Social Networks in Research: Friend or Foe? by Ellen Naylor, Freepint (Mar 2010)
Social media is part of the research continuum now. Ellen Naylor, a competitive intelligence researcher, tells us how she uses the networks and the to and fro of using the age-old find-and-talk-to-people technique.
"As I conduct research projects I find myself climbing up and down the research continuum, usually starting with secondary research queries, then going to people's blogs and social networks like LinkedIn, Twitter, industry Nings, and Slideshare and lastly to human intelligence (HUMINT) where I either talk to a knowledgeable person over the telephone or in person. I like the intermediate phase of using blogs and social media, as they are so much more interactive, and I have an opportunity to ask questions electronically or better yet to read the answers to my question since someone else already asked it! Before social networks I would have to go back to the Internet to find more human sources to query; now I can also go back to a social network."
Posted by Gwen at March 25, 2010 03:33 PM