having a common knowledge of English.
Conversation is the easy part. The problem is writing, and
especially when the task is to translate technical expressions to
the languages used within the Common Market.
For help, check out the Eurodicautom online dictionary through
ECHO (and others.) Start by selecting a source language (like
English), and up to seven languages for simultaneous translation.
The translation is word-for-word, but may be put in the correct
context if required.
ECHO also offers the European Commission's CORDIS database
(Community Research and Development Information Service) containing
information about research results within scientific and technical
fields. Keywords: Race, Esprit, Delta, Aim, Fast, Brite, Comett,
Climat, Eclair and Tedis.
CONCISE (COsine Network's Central Information Service for
Europe) is a pan-European information service to the COSINE
scientific and industrial research community. COSINE (Cooperation
for Open Systems Interconnection Networking in Europe) is part of
the European Common Market's Eureka project.
CONCISE brings information about the COSINE project, networks,
conferences, networking products, special interest groups, projects
databases, directories, email services and other networked services
in Europe. It is intended for researchers in all fields, from
astronomers through linguists and market researchers to zoologists.
CONCISE is accessible by email through the Internet, by FTP,
and interactively (telnet) over the European academic and research
networks, over public data networks and over telephone links. (See
ECHO in appendix 1 for more information.)
The mailing list EC@INDYCMS.BITNET is dedicated to discussion
of the European Community, and is open to all interested persons.
Subscribe by email to a LISTSERV close to where you live, or to
LISTSERV@INDYCMS.BITNET.
Scandinavia
-----------
Most countries have several local language news services. In
Norway, Statens Datasentral lets you search stories from the NTB
news agency. Aftenposten, a major newspaper, offers full-text
stories from their A-TEKST database, from Dagens Naeringsliv (DNX),
and the Kapital magazine.
Before meeting with people from Norsk Hydro, go online to get
recent news about these companies. It will only take a couple of
minutes. What you find may be important for the success of your
meeting.
If you know the names of your most important competitors, use
their names as keywords for information about recent contracts,
joint venture agreements, products (and their features), and other
important information.
KOMPASS ONLINE offers information about over 180,000 companies
and 34,000 products in Scandinavia, Finland, Germany, Switzerland,
and Great Britain. The information is presented in the local
language of the different countries.
KOMPASS is used by easy menus. You can search by
* company name
* product or service (optionally using an industry
classification code for companies or products)
* number of employees, type of business, postal number,
telephone area code, export area, year of incorporation,
bank affiliation.
The database is available through Affaersdata (Sweden). New users
pay a one time fee of around US$85. Searching costs around US$3.00
per minute.
The TYR database on the Finnish service VIEXPO (tel.: +358 67
235100) offers information about 2,500 companies in the Vaasa and
Oulu regions with addresses, phone numbers, contact persons, main
products, revenues, and SIC industry classification codes.
We can go on like this. The list of available services is long
in many countries.
How to monitor your competitors
-------------------------------
Sales managers need to know what competitors are doing. Lacking
this knowledge, it is risky to maneuver in the market.
Start by making a strategy for online market intelligence. Here
are some practical hints:
(1) Select online services that offer clipping of stories and
information based on your search words or phrases. Examples:
NewsFlash on NewsNet, //TRACK on Dow Jones News/Retrieval, The
Executive News Service on CompuServe. Use these services for
automatic monitoring of stock quotes and business news.
(2) Read what investment analysts and advisors write about your
competitors. Most markets are well covered by databases and
other sources of information.
(3) Read what competitors write about themselves. Their press
releases are available from online databases in several
countries.
(4) Compare your competitors with your own company and industry.
Items: stock prices, profits, revenue, etc.
(5) Regularly monitor companies and their particular products.
(6) Watch trend reports about your industry. Search for patterns and
possible niches.
(7) Save what you find on your hard disk for future references.