News alerts play an important role in Competitive Intelligence systems. They are the steady workhorse, keeping people current and knowledgeable on specific companies, industries and other topics. Yet news alerts also can be an intrusion, contributing to information fatigue and overload.
Enter the value of curation.
Curated Alerts use a combination of automation and analysis to deliver highly relevant information in a timely manner, which is crucial in competitive markets.
Successful curated alerts are built on a foundation of three pillars:
1. Content
2. User Profiles
3. Delivery Mechanism
Together, they enable the right information to be delivered to the right people at the right time.
1. CONTENT
Content is the source information. In our digital world, content is an abundance of riches, creating a very real organizational challenge:
How do you find and deliver the most relevant information, without the time-consuming distractions and tedious chore of sorting through everything else?
Content is becoming more voluminous and diverse – structured and unstructured, statistical and anecdotal, freely available and behind a paywall. Without an efficient way to regulate the flow, it can be more overwhelming than empowering. Automation delivers the first layer of filtering by narrowing a vast universe of information into more manageable and meaningful galaxies.
2. USER PROFILES
The second pillar involves User Profiles, which is matching information to individual people and teams. With effective user profiles, the right people are able to get the information they need to do their jobs, make better decisions and strategize more creatively.
Setting up User Profiles may seem like a routine administrative task, yet even this can be a challenge in large, global enterprises with virtual teams and regular employee churn. User profiles require an extra step of human judgment and intervention, so many organizations choose the easy way, delivering more information to everyone and letting users do the sifting and sorting. The problem with this approach is that it contributes to fatigue and squanders costly resources like database subscriptions and staff time.
3. DELIVERY MECHANISM
The third pillar is the Delivery Mechanism, which is how and where the information is presented. The how involves presentation and timing, whether it’s the regular delivery of curated alerts, the more occasional in-depth analysis and reporting, or some combination. The where involves location and access, with the need to accommodate increasingly complex user needs and preferences – Mobile or Office, Android or iPhone, Email or Portal. A flexible approach will ensure that the most relevant information is presented in a meaningful way, in a timely fashion, on any device.
Content, User Profiles and Delivery Mechanism are the Three Pillars of Curated Alerts, which are a key component of effective Competitive Intelligence systems. For law firms and businesses striving to empower their business development teams to compete more effectively in challenging markets, Curated Alerts are a valuable tool.
John DiGilio
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