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Articles that help raise the value of information in your organisation, available through a Jinfo Subscription.

Articles are now being published as Jinfo Reports.

Teleworking - Bad Career Move?
18th March 2013

The furore over Yahoo's ban on teleworking has prompted pundits such as MarketingProfs and iHubbub to come out in support of the practice. But Telework Research Network figures show that homeworking is still not widespread, and a University of Texas study suggests that it hasn't helped work-family balance either. Nevertheless, a recent LinkedIn study shows that most women define success as having a good work-life balance, and another from Grant Thornton suggests that many employers are encouraging it. Finally, the London Business School has some tips for how teleworkers can avoid being sidelined for promotion.

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Are Intranets at Death's Door? How to Improve Your Intranet
14th March 2013

The death of the intranet, like email, is something that has been discussed many times in the past. So seeing a blog post questioning whether intranets are dead always intrigues me. However, intranets aren't yet receiving the death knell and there are many ways in which intranets can be revived and reinvigorated. James Mullan offers some tips for intranet managers to improve the user experience and to ensure that the intranet remains a key part of the organisation's KM and communications arsenal.

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UK Legal Market Research: Wishes and Fears, in Equal Measure
13th March 2013

Robin Neidorf presents the final part of her analysis of 2013 research into legal librarians' spending on the "big three" information sources. Of course the "big three" are now set to become two with Thomson Reuters (TR) announcing its purchase of Practical Law Company (PLC) in January. FreePint's research examines the possible benefits and opportunities of the PLC/TR move and voices the concerns and comments of information professionals in the legal field about the PLC/TR offerings and the future of legal information products such as Westlaw, Lawtel and PSL.

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Small Businesses Stand to Gain from CRM Lite
13th March 2013

Customer relationship management (CRM) tools are becoming increasingly accessible to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and investment in CRM technology is now a top priority. But while separate reports from Constant Contact and the Economist Intelligence Unit suggest that even micro businesses can deploy effective CRM systems, Gartner is warning that creating a "single view of the customer" requires a complex master data management strategy. In between these two extremes, there may be opportunities for astute info pros capable of exploiting such systems to the benefit of the business.

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UK Legal Market Research: Vendors, and How They Are Perceived
12th March 2013

Robin Neidorf continues her examination of the three main information suppliers to the legal information profession and dissects the responses to identify interviewees' perceptions of LexisNexis, Practical Law Company (PLC) and Thomson Reuters. She also looks at how info pros and fee earners use the products in their daily work, which products are strongest for different specialisms and how firms would feel about reduced budgets forcing them to cut any of these sources from their information centres.

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Looking to the Skies - Law Firms and Cloud Computing
11th March 2013

Much has been written in recent years about how cloud computing is going to revolutionise the way that law firms work. Cloud computing and SaaS has, in fact, been a disruptive force for much longer than we think and has the potential for long-term impact in most industries including the academic and commercial legal sector.

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UK Legal Market Research: What Librarians Get and What They Want
11th March 2013

Research into UK legal firms' budgeted spending on the three major suppliers: LexisNexis, Practical Law Company (PLC) and Thomson Reuters was carried out by FreePint in 2011 and has now been updated with further interviews in 2013. Robin Neidorf digs down into the results to examine information professionals' satisfaction with current offerings, which content sets and products they currently use, and what's on their wish lists.

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NYT Targets Coffee Drinkers - Who Stands to Gain?
8th March 2013

Newspapers publishers have long come to the realisation that the future of their businesses lies online – the ongoing debate is now how to make money from digital content. However, with so many search engines and aggregators offering free access to news, enticing readers to content behind paywalls is becoming an increasing problem. Penny Crossland examines marketing tactics used by major US newspapers such as The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.

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Competitive Intelligence: You Can "Race with the Machine"
6th March 2013

Following his review of the last six months’ developments in competitive intelligence, Andrew Grave highlights how the trends he observed in research automation are being tackled by futurists. He describes how his forthcoming articles will assist information professionals in developing their skills for this environment.

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Google Claims Victory in German Copyright Battle. But Has It Lost the War?
6th March 2013

Google has been battling it out on the copyright front with European publishers in the last few months. However, while the search engine has been claiming victory of sorts on all fronts, not everybody agrees that Google is gaining the upper hand. Penny Crossland examines exactly what constitutes "victory".

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