Rivers of InformationLearning to filter the abundance of online information

to increase your career IQ

The Rivers of Information Process is essentially using social tech tools to streamline one’s accrual of knowledge. • Developing an ability to digest and redistribute valuable pieces from this massive flow creates an advantage in the traditional marketplace.• Multiply this info-gathering method times all the people in your workforce and you will have a distinct advantage on the competition.

When people think of social technology, their first efforts typically go to using it as a marketing tool. Truth be known, most organizations would derive more value from building powerful rivers of information than trying to figure out how to use Facebook in their marketing. See the infographic on the next slide for a visual illustration of how organizations can grow with Rivers of Information.

We will now walk you through steps on instituting Rivers of Information

Build a system for aggregating streams of information.1Start with an application to connect to RSS feeds (e.g. Google Reader, or NetVibes.com).

Setup a Twitter management application like Tweetdeck or Hootsuite to manage Twitter sources of information.

2

If you own an iPad, load Flipboard and attach it to your streams of information - or find an application that does the same thing on whatever device you run.

3

Learn to use alert systems so you can track any piece of information that will be valuable to you (socialmention.com, alerts.com, Google Alerts, etc).

4

Identify the top Twitterati (Twitterers) in your industry via tools like www.twellow.com and www.twitaholic.com.

5

Identify the top 10 bloggers in your industry (Blogged.com). 6

Identify all the sources of newsletters in your industry.7

• Bloggers

• Institutions

• Companies

• Government Bureaus

• Thought leaders

• Online Magazines

Identify all the analytics and statistics sources for your industry. 8

Identify any consultants or analysts that follow your industry and write about it.

9

Identify what competitors that you want to follow. 10

Make a list of keywords you would like to run alerts on so you always see any mention of that subject - set up the alerts.

11

Check with your co-workers and ask what the most valuable sources of information they follow are, so you know you have not missed anything.

12

Divide this information streams above into A and B categories using the 20/80 principal where you send the most valuable 20% to your email every day so you always read it for sure.

13

Send the 80% to your secondary river management system using the tools below.

Make a conscious effort to digest this information flow for at least 30 minutes each day.

14

Once the flow of information is refined, build a system to archive and store the bits of information that you might want to use in the future.

15

You can use systems like Evernote or OneNote, or just store them in files on your hard drive in an organized manner.

Constantly refine your river so it is always improving and always yielding the kinds of information that will be valuable to you.

16

Drop sources that prove to be weak, and add new sources you find that have possibilities.

Contact Scott Klososky

Order His Book

Scott has developed a number of tools and concepts that help organizations develop a winning strategy for using Social Technology.

http://www.enterprisesocialtechnology.com

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