FreePint Newsletter 202 - Post-search and China
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*New* fully-formatted HTML version of FreePint
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FreePint
"Helping 78,000 people use the Web for their work"
http://www.freepint.com/
ISSN 1460-7239 16th March 2006 No.202
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IN THIS ISSUE
-------------
EDITORIAL
MY FAVOURITE TIPPLES
By Roddy MacLeod
FREEPINT BAR
In Association with Factiva
a Dow Jones & Reuters Company
JINFO :: JOBS IN INFORMATION
Information Officer
Operational Manager
Team Leader Knowledge Management, European Research
Senior Researcher
TIPS ARTICLE
"Save yourself! Free resources for organising, maintaining
and sharing the fruits of your web searches"
By Mary Ellen Bates
REVIEW
"Knowledge Management: An Integrative Approach"
Written by Meliha Handzic and Albert Z Zhau
Reviewed by Mandy Webster
FEATURE ARTICLE
"Characterising the dragon - undertaking research in China"
By Mike Taylor
EVENTS, GOLD AND FORTHCOMING ARTICLES
CONTACT INFORMATION
ONLINE VERSION WITH ACTIVATED HYPERLINKS
FULLY FORMATTED VERSION
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The Library + Information Show, 26 + 27 April 2006, NEC Birmingham
Where the Library + Information Community Comes Together
With an exhibition showcasing the latest products and services in the
market and a free seminar programme featuring leading figures and
authors from the nations library community, The Library + Information
Show will help professionals from the workplace, school, academic and
public sectors to face the challenges in the library community today.
Register now for free entry:
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*** ABOUT FREEPINT ***
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EDITORIAL
By William Hann
What's the link between a bath, the back of an envelope, and a shed?
No, I'm not leading into a poor joke that would amuse only a young
child, but listing the three items chosen by the British Library to
represent its new 'Business & IP Centre', the launch of which I
attended here in London last week .
The theme of the launch was entrepreneurship, with the bath
representing the 'eureka' moment, the back of the envelope being the
common way to size-up an idea at the local hostelry, and the shed
representing the prototyping and development of the concept.
It was good to be reminded what an incredible world-class resource the
British Library really is, with a collection of over 150 million
items. The event also reiterated how important creativity is in an
increasingly competitive global economy, and encouraged us to get
involved with the 'Gowers Review of Intellectual Property'
.
With impressive patent and market research resources, the Business &
IP Centre will be useful when entering a new market, and we cover the
complexities of entering the Chinese market in FreePint today.
Although China is experiencing huge growth, it seems that even a
simple project can quickly become extremely complicated if you don't
have a knowledgeable plan.
Of course, doing the research is only half the battle. You then have
to organise the information into some kind of presentable and
understandable format. That's where today's article from Mary Ellen
Bates will help, with tips on managing and sharing the information.
We hope you've noticed quite a change in the presentation of the
online version of the FreePint Newsletter too. Simply compare the
attractive layout of today's issue and the
plain text formatting of issue 199 to see
the big improvement.
Please do use the 'FreePint Suggestion Box' to tell us your thoughts
on these enhancements . Or
why not forward this issue of FreePint to a colleague? You could even
check they've read it by asking them what the link is between a bath,
an envelope and a shed.
Cheers
William Hann
Managing Editor and Founder, FreePint
e: william.hann@freepint.com
t: 0870 141 7474
i: +44 870 141 7474
FreePint is a Registered Trademark of Free Pint Limited (R) 1997-2006
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It shouldn't take an expert to find relevant business news.
Factiva Search 2.0 Beta delivers superior results displayed with
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*** Web Alerts reviewed in VIP ***
Read three in-depth reviews in the February 2006 issue of VIP. Web
Alerts, a current awareness and data warehouse service; The Mobile
World, a statistical data and analysis tool; and Factiva Search 2.0,
which offers new clustering and visualisation features.
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MY FAVOURITE TIPPLES
By Roddy MacLeod
* Netvibes.com lets you personalise a 'home page' with various data
feeds and services. If you try this site yourself, you'll quickly
realise that it has fantastic potential
.
* Intriguing site! You can find the actual prices paid for recent UK
property sales here, by post code or street address, and also
register for email updates about sales .
* I'd be lost without the Bloglines service, which lets me monitor 150
RSS feeds and weblogs for the latest news and events from any PC
.
* The CCLRC (Council for the Central Laboratory of the Research
Councils) ePublication Archive is one of few sources of information
about UK scientific and technical grey literature
.
* The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) contains details of,
and links to, nearly 2,000 free (open access), full-text, quality
controlled scientific and scholarly journals. You can search many
of them from this site as well! .
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Roddy MacLeod is Senior Subject Librarian at Heriot Watt University.
Roddy edits the Internet Resources Newsletter
and manages the PerX Project
.
Submit your top five favourite Web sites. See the guidelines at
.
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*** Jinfo :: Advertise information jobs to 4,000+ job seekers ***
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puts that position in front of 4,000 Jinfo Newsletter
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Access hard-to-find data on UK company directors, original company
filing images and company data for Austria, Belgium, France, Germany,
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FREEPINT BAR
In Association with Factiva
a Dow Jones & Reuters Company
The FreePint Bar has been relatively quiet these last two weeks after
passing the 30,000th posting mark. But we've still had a wide variety
of postings, with something for everyone:
Kofi Annan made a "fantastic speech regarding poverty and poverty
housing" on World Habitat Day (October 2005). Do you know where to
find his whole speech? .
Is there a UK or European organisation for researchers in the IT or
communications industry? . Or
perhaps you know of a resource that provides links to websites that
deal with UK environmental information?
.
This FreePinter is trying to find registration requirements for
companies in various countries .
And another is looking for bilingual (Russian/English) business
resources portals? .
There are lots of international events on the FreePint Events page
and the latest listings are posted
at the FreePint Bar every week . We
are looking for two people who are attending the European Business
Information Conference in Italy on the 29-31 March 2006 to share their
experience with those that can't attend. Can you help?
.
Is there anywhere this enquirer can find market reports by chapter
or table, other than through Thomson Business Intelligence; "It needs
to cover the same scope of industries and sources that TBI covers AND
lets you buy selected parts of a report instead of the whole thing"
. And can you recommend a thesaurus
for a further education establishment?
.
Lastly, a quick visit to the FreePint Student Bar: Could you advise on
some good graduate trainee posts before this person starts their
library and information studies? .
That's it for this week, until next time.
Penny Hann
Production Editor, FreePint
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The FreePint Bar is where you can get free help with your tricky
research questions
Help with study for information-related courses is available at the
FreePint Student Bar .
Subscribe to the twice-weekly email digests at
.
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*** VIP: Business information product reviews and news analysis ***
VIP, a monthly publication, offers in-depth, unbiased reviews of
business information products, plus commentary by editor Pam Foster.
Over 1,000 senior information workers read it, with information
budgets from GBP 45k to GBP 1.7m. If you fit this profile and you
don't read VIP, then you're at a disadvantage:
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JINFO :: JOBS IN INFORMATION
The Jinfo service enables you to search and advertise
information-related job vacancies.
The Jinfo Newsletter is published free every two weeks, and contains a
list of the latest vacancies along with job-seeking advice. The latest
article is entitled "Starting from now". Read it online and subscribe
free at .
Here are some of the latest featured jobs:
Information Officer
Key responsibilities are research & enquiry work, current awareness,
& support/training on legal information resources.
Recruiter: Blake Lapthorn Linnell Solicitors
Operational Manager
Interest in digital & audiovisual material? User needs analysis,
info service delivery & staff mgt experience? Check out this role.
Recruiter: Sue Hill Recruitment
Team Leader Knowledge Management, European Research
As Knowledge Manager at Jones Lang LaSalle you will develop,
implement and deliver KM strategy and initiatives.
Recruiter: Jones Lang LaSalle
Senior Researcher (consumer sector)
Senior Researcher to work in the Consumer Business sector (may train
in this sector) and contribute to brain-storming meetings.
Recruiter: Glen Recruitment
[The above jobs are paid listings]
NB: These are just a selection of the jobs in the current edition
of the Jinfo Newsletter and over
170 in the Jinfo database .
Jinfo -- the best place for information-related job vacancies.
* JOB SEARCHING? -- Free search and sign up to the Jinfo Newsletter
* RECRUITING? -- Complete the form and advertise a vacancy for
just GBP195
-- 10% discount for agencies
-- 50% discount for registered charities.
Find out more today at
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TIPS ARTICLE
"Save yourself! Free resources for organising, maintaining
and sharing the fruits of your web searches"
By Mary Ellen Bates
As any researcher knows, web searching can sometimes produce a
disorganised mass of results. Saving results in a format you can find
and use later is more challenging than simply bookmarking a site or
saving an HTML file to your hard drive. This article looks at some
free resources any searcher can use to save, organise, search and even
share the results of web-based research.
Yahoo! has several web search personalization features available; the
one that is of interest in the context of saving web pages is My Web
2.0 . Note that this is different from
My Yahoo!. You have to log in to use My Web; if you already have a
Yahoo! account, you use that ID and password. Otherwise, now is the
time to sign up - all you need to do is select an account name, and
provide your name and gender.
Once you have logged in, go to the My Web site and type in your search
words, just as you would in the regular Yahoo! search page. The search
results page looks just like the Yahoo! search page, with one
exception - there are links at the end of each item that let you save
that page. If you click the "Save" link, you'll get a pop-up box, in
which you can select your options for saving. You can:
* change the title of the saved page; the default is the title of the
web page itself.
* add your own notes about the page - what you found helpful in it, a
reminder of the project it was for, a note about what's on the page,
and so on.
* add tags - subject terms you can create to describe the page.
Helpful tip: If you use the same tag for every page you save for a
specific project, you'll be able to find them all easily.
* decide whether you want to share this page with others in your
"community" (more about this later), with everyone on Yahoo! or
limit access to only yourself.
* decide whether you want to archive a copy of the page, which means
that you'll always be able to see what the page looked like when you
saved it, even if it changes later.
Once you've filled out whatever items you want on this pop-up page,
close it and you can continue with your search. That page, and any
others you save, will be stored within the My Web section of Yahoo!
and, depending on how you set the access, viewable by anyone within
Yahoo!, everyone in your "community" or just you. Once you have
finished your web searching on Yahoo!, go back to the main My Web
page, or click the "My Web" link at the top of the search page. You
will see a link labelled "[a number] Saved Pages"(e.g., "10 Saved
Pages"). Click that link and you will see the list of all your saved
pages, along with your notes, your tags, a link to the current version
of the page and - if you selected the option - a link to the archived
copy of the page.
Ask.com (formerly Ask Jeeves) offers a web-page archiving feature
through its My Stuff page . Registration is
required; you are asked for an email address and a password. Once you
log in, you type in your search words in the search box and click
"Search the Web". As with Yahoo!'s My Web, the search results page
looks like the one you would see from the regular Ask.com search site
, except that each item in the search results
includes a link to "Save". Click that link for each web page you want
to save, and the text of the link changes from "Save" to "Saved".
Unfortunately, you aren't able to edit the title or add tags when you
save the web page; to do that, you need to return to
, click the "edit" link next to each saved
page, and then edit the title or description of the page, or assign
your subject words ("tags") to that page. Ask.com keeps track of what
search terms you used when you retrieved a specific web page, which
may be a useful feature if you need to repeat your search later.
Unfortunately, Ask.com does not offer the option to archive a copy of
the web site; if you click the link of any saved page, you will see
the current version of the page, which may not necessarily be the same
as when you saved the page. You can also organise your pages into
folders, which may be a helpful way of keeping track of which pages
were saved for which projects.
A9.com , the search engine owned by Amazon.com,
offers a "Diary" feature that is somewhat similar to the My Web and My
Stuff sites described above, although with fewer features. You'll need
an Amazon.com account to use the Diary feature and you will need to
have installed the A9.com toolbar . The process
of storing pages in the Diary isn't particularly intuitive, and you
aren't able to tag your Diary entries as you can with Yahoo!'s My Web
and Ask.com's My Stuff. When you are viewing a page you want to save,
click the "Diary" icon on the A9.com toolbar. A box will open up
between the toolbar and the web page, where you can type in notes
about the page. Click the "Diary" icon again and the information on
the web page, along with your notes, have been stored to your Diary.
To view all your Diary pages, you can either pull down the Diary menu
from the toolbar and select "See all Diary Entries" or you can go
directly to .
One limitation of both Yahoo!'s My Web and Ask.com's My Stuff is that
they only store web pages that you found through a search on that
engine. So, for example, if you conducted your research on Ask.com and
stored your web pages in My Stuff, and then went to Yahoo! and stored
pages in My Web, you will have two separate archives of articles for a
particular project.
One workaround to this problem is to save all your pages to one search
engine's 'my web' feature, and then use that search engine's
downloadable toolbar to save any page you're viewing to your personal
archive. For example, regardless of how you get to a particular page -
through a Google search, an Ask.com search, or by going directly to
the site - you can save it to Yahoo's My Web by clicking the My Web
icon on the Yahoo! toolbar. This will prompt you to log onto Yahoo!,
and it then takes you to a pop-up window where you can tag the site
and save it to your 'my web' archive. Likewise, you can save any page
to Ask.com's My Stuff by clicking the Save icon on the Ask.com
toolbar.
In addition to free resources, several companies like Onfolio
and NetSnippets
offer desktop software packages to help with post-search data
management. Many have free trials, and even when you pay for a
license, they are reasonably priced. However, you may find it helpful
to start with the free web-based products, to get a sense of how you
might use post-search tools prior to purchasing anything.
Let's Share
-----------
Yet another option for saving and organizing web pages are what are
sometimes called "social bookmarking services" such as del.icio.us
and Furl . The purpose
behind these services is twofold:
* to let you store and organise your bookmarks on a password-protected
web site, so that you can get to the bookmarks from whatever
Internet-connected computer you are on.
* to share your bookmarks (or a selected subset of them) with others,
and to see what other people have bookmarked; the theory is that, if
you bookmarked a page and someone else did as well, the other
bookmarks that person saved might also be of interest to you.
With both del.icio.us and Furl, you sign up and set up a free account,
and then install an icon on your browser toolbar. When you see a web
page you want to save, you click the icon and a window pops up, in
which you can change the saved title of the page (the default is the
web page's title), the URL, and insert any notes you want to add and
tags or subject terms. One advantage that Furl has over del.icio.us is
that it also allows you to archive an actual copy of the page into
your private area; del.icio.us only saves the URL. With either
service, you can use the tag or subject term field to organise your
web pages by research project, or by other words that will help you
find certain pages again.
You can also "subscribe" to other users' bookmarks, and get notified
whenever those users add new bookmarks to their public accounts on
Furl or del.icio.us. [If a user saves a bookmark and labels it
"private", no one else can see that bookmark]. And if you find a web
page that is particularly useful, you can bookmark it and then see who
else has publicly bookmarked that page and what other pages they have
bookmarked. One very handy feature of Furl is the ability to generate
a bibliography of saved pages in any one of several standardised
citation formats.
Another option for sharing files, web pages, photos and music is
eSnips . Like Yahoo! My Web 2.0, it's free, and
it lets you invite people to view (and, if you choose, edit and add
to) your collections of information, organized in "folders". You have
a lot more flexibility with eSnips than with Yahoo! My Web 2.0 in
terms of what you share with whom. An eSnips account management page
shows you your private and shared folders - for example, you can set
up folders for your own use, a "documents for clients" folder, or
folders for specific projects. For any folder, you can decide who can
view them, whether viewers can also edit files and upload their own
files to your folder, whether you need to approve the files before
they're uploaded, whether they can add comments to your files, and even
whether they can invite other people to view the folder. You can also
"publish" folders so that they are viewable by anyone. The most
significant advantage of eSnips is that, once you have downloaded the
eSnips toolbar, not only can you upload files to share but you can
also bookmark a page, save a snippet of text from the page, or archive
the entire page in an eSnips folder. If you plan on conducting in-
depth research with others, eSnips may be your best choice for
creating a space where all of you can collaborate, share resources,
and comment on saved files and web pages.
You can also share your results in Yahoo!'s My Web 2.0, if you create
a "community" - essentially, a group of people you invite to join you.
This is done through Yahoo! 360 degrees , a
service that lets you create your own blog, upload photos, share your
thoughts, and stay in touch with friends. To share your saved web
sites with others, you log onto My Web 2.0, click the link labelled
"invite", then provide each person's email address. Yahoo! will send
an email to the people you want to join your community and, once they
click on the emailed link and sign up for My Web 2.0 themselves, they
will be able to view your stored web pages by clicking the link for
"My Community's Pages". Your friends and colleagues can also save
copies of your saved pages to their own My Web 2.0 page.
Note that when you set up your My Web 2.0 account, you may want to
change some of the default settings. For example, the default for who
can see the web pages you save is "Everyone", meaning that anyone else
who has a Yahoo! account can see what pages you have saved. If you
want, you can change that to My Community (meaning that only people
you invite can see what pages you've saved) or even Me (no one else
can see your shared pages, which would defeat the purpose of creating
a Community, of course).
What is particularly noteworthy about the information profession is
the increased importance in managing information rather than simply
finding and delivering it to others. As we rely more heavily on
web-based resources, the need for information-organisation and
information-sharing tools becomes that much more critical.
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Mary Ellen Bates is the owner of Bates Information Services in
Boulder, Colorado, providing business research to business
professionals, and consulting and training services to the information
industry. She can be contacted through .
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Related FreePint links:
* 'Information and Libraries' articles in the FreePint Portal
* Post a message to the author, Mary Ellen Bates, or suggest
further resources at the FreePint Bar
* Read this article online, with activated hyperlinks
* Access the entire archive of FreePint content
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REVIEW
"Knowledge Management: An Integrative Approach"
Written by Meliha Handzic and Albert Z Zhau
Reviewed by Mandy Webster
This new title on knowledge management is intended to bring together
different perspectives on the topic for the benefit of students,
individuals and organisations wanting to discover the benefits and
limitations of KM. The book also aims to help managers develop KM
solutions.
It opens by examining different theories of what KM is. Later chapters
progress logically through the business case for KM, the role of
organisational culture and technology, processes for manipulating
knowledge, including its creation and transfer, knowledge as a
personal and organisational asset. It concludes with a review of the
benefits and limitations of KM.
While there are ever-increasing numbers of books, journals and courses
on KM claiming a pivotal role for it in business survival, we have no
single, widely accepted definition of what KM is. The authors simplify
the various theories by identifying three main schools of thought: the
process- and technology-driven approach; the economic approach; and
wider behavioural learning organisation approach. By setting out
these three areas, the authors successfully set a context for the
remainder of the book.
The main focus of the book is a discussion of various KM theories,
supplemented with a number of short case studies scattered throughout
each chapter to illustrate points in a more practical way. The case
studies are one of the most interesting aspects, but might have been
more usefully gathered together into an appendix, as there isn't a
list of them. Some of the tables refer to case studies simply by name
as illustrating a particular approach to KM, but it is difficult to
then locate the case studies quickly as some, but not all, are listed
in the index. The index itself is too short at only two pages.
Good clear explanations are provided the first time a technical term
is used, and extensive references at the end of each chapter make the
book very readable and a good starting point to pursue further reading
on different theories and strategies. A glossary would have been a
useful addition. The chapter on the role of technology in KM is very
good and balanced, as too many people assume KM is all about
technology. The final chapter offers an interesting examination of the
tensions between protecting a company or individual's intellectual
property, and making knowledge available to generate further ideas.
Tables and case studies are excellent but a few screen shots and more
detailed examples of concepts, such as visualisation tools, would be
even better.
Despite the focus on theories discussed throughout the book,
"Knowledge Management" also offers practical suggestions, such as how
to develop successful knowledge repositories. It will probably be of
greatest interest to students or anyone new to KM looking for a broad
overview of different approaches, rather than anyone looking for
practical tips and ideas, although such an audience may find the price
(at GBP57) quite high. The end of chapter reference lists offer a good
starting point for further reading and ideas for future research.
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Mandy Webster is the Library & Information Services Manager at Browne
Jacobson Solicitors with a particular interest in KM, management
systems and user education. She is the author of several journal
articles and chapters of books on KM and legal information management.
She writes for FreePint in a personal capacity.
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Related FreePint links:
* Find out more about this book online at the FreePint Bookshelf
* Read customer comments and buy this book at Amazon.co.uk
or Amazon.com
* "Knowledge Management: An Integrative Approach"
ISBN 1843341220, published by Chandos Publishing Oxford Ltd.
* Search for and purchase any book from Amazon via the FreePint
Bookshelf at
* Read about other Internet Strategy books on the FreePint Bookshelf
To propose an information-related book for review, send details
to .
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Then please supply a brief testimonial:
"Really useful for our printed and electronic newsletters.
Takes the headache out of mis- typing those
ridiculously long web addresses."
Information Co-ordinator, Nottingham (March 2006)
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FEATURE ARTICLE
"Characterising the dragon - undertaking research in China"
By Mike Taylor
Harold Geneen, the founder of MCI Inc., once said, "In the business
world, everyone is paid in two ways: cash and experience. Take the
experience first; the cash will come later".
When entrepreneurs and investors think about steering their companies
towards Chinese shores these words should be remembered - learn
quickly, as it could be some time before the cash starts coming in!
The Chinese economy, growing at a gravity-defying rate of 9.5 percent
per year, offers immense opportunities, stemming from a population
base of 1.3 billion souls. The success that global powerhouses like
Nokia, Wal-Mart, Microsoft and Ikea have had on entering the Chinese
market makes it tempting for smaller Western companies to try to
piggyback the Dragon, but the scale and diversity of the Chinese
market are incredibly daunting. Any researcher trying to understand
Chinese demographics to facilitate the launch of new products or
services needs to keep the wider picture in mind.
The disparity between east and west China is an interesting
illustration. The China Human Development Report of 2005 gives an
intriguing insight into the dynamics of the Chinese population.
According to the report, China's Gini coefficient, representing income
equality across the population, is more than 0.4 and on an upward
trend (source - United Nations Development Program report on China,
from 2005. Download of the full report available at:
).
Note:- The Gini coefficient is an Inequality Indicator - it measures
the inequality of income distribution within a country, varying from
0.0, which indicates perfect equality, with every household earning
exactly the same, to 1.0, which implies absolute inequality, with a
single household earning a country's entire income. Latin American
countries are grouped at the top of the scale, with Gini coefficients
of around 0.5 - 0.55; in the UK the figure is 0.25.
This income disparity is particularly pronounced between the eastern
cities of Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou, where consumers are looking
for experiences and products on par with those in Hong Kong and most
other developed markets, to the west of the country, where consumers
are seeking far simpler functional benefits for much lower costs. For
example, city-dwelling, office-working consumers of laundry products
use washing machines and have more garments in their wardrobes. On the
other end of the demographic spectrum, small-town blue-collar workers
have different needs and requirements - a smaller wardrobe, washing
them less frequently, and not necessarily using washing machines. For
the record, the regional income-divide between the eastern
(industrial) and central (agrarian) Chinese belts has surged from 1.42
to 1.52 in a span of six years, from 1997-2003, according to the UN
China Human Development Report of 2005.
Each sub-segment is huge. As an example, China's top four cities alone
- all on the Eastern coast of the country - account for a market size
of over 30 million people. That's the challenge - carrying out
meaningful research while dealing with a mind-boggling maze of data.
Likely to drive a researcher up the (Great) wall!
Variations on a Chinese theme
-----------------------------
Imagine - 56 different ethnic groups speaking scores of different
languages and dialects - astounding in their variation across the
nation with myriad dialects and forms. To sum it up: the heterogeneity
of the Chinese market requires researchers to look at it not as a
single mass market, but as a large number of smaller markets. This
makes designing a comprehensive questionnaire a tricky affair, needing
to accommodate a wide range of disparate views, not to mention
languages.
Collection of data and its collation is going to be tough. Ensuring
that the sample of respondents corresponds to a representative slice
of the market is a challenge which, from a Western viewpoint, can
sometimes be overwhelming. A local Chinese partner will be able to
help you decide which regions are the primary targets for the products
or services you are researching, as well as which language will be
most appropriate for those target groups. Without a local plan,
deciding in London to conduct the interviews in 'Mandarin' will limit
hugely both the respondents and the quality of the results.
To further muddy the picture, basic demographic information about the
population provided by government agencies or culled from published
reports cannot be relied upon, as illustrated by the official
population figures. Since the 1970s, the communist regime in China has
restricted couples to a strict 'one child' policy. It is believed that
an unspecified number of couples may have hidden from the census
authorities the actual (higher) number of offspring. One estimate pegs
this 'unreported population' figure at over 100 million -- twice as
big as the UK population!. (see Foreign Policy Research Institute
report on "The limits to China Growth" Spring 2004:
).
Primary data collection is complicated still further by variances in
economic development, purchasing power, and cultural factors, all of
which lead to differences in consumer behavior across and within the
large and diverse regions of China. Concurrently, infrastructure
problems and the size and heterogeneity of the market make it
difficult to identify and select representative samples and to
organize survey research. Phone-based research is also very hard to
conduct - China's cultural norms call for face-to-face interviews
traditionally using a female team. Other cultural differences are even
more marked - our CEO was surprised when, after a lengthy, in-depth
interview by a major national newspaper about Evalueserve and our
plans in China, the (female) interviewer concluded by giving him a big
hug ...
Don't believe everything you read
---------------------------------
An additional complication on conducting primary research in China is
that non-Chinese-owned companies are not allowed to build their own
survey facility for B2B or B2C phone campaigns in China. As a result,
it is absolutely critical for any company trying to conduct research
in China to develop local links and strong, trust-based relationships
with good, Chinese-owned, primary research agencies.
Published company results in China are also not straightforward. Those
of us who are accustomed to the strict, regulated reporting
requirements of the West may get a severe headache when contemplating
the multiple different ways of reporting the same information in China.
External influence can sometimes mean that figures are amended before
release, making reliance on a single source a high-risk strategy.
Triangulation of data points through multiple sources and original
modeling, when needed, are the only ways to ensure painting an
accurate picture.
With all these challenges, what are WE doing there?
---------------------------------------------------
Evalueserve is a research company based in India. Since we were
founded in 2001 we've grown to 1,000 full time, highly qualified
research professionals who deliver desk research, financial analysis
and B2B surveys for clients in the US, UK, Continental Europe and the
Far East. Our client base is a mix of other research companies, who
use us as a hidden back-office and some corporate clients for whom we
either deliver one-off projects or build a full time, dedicated team.
Through 2004 we fielded increasingly frequent requests from our
clients to study Chinese markets. We began by conducting research from
our base in India, recruiting Chinese speakers and using Chinese
partner companies for the B2B interviewing. This approach produced
great results but was slow and more expensive than it should have
been. We decided that the only way to accurately research the Chinese
market was to be within it, so in mid-2005 we sent one of our senior
guys to China to choose a location and open an office. He took with
him one of our Chinese team members from our International Language
Centre to help with local issues.
Two months after selecting Shanghai as a location, we had a
fully-operational facility with seamless training, recruitment and IT
systems linking into our India hub, and we were starting to train the
first few team members in the our way of work. Now, five
months from opening, the team comprises forty people working on live,
paid projects for clients in London, New York, Tokyo and Hong Kong.
The opening of the office and starting to deliver work was
surprisingly straightforward - there is significantly less red tape
than in London or Delhi. Yet the infrastructure in Shanghai is of a
similar standard to any modern global metropolis such as Paris,
Manhattan or Sydney.
A key part of our business model is for the delivery team lead to
interact directly with the client, without an onshore gatekeeper or
project manager. This ensures no 'transmission losses', gives a much
higher quality end-deliverable and gives the delivery team leads a
much more rewarding job (thus reducing attrition). My personal
experience during a recruiting visit to China in November was that
students who are in the current graduation year have exceptional
English language skills, but those who graduated three or four years
ago are very variable - we could not use some of the most able
candidates in a client-interfacing position without significant
training. This is very different to India, where all students have
their formal education in English from an early age, with the result
that their English is normally significantly better than mine!
One additional benefit to being in China is that we are now much
closer to the time zones of our clients in Hong Kong, Tokyo and Seoul,
and can hire English, Chinese and Japanese speaking MBAs and finance
graduates directly from the best universities in China, without the
issues of bringing them to India.
Researching the Chinese market is not easy - it requires patience, a
multi-region strategy and contacts with local companies who can help.
The potential market, though, is huge for companies with the patience
to understand what they're getting in to and wait for the returns.
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Mike Taylor has an engineering and sales background and joined
Evalueserve in 2002, when it employed 45 people. His role at the time
was to introduce the UK marketplace to KPO - Knowledge Process
Outsourcing, using offshore teams to research and analyse data about
markets, companies and products. Evalueserve has since grown to over
1,000 people in India and China, and Mike's role has expanded to
running the UK sales team while still serving as account manager for a
number of financial services, research and consultancy companies.
, Tel: +44 1763 837334
.
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