Hello blog friends-

It’s been more than six weeks since I’ve blogged. I was not sunning in St. Tropez (sadly) but instead working on a very exciting project:  a new investigative services firm named Lynx Insights & Investigations, Inc.

Lynx Insights is a new firm with an old partner of mine Edward Morris who, in addition to being an experienced investigator, is very active in the art, design and nonprofit realms. He recently founded and ran an organization that produces art and media to deepen public understanding of climate change (see Canary Project here).

Lynx Insights finds facts amidst opinions, diversions and misinformation and is dedicated to delivering those facts in a clear, easy-to-use format whether that is a website, a chart, a video or audio file, or a written memo.

This blog will continue on both Via Search and Lynx Insights’ websites.

Drop me a line if you want to know more!

Best,
Lecia

When does it make sense to go beyond Google or Bing for your search?

A bunch of new, cool search engines are cropping up with different strengths. To decide which one to try, let’s use the analogy of looking for a good movie to see. If any of you tried, you know searching Google with “What movie should I see?” isn’t going to get you results fast.

There are three ways to go. You could:

1) Call/email a friend or group of friends who would know what movie you’d like

2) Post the question somewhere for a big community to opine (like on Facebook)

3) Search a specialized site (for movies, sites like www.rottentomatoes.com or www.fandango.com)

These categories are the same three ways to look at the other search engines.

CATEGORY ONE:   Reaching out to targeted person or persons who would know

• www.vark.com:  Aardvark is good for finding a certain individual (or expert) who might know the answer to your question.
• www.hunch.com: Hunch uses your preferences and profile to find someone who likely shares your tastes.

CATEGORY TWO:  Reaching out to a broad community for a more diverse response.  This format has been around awhile with sites like:

• answers.yahoo.com
• www.answers.com

This is the area with the most growth right now. Front runners Quora and Facebook Questions are both still in beta testing but look promising.

CATEGORY THREE: Searching a specialized site. If you don’t know one already, these general search engines help you figure out where to dig down.

• www.duckduckgo.com Has a feature called !Bang that helps narrow your search by category. For example, searching !movies leads you directly to specialized sites to search like fandango.com. Works for many categories like !travel or !handbags for example.
• www.blekko.com Still in beta testing. Blekko has slashtags that limit your search to websites that will most likely have what you’re looking for. There are preset slashtags (/movies) and you can make your own (/startups).

In the early days of the web – before search engines, can you imagine?? – you found information by going to web pages that provided links to all sorts of things – the links were grouped by category. (For a great book on the history of search on the web, check out The Search by John Battelle).  Categorization or classification as a way of organizing information goes back to Aristotle in the 4^th century B.C. It has been the main method of organizing – and therefore finding – information in the modern world.

What does this mean for you? Let’s look back:

Classification: How would your subject be classified? Try using the classification of what you are looking for as your search.

For example, let’s say you are looking for your ancestors. You know they were originally from India but moved to England at the turn of the century. You know their last name was Patel. A Google search of Patel in England isn’t going to get you anywhere. Instead, try taking a step back and thinking how you would categorize what you are looking for. How about “indian immigration to england.” The very first link is useful: Moving Here, a website with online databases of 200,000 documents and other resources about immigration to England that was put together by U.K.’s National Archives and 30 archives, libraries and museums. I bet Moving Here could help you.

Indexes: Our now-common method of keyword searching is relatively new but indexing information by keywords has been around for a long time – major publications like the New York Times would print an annual Index of subject matters, important names and events to help researchers find the right date and page number of relevant articles. That’s a form of keyword. These indexes are warehoused at libraries and are very useful when looking for information older than 20 years ago.

Try the Library of Congress or the library of the largest town near what you’re looking for.

Morgues: Also, newspapers and magazines used to keep “clip files” or “morgue files” of subject matters, people and events to assist researchers. It’s worth calling a publication that covers your subject matter or its location to see if the publication still has morgue files. Some have donated their morgue files to libraries but hopefully someone at the publication can tell you that. For example, Newsweek has donated its pre-electronic files to The Center for American History at the University of Texas at Austin.

Happy Hunting!

Another under-utilized resource is news media outside the U.S. that may not be picked up in your Google search. Some newspapers have their archives index-able by search engines but most do not. (This is a follow up to last week’s post about searching documentaries, TV and radio.)

How do you find these resources?

The first step is to figure out what publications you are looking for – try the repository-based searching approach outlined in this blog post. Start with keywords that will identify where you want to search, such as “Estonia and newspaper” or “Qatar and tv news.”

Additionally, here are some country/region-specific news compilers that work like Nexis or Video Monitoring Service that are particularly impressive:

CANADA: www.fpinfomart.ca/news/ar_form.php?mode=a – free, searchable online database of more than 100 Canadian publications going back five years. You then pay per article.

UK and BEYOND:  www.monitor.bbc.co.uk/our_services/index.htm – subscription-based, searchable online database of TV, radio, press, internet and news back to 1997. The BBC – how could you go wrong?

INDIA:  www.ibanklive.com – claims to have online archives of 900,000 Indian and international TV commercials, press ads and marketing news for subscribers.

The following clipping services seem to have good regional coverage:

AUSTRALIA:  Media Monitors covers more than 3,000 information sources, including both print and broadcast media. www.mediamonitors.com.au

BALTICS:   Mediaskopas monitors Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian media.  www.mediaskopas.lt/en

KOREA:  WiseBrief provides English abstracts of stories from Korean-language newspapers, magazines, news wire, and web sources. www.wisebrief.com

MIDDLE EAST:  Mediastow covers Arabic, English and French language media sources throughout the Middle East region. www.emediasearch.com

There are search engines. There are subscription-based databases like Lexis, Westlaw, Factiva. There are online databases that aren’t indexed by search engines. But there is a whole other universe of media coverage that is completely missing in the above. What is it you ask?

Television and Radio.

Some shows post transcripts on their website, which makes the content searchable. Such as Frontline, for example. But what if you aren’t looking for comments by a national figure?

What if your search is dated or more obscure than that?

Here are some resources I like:

www.docuseek.com:  Docuseek is a search site for independent documentary, social issue and educational videos available in the U.S. and Canada. You can search its archive of 3,200 films by keyword.

www.vmsinfo.com:  Video Monitoring Service grew out of the “clipping services” that used to be the way people stayed on top of specific topics in the news. What I love is VMS’ historical ad collection “…over five million ads across 20 media types, with TV dating back to 1950, radio back to 1979 and print back to 1880.”

This is particularly useful in intellectual-property disputes for establishing prior use or illustrating trademark infringement.

There are “monitoring” services like this that have been collecting media ads all over the world. Here’s one for India: www.ibanklive.com that claims to have online archives of 900,000 Indian, International TVCs, Press Ads and Marketing News.

And here are some sites that promise keyword-searching of TV and cable news broadcasts:

www.redlasso.com: Goes back at least two weeks (although I had search results 6+ months back.)

www.1Cast.com: Bills itself as a digital newsstand.

www.tracktvinc.com: Says it has archived TV news back to 2000, but not searchable online.

And finally, a radio-specific site:

www.national-aircheck.com: Provides keyword searching of news, talk, business & financial radio.

Where do all the laid-off investigative journalists go? To investigative-journalism websites of course! There is no dearth of fantastic non-profit, for-profit and educational websites out there. They publish hard-hitting investigative pieces that are often not indexed by Google and other search engines. Here are some of my favorites (and yes I make sure to check them during investigations):

Center for Public Integrity: CPI exposes private influence on public institutions and politicians (among other significant projects). My favorite was a series called The Windfalls of War, with a searchable index of FOIA’d documents detailing war contracts to private companies.

Center for Investigative Reporting: A hugely talented staff of reporters keeps the flame of investigative journalism alive. CIR is the oldest non-profit investigative journalist group around. My favorite is the California Watch, which focuses on health, education and political issues in my home state.

Both CPI and CIR have tools to help you find information – from sample FOIA letters to suggested repositories.

Transparency International: TI uncovers proof of corruption worldwide. TI comes up with such alarming information that you wonder why you didn’t read about it anywhere else.

Global Witness: Similarly, GW focuses on corruption, but particularly regarding natural resources. Great series on the circuitous path of oil money.

Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard: My new favorite. Great tweet updates. Smart. Harvard. Who knew?

ProPublica: Of course! Where all the laid-off journalists want to work.

PD Investigations: OK this one isn’t a non-profit, but it has original investigative stories I’m not reading anywhere else.

These organizations have more investigative findings than they can put on their websites. If it seems like one of these groups might be addressing a question you have, DO CALL. These are smart, committed people with lots of knowledge to share.

This is the third post in a series about how to avoid search paralysis during complicated searches. To recap:

The first step is to figure out which approach is most applicable to your search. The minutes you spend figuring this out will save you a ton of time down the search-road. Nothing is worse than feeling like you’ve spent hours flipping through links and websites and getting nowhere.

The three are:
1)      Fill in the Box
2)      Tarzan Style
3)      Core Drilling

Today’s focus is on the approach called CORE DRILLING.

The Core Drilling approach is best when you only have a vague idea of what you’re looking for or you aren’t even sure if what you’re looking for exists.

Where to start? Where to dig? How to not waste time chasing nothing?

It’s as if you are looking upon an open plain, and an oil deposit is hidden somewhere out there (or gold or water if you’d prefer the Earth’s oil supply stay hidden). If only you had a dowsing rod to help! Take a clue from geologists looking for mineral deposits, try core drilling like this:

1)      Start by “scanning the horizon” for anything relevant. You do this by typing (what you imagine are) useful keywords into a search engine.

2)      Take notes of possible, albeit lukewarm, leads as you go – but don’t follow them yet!

3)      When you find something that seems promising, plant a flag and start digging. This is your first CORE DRILL.

4)      Follow that lead all the way to its logical conclusion – Be careful not to get sidetracked during this core drill!

5)      Unless you strike black gold, go back to your original search – the open plain – and keep going until you hit something else promising and do another CORE DRILL.

It looks like this:

This process may seem laborious, but I guarantee you it will save you hours down the road. It will keep you focused on possible leads. It will ensure you don’t stay too shallow with your research. It will save you from retracing the same old leads.

Happy Drilling!

This is the second post in a series about how to avoid search paralysis during complicated searches. To recap:

The first step is to figure out which approach is most applicable to your search. The minutes you spend figuring this out will save you a ton of time down the search-road. Nothing is worse than feeling like you’ve spent hours flipping through links and websites and getting nowhere.

The three are:

1)      Fill in the Box
2)      Tarzan Style
3)      Core Drilling

Today’s focus is on the approach called TARZAN STYLE.

The Tarzan Style approach works best when you have a couple nuggets of true information and that’s all you know for sure. Like, say, you want to find where a former colleague is now working. Cling onto those fact nuggets like you are Tarzan and those nuggets are the vines saving you from the web jungle below. To stay with the Tarzan metaphor, you want to find the next vine to grab – but don’t let go of your facts until you have a firm hold on the next one!

So in our (hypothetical) former colleague example, let’s say you know John Smith was the vp of marketing at Anheuser Busch. Where is he today? Those three pieces of information…

(1)   NAME = John Smith

(2)   TITLE = vp marketing

(3)   EMPLOYER = Anheuser Busch

…are your vine. Don’t get sidetracked with the assumption that Mr. Smith lives in the St. Louis area where A.B. is based. That’s just an assumption (and will drop you directly into a hornet’s nest in the web jungle below).

The next vine to grab will be looking for a John Smith who is in marketing or has “Anheuser Busch” in his bio. In this example, you find a John Smith in marketing at MillerCoors – that’s your vine – so look for more information on the John Smith at MillerCoors. That leads you to find his bio that shows he previously worked at “a major American brewer,” likely Anheuser Busch, and that his middle initial is P.

Looking for a John P. Smith in the Golden, Colorado area (your next vine) in White Pages gives you a home phone number for your former colleague.

This is what that thought process looks like:

Remember, when you have only a few facts to start with – hold onto them for dear life! Don’t let go until you’ve found the next logical step.

NEXT POST: CORE DRILLING

As a rule, investigators deal with complicated searches. Think about it, no one hires an investigator for information that’s easy to find! After years of running and managing investigations, I’ve developed the following three approaches to use before you begin in order to stay focused throughout the search and get you results fast and efficiently.

The first step is to figure out which approach is most applicable to your search. The minutes you spend figuring this out will save you a ton of time down the search-road. Nothing is worse than feeling like you’ve spent hours flipping through links and websites and getting nowhere.

The three are:

1)      Fill in the Box

2)      Tarzan Style

3)      Core Drilling

In this blog post, I’m going to cover FILL IN THE BOX. The others will be covered in following blog posts.

Fill in the Box

This approach works best for when you commit to looking at certain criteria. A background check fits this model well. Another would be making lists of items in a category (for example, computer software companies that have gone public in the past three years). It works best for any situation where you have defined parameters.

For these types of searches, keep a tight hold of those parameters and make a “box” with them.

The most important factors in your search are:

• Make sure you are staying within the parameters;
• Fill the entirety of your box.

Sounds simple. But it’s easy to get distracted by data that is outside your parameters.  So if you are looking for computer software companies that have gone public, don’t get distracted by how many mortgage companies have gone public (just kidding!).

But make sure your searches cover the entirety of your box. Let’s say you are looking for information about someone in Sacramento, California in the past 10 years. If you search the Sacramento Bee you would only be getting articles from the previous year. You would not be “filling the box” with this search.

NEXT UP:  TARZAN STYLE

What if your search need is opaque – or hard to boil down into keywords? (Yes, a common theme in my blog!) A bunch of new search engines have entered the marketplace deal with this issue. Here are some to try:

(1) Aardvark www.vark.com:  Through Aardvark, you ask a question and (theoretically) within minutes you receive an answer from someone – a real person – who knows something about that topic. You are also prompted to answer questions you should know about. I was surprised at how fast and accurate it was! It seems to succeed where Google Answers and Yahoo Answers faltered. Aardvark requires you to sign up, but it’s a relatively easy process. I got the IPhone app.

I think this is a great service for people who don’t conduct searches often enough to get adept at crafting keywords.

For example, I asked it “What should I get a 14 year old who is into mountain climbing?” Within an hour (not minutes), I received two responses. One wasn’t helpful for my needs. One, from Bill P. in Burlington VT, suggested the book “50 Classic Climbs,” a subscription to Climbing Magazine, Prana clothing, chalk bag, crash pad or a “bullet” pack from Black Diamond. I would not have known that. And even better, Bill P. is not trying to sell any of those things to me!

(2) Hunch www.hunch.com:  Brought to you by the founder of Flickr, Hunch uses crowd-sourcing to answer questions you have – and here’s the unique twist – based on your past choices and questions you answer about yourself (also requiring you to sign up). It then comes up with a hunch about what you’re looking for. Theoretically, this means if you generally look for information on fruit, the search engine will know you mean the fruit “apple” and not the computer “Apple.”

It has potential, but is in its infancy (read = it hasn’t worked for me yet).  When I asked it the same question I asked Aardvark, I got ZERO useful answers. Even Google is better than that!

And finally-

(3) Wolfram Alpha www.wolframalpha.com: This search engine attempts to answer your question, not deliver links to sites that answer your question. Since the founder Stephen Wolfram is a mathematician, this search engine is most useful for things scientific.

One cool feature of Wolfram’s Alpha is it will give you the caloric breakdown of any recipe if you enter in the ingredients of the recipe.

Seems like every day there are new search-engine start ups. I’ll update this review with new favorites as I find them.