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Social Media Report 2012 and eScholar
After reading the post “Social Media Report 2012” (Academic Trend & Innovations blog, Doriot Library, INSEAD Business School), and the Nielsen report it highlights, I have been thinking about social media and research. There are at least three aspects:
- Research into the impact of social media on businesses and the world of work in general
- The use of social media by academic researchers and research communities
- Social media as part of the online presence of academic libraries
The Nielsen report provides a useful overview – but so general that it made me want to find something more specific. Manchester eScholar identified some University of Manchester research:
- Hughes, D. H., Rowe, M. Batey, M. & Lee, A (2012) “A tale of two sites: Twitter vs. Facebook and the personality predictors of social media usage” Computers in Human Behavior, 28(2) pp. 561-569. DOI:10.1016/j.chb.2011.11.001 - Manchester eScholar. (For full-text use FindIt@UML for Computers in Human Behavior)
- Demetriou, G. (2012) Organisational Social Media Platforms: exploring user participation behaviours in software and technology firms. PhD Thesis, The University of Manchester, Manchester eScholarID:157374
- Zhu, Y, and Proctor, R. (2012) “Use of blogs, Twitter and Facebook by PhD Students for Scholarly Communication: A UK study”. In: 2012 China New Media Communication Association Annual Conference, Macao International Conference ; 06 Dec 2012-08 Dec 2012; Macao, Manchester eScholarID:187789
- Tuten, T. and Solomon, M. (2012) Social Media Marketing. Upper Saddle River, NJ USA: Pearson Education. eScholarID:157026 (UoM Library catalogue entry)
The Nielsen report did mention that an increasing number of people are using social media as their medium of choice for contacting companies. So far I have not been able to find any research on this topic.
Please leave details if there is research you recommend on any of the three aspects above.
Eureka! Innovation Challenge Event 2013
The wait is nearly over!
We asked you to send in your ideas or vision for an innovative new concept or design which will enhance the customer experience within The University of Manchester Library.
You responded in your hundreds and now the shortlisting is complete, invitations have been sent to our eight finalists and we’re counting down to Eureka! The Final!
Ortis Deley, best known as a presenter of The Gadget Show, will present the finalists to an impressive panel of judges on Thursday, 2 May in the Kanaris Lecture Theatre. Following an afternoon of pitches and presentations, a winner will be selected.
“We’ve had so many great ideas and we’ve been absolutely delighted by the quality, range, and diversity of entries”, said Nick Campbell, Eureka! organiser.
“Shortlisting has been tough but it’s now up to the judges to decide which one’s the winner!”
Meanwhile, proving that good ideas can be as simple as they are innovative, some non-winning suggestions will also be taken up by the Library and put in place soon.
As Nick says, “As a leading university we’re always seeking improvements. Thankfully, we have some of the world’s leading students with great ideas too!”
Come and see the presentations and judging for yourself.
Book your FREE ticket now:
Bloomberg Highlights from Datapoints blog
Bloomberg Professional is such a large finanical information system that you can always learn something from other users.
The Lippincott Library Datapoints blog has recently included a selection of posts on Bloomberg highlights to “show off some of Bloomberg’s most interesting features”:
Bloomberg’s Mapping Module (BMAP), Supply Chain Analysis (SPLC), World Market Capitalization (WCAP)
Industry Analysis (BI), Bloomberg Career Center (JOBS), World Stock Exchanges (EPR)
Bloomberg Social Media Alert, Private Company Information, Analyst Reports (BRC)
Related posts:
The Bloomberg Professional tag gives a wide range of tips from this blog – searching “Bloomberg help” highlights some posts to get you started.
The “iThoughts” app for iPad
In the emerging world of mind mapping on the iPad, iThoughtsHD has taken an early lead with an incredible set of features that no other developer even comes one close to. More importantly, it contains the features and functionality that makes it eminently useful to academic users. And on the iPad’s large screen, it’s an absolute pleasure to use.
iThoughtsHD has a clean, well-organised user interface that is key to its functionality. It contains just enough toolbar icons to enable you to quickly capture your ideas, while more advanced tools for embellishing your map and its topics are cleverly hidden within several “inspector” buttons. That keeps them out of the way, yet they are only a few taps away when you need them.
This well-designed app gives you several options for adding topics to your mind maps. A set of 3 buttons enables you to add child and sibling topics, and to create a topic at the level before the currently selected topic.
The shape and colour of topics, icons and task details can be set via a simple multi-tabbed dialogue box. It also contains a tab for topic notes, which may contain live URL and e-mail links. After you have finished typing your notes, you simply click on a blank section of the app’s workspace and your note is automatically saved.
Moving topics is simple: You just tap and hold a topic until it is highlighted and its connector line disappears. Drag it until it is overlapping the new topic to which you want to join it and drop it there.
This impressive app’s attention to detail carries over into the map-level options it provides. These are accessible via another inspector icon in the toolbar. It enables you to:
- Set the map background colour and pattern
- Turn the topic auto-layout setting on and off
- Control inheritance of topic colours and shapes
- Turn drop shadows on and off
- Turn rainbow colouring of topics on and off
You won’t find most of these capabilities in any other iPad mind mapping application.
Not surprisingly, iThoughtsHD offers a multitude of import and export options. You can export your maps via e-mail, wi-fi transfer, Box.net and Dropbox
Datasets in Quandl
Quandl is a new portal that has indexed millions of numerical datasets on the Internet. More information on the background and features is available through their FAQ pages. When you click on a particular dataset listed in the Quandl index, Quandl goes to the original source of that data, extracts the most recent version of that data, cleans it up, and gives it to you in the format of your choice.
Puttin’ on the Ritz – Sources for Data on Wealth
GUEST post – This is a slightly edited version of Michael Halperin’s post “Puttin’ on the Ritz …” on the Datapoints blog.
In the U.S. there is an increasing concentration of assets in the hands of the wealthy. This trend has given rise to phrases such as the “1%” and the “99%”. Here are some data sources to help us answer such questions as “Who are the richest people?”, “How many of them are there?”, “How rich are they?”, and “How do they spend their money?”
Richest Lists
Forbes has a number of “richest people” lists in its magazine including Forbes World’s Billionaires and Forbes 400 The Richest People in America. In addition to names, photos, and net worth, the lists have information on residence, age, and source of income. Using Forbes’ data, Wikipedia has compiled a convenient list of the Top 10 Richest People in the world by year from 2000 on.
[Bloomberg command RICH gives the Bloomberg Billionaires Index covering 100 people.]
Rich Demographics
Capgemini and RBC Wealth Management’s 2012 World Wealth Report is a freely available annual survey of “High Net Worth Individuals” (HNWI) from 70 countries. HNWI are defined as those with financial assets, excluding residence, of more than 1 million US dollars. Capgemini also discusses “Ultra HNWIs” individuals with financial assets of more than 30 million dollars. The report includes statistics on type of financial assets and a ranking of high wealth individuals by geographic area and country.
Two additional standard sources of information about the rich are the Luxury Institute and the Ipsos Mendelsohn Group.
Ipsos Mendelsohn does an annual U.S. study of 14,000 adults living in households with at least $100,000 in annual income. Although the University of Manchester Library, like the Penn Libraries, does not have access to their surveys of the affluent, you can often find data from these surveys cited in articles within the Business Source Premier or ABI/Inform databases. Try searching for luxury institute or mendelsohn affluent survey and search within the full-text.
The U.S. IRS Tax Stats Personal Wealth Statistics is published every three years.
[Table US Personal Wealth 2007 omitted - to view see original Puttin’ on the Ritz – Sources for Data on Wealth post on the Datapoints blog.]
[The UK National Statistics Publication Hub gives access to several wealth reports: Personal Wealth from HM Revenue and Customs, Wealth in Great Britain from Office for National Statistics and Wealth in Great Britain Wave 2 from Office for National Statistics.]
Marketing to the Rich
Marketing research publications are the obvious choice to answer questions about affluent marketing. Two good sources of information are [edited for University of Manchester resources]:
Affluent Investing (UK 2012); Consumer Attitudes Towards Luxury Brands (UK 2011), and Luxury Holidays (UK 2010).
GMID (Global Market Information Database)
Luxury Travel: Experiencing the Best (2012) and Luxury Alcohol in the BRICS: How the BRICs are Reshaping the Luxury Alcohol Industry (2012).
The Datapoints blog includes a related post on resources for income distribution: I Dream of Gini – Measuring Income Distributions (Datapoints blog)
GUEST post - This is a slightly edited version of Michael Halperin’s post “Puttin’ on the Ritz …” on the Datapoints blog.
“FileBrowser” App Review- Access your PC from your Mobile Device
Do you sometimes wish you could access files and drives from your home or work computer to view on your iPad or iPhone?
The excellent “FileBrowser” app enables you to browse through all the folders and files in your Mac or PC remotely. You can open compatible file types in the app itself or save them and send them to other compatible apps like “Dropbox” all that is required to complete the task is to install the relevant VPN software.
“FileBrowser” is a universal app for the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad. The good thing about this app is you won’t have to install any additional software on your computer. You will only have to enable the appropriate network settings in your computer (e.g. File Sharing on the Mac), and then enter your username and password to login to your computer.
Aside from Mac and Windows, FileBrowser can also give you access to Linux systems and NAS drives. The app is pretty easy to setup for systems on your local network. To gain entry into your computer over the internet you’ll have to do so through using a VPN.
With File Browser, you can view PDF files and photo slideshows from your computer, open text documents, email attachments, and stream compatible movies and music over Wi-Fi. Should FileBrowser be unable to handle certain file types, you can use the “Open in” function to use the files in another compatible app. FileBrowser will then download the file into your device.
“FileBrowser” does everything it says and works well and also offers security features, such as a password lock.
This is an app that will come in very handy for anyone who works with a computer which is, quite likely, almost everyone who owns an iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad. The app isn’t free but will certainly be of use when on the go.
Market Research – Personal Banking
Market Research reports are a key resource in business and management research. Very few are freely available on the web so to access these you need to use the library’s market research databases. (Goto the Markets and Sectors section in the Business and Management databases LibGuides page. )
The recent KeyNote report Personal Banking Market Assessment 2012 has been highlighted on the BizResearch blog from London Business School.
Extract for Executive Summary
The banking crisis and the subsequent recession have resulted in the personal banking market receiving a great deal of media attention of late, with little of that attention being positive. The current situation and the negative media attention has given bank customers generally very little confidence in the sector, which has affected the way in which it works.
Full BizResearch post – Personal Banking Market Assessment (21 Sept 2012)
Photo from Flickr: ken teegardin http://www.seniorliving.org/
KeyNote is available to current students and staff at the University of Manchester. To get the report search for “personal banking” or just “banking” (screenshot below).
Keynote – example search “banking” (click to enlarge)
NB. KeyNote covers UK market research only, for other options goto the Markets and Sectors section in the Business and Management databases LibGuides page, or FAQ answer - How can I find info on market research, including market research reports?
Researching companies for your career
remember nothing impresses an employer more in the job interview than hearing a candidate speak knowledgeably about their company (cjbsinfo, 2011)
At the welcome presentations today, it was clear students should start thinking about their career plan as early as possible. A good opportunity then to mention how library company information resources can help.
Company profile – for example use Business Source Premier and the Company Profile link.
Business News – for example use Factiva to find about recent press items about specific companies.
Market Research – for example use Keynote (UK cos) or GMID (Global Market Information Database) to research key market developments.
For more detail: Careers help online (Apr 2012), How to target and research potential employers (Jun 2011), from Careers category.
Manchester Business Answers 24/7 Careers section answers updated to refer to the shiny new University of Manchester Careers Blog - a great place to start learning about the support available from the University Careers Service like the Finance Business and Management Fair on 18th Oct 2012.
References
cjbsinfo (2011) “Pre-interview database checklist” University of Cambridge, Judge Business School, Information and Library Services blog. Available at: http://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/infolib/2011/06/10/pre-interview-database-checklist/ [Accessed 17 Sept. 2012]
Essential Financial Toolkit
The book The Essential Financial Toolkit: everything you always wanted to know about finance but were afraid to ask by Javier Estrada of IESE Business School, Barcelona, Spain is noteworthy because it is written with executive MBA participants in mind.
The book aims to bring those without training in finance up to speed in essential topics.
To paraphrase the book’s preface the books 10 chapters aim to be: short, engaging, easy to read, illustrated with real data, and to answer many of the questions executives would ask. The book aims to cover most essential topics: mean returns, volatility, correlation, beta, P/Es, yields, NPV (Net Present Value) and IRR (Internal Rate of Return). There is also an appendix of useful Excel Commands.
For more details:
Essential Financial Toolkit on Javier Estrada’s web pages.
Manchester Business Answers 24/7
Online FAQ database from the MBS library service. See the
FAQ - online help page for more details.MBS Library - Flickr
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