CIO, the companion website to CIO magazine, talked to me a few weeks ago about what people who only know how to search Google are missing out on, especially in a business/market research fashion. Here’s the article: Six Techniques to Get More from the Web than Google Will Tell You.
I don’t talk about it much lately, but when I was fresh out of library school I did some work doing market research and other miscellaneous stuff for a recruiter who worked a lot for Amazon.com and it was fascinating to look at the questions she’d ask to try to help them find the right person for the job. I had a sort of sideways approach to some of the topics we researched and that seemed to help her find good people. I like getting to talk to people about the importance of primary source material and the difference between going to a library’s list of good links on their website and talking to the librarian (in person or over IM) directly. I have mixed experiences talking to reporters but I was really happy with how Margaret Locher, an MLS holder herself, represented the things that Ann Cullen from Simmons and I told her.