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Information Overload, Mining Data for Nuggets

Is anyone else feeling a bit overwhelmed with the amount of information and data available at any given moment?  I've signed up for so many marketing, pr, media and advertising email alerts and newsletters that by the end of the day my head is spinning.   Never mind the amount of news sources, blogs, and consumer-generated media I read ever day.  I feel like if I stop, I'm going to miss something big.  I'm finally at the point of really understanding the age of information overload.  I suspect most PR and marketing folks are in the same boat.  We're all trying to keep track of our company as well as issues and opportunities facing our entire industry.  This got me thinking of an article Cymfony was asked to write for an upcoming issue of PRTactics on "Mining Data for Insights."  (due out in March I believe)

Jim Nail was the lucky author of the piece.  In it, he compares harnessing data and information to mining for gold...you may need to move a ton of rocks to get to the nugget.  "Companies need a map of where to look, the tools to extract the ore and the approach to refine it into a valuable commodity." 

I thought I'd share some of the highlights of the article since I had the pleasure of editing and submitting. 

As most of us know, data can be complied through either a manual or automated process.  Both contain valuable insights, and the critical decision is to determine what type of insights are the most beneficial to your business.  Jim explains the benefits of both approaches and points out that "automated tools provide a number of advantages, especially if you find a high volume of relevant posts across a wide range of sites. First, they will consolidate relevant content from any number of blogs, boards, groups, etc. into one central repository. They will categorize, sort, count, and analyze posts, reporting on the number of comments about a particular topic, and rate each comment as either positive or negative. Finally, they will allow the user to perform his or her own analysis to shed light on a particular business issue or challenge."

Depending on what you want to do with the data and info, there are many perspectives to view it.  "The most common three include:

· Category drivers, to answer questions such as: What does this product mean to the buyer? What problem is he or she trying to solve? What stimulates a purchase and what barriers does the prospect encounter in the purchase process?

· Feature hierarchy: What are the most sought after features and why? What features aren’t important? Are the buyers looking for more functional or emotional benefits?

· Brand perceptions: Which brands are in the consideration set? Which are most top-of-mind? How do consumers weigh the pros and cons of each brand?

These perspectives aren’t mutually exclusive. For example, an analysis could cross reference the brand perceptions and features data to create a perceptual map of how consumers view each brand in the category, how they relate to each other on key criteria (price, quality, availability, etc.), and, over time, how brand perceptions evolve."

As I have said before, automated tools are a great resource to help gather and organize the overwhelming amount of info out there, but they are not going to replace human interpretation of data. 

And I'm still going to read my news updates, email alerts, and aggregation sites like bloglines. 

Posted by Cymfony on February 2, 2006 at 10:29 AM | Email this post Permalink

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Comments

I remember thinking I had to stay on top of things during my first days of working for a start-up that had the possibility of a share pay out. Looking back I don't have much to show from that company, except maybe less time with friends and family. Taking your idea further you might argue that Cymfony's products are helping to build families and keep up personal connections.

I think it’s important to keep up with the news, but again not to worry too much if you don't miss the latest and greatest, there will always be another opportunity. Also, if a PR manager or Marketing Director is getting frayed at the edges it might be time to hire another staffer to help with the information analysis.

Again that's why your industry's products make sense for the busy marketing or pr department.

My sympathies, Cindy, as I too feel the overload of information sometimes.

Posted by: John Cass | Feb 3, 2006 10:28:14 AM

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