Vendor Market Overview - Making Information Visible
13th April 2015

FreePint presents an overview of some of the key vendors from the FreePint Topic Series "Making Information Visible". The table highlights key vendors and their products, a brief description of key features, special features and common use-cases as well as links to both the vendors' products and FreePint’s coverage of them.

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Insider Knowledge - Researching Hispanic America
13th April 2015

Conducting research in Hispanic America will depend a lot on the country you are interested in. In this article Hispanic America means all Spanish-speaking countries from Mexico to Argentina, excluding the Caribbean states. As a general rule we can say that the more interest the global economy has in one particular market, the more information in English will be available. This means that there is more information on economics and businesses available for emerging countries such as Mexico and Columbia and only scanty information on smaller "less economically interesting" countries such as Honduras or Paraguay.

Mirjam Wolfrum explains what kind of information you will be able to obtain from English sources and when you should consider involving a local partner or a Spanish-speaking information expert.

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Vendor Market Overview - Company Information
10th April 2015

FreePint presents an overview of some key vendors in the company information space. The table identifies key vendor products, briefly describes their key features, notes the geographic scope, singles out any special features of each service and highlights key use-cases and value.

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Shouting About Tweets in Google Search Results
10th April 2015

Twitter and Google have reached a deal to automatically make tweets available in Google search results. James Mullan ponders what this means for areas such as privacy and accountability if you’re one of the 284 million personal or professional users of Twitter.

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Creative Commons - What Constitutes "Commercial" Use?
9th April 2015

Creative Commons licences offer an easier and more flexible way to access online content and are less restrictive than the "all rights reserved" approach of traditional copyright. The "non-commercial" clause of some of its licences can, however, create confusion. Sophie Alexander looks at the definition of "commercial" use and explores some of the situations where an individual or organisation may use a Creative Commons licensed work.

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Bite-Size Training - Making a Difference with Short, Face-to-Face Sessions
9th April 2015

In our increasingly busy professional world, there are many considerations when facilitating staff development. These revolve mostly around the time and effort involved for the trainer and the trainee. A simple solution is to break up staff development workshops into short 20 minute sessions that are informal, interactive and focus on the key aspects of a topic. Bite-size training can help with the growing problem of staff not wanting to invest time in learning new ideas and technologies.

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Product Review of LexisNexis TotalPatent (Competitors, Development & Pricing)
8th April 2015

In the final part of her review of LexisNexis TotalPatent, Robyn Smith looks at the competitor landscape, where established products such as Thomson Innovation and Minesoft PatBase operate alongside some free services such as Espacenet and PatentLens. She also examines the product maturity and frequency of upgrades.

Note: Full review (PDF) at /go/sub/report/2480

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Product Review of LexisNexis TotalPatent (Technology - Search & User Interface; Outputs & Alerts; Administration & Help)
6th April 2015

In the third part of her review of global patent research database TotalPatent from LexisNexis, Robyn Smith, goes into detail about the search options, user interface and output & alerting options. She tests out the semantic search, guided search and advanced search as well as putting through their paces the "widgets" which can be used to supplement search strategy.

Note: Full review (PDF) at /go/sub/report/2480

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Are Conventional Intranets Now Obsolete?
6th April 2015

A recent report published by Gartner and article on the Cosent blog have questioned whether traditional intranets are now obsolete given the demands of the digital workplace. James Mullan looks at what programme managers should do to ensure their intranet remains relevant and what the alternatives are to SharePoint - such as Microsoft Office 365.

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The Hazards of Enterprise Collaboration
6th April 2015

Social collaboration tools that have been designed for enterprises can bring many benefits, from improved communication across dispersed teams to improved workflows. In this article James Mullan looks at managing the tools effectively and avoiding some of the perils of enterprise collaboration.

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