TechInfo-notes

Creating new ideas and innovation with SCAMPER

nksinfo2 — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 21:45:03 +0000

The best way to have a good idea is to have a lot of ideas. ~Linus Pauling

I took that straight from the article by John Freisinger Brainstorming with SCAMPER, in the Oct/Nov edition of Innovation.

One way to innovate is to change something that already exists, maybe with a radical change and maybe with a subtle change. SCAMPER is a mnemonic for a series of questions to help explore a number of possible changes to any existing product, service, problem, methodology or process.

It stands for:

(S)ubstitute

(C)ombine

(A)dapt

(M)aximize or Minimize

(P)ut to other use

(E)liminate

(R)earrange or Reverse

John uses the example of a product to demonstrate the kinds of questions one might ask.

Substitute – are there components of our product that can be substituted or replaced with something else?

Combine – Can our product be combined with other products to create a new product?

Adapt – Are there ideas from other industries that we can borrow and apply?

Maximize or minimize – Are there components that can be enlarged or shrunken?

Put to other uses – Are there completely different uses for the product?

Eliminate – Are there components and features that can be eliminated?

Have you used this system? How has it worked for you? Can you envision adding these questions to future “idea generating” discussions? I’m already planning to do a little more research on SCAMPER questions as a way to re-examine services. Let me know if you’ve got some good ideas. Make that any ideas – from the many will come the good!

Need writing or research assistance? Perhaps I can help!

Nora K. Stoecker, NKS Info Services

Marriage of document delivery and search

nksinfo2 — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 18:34:03 +0000

Document delivery vendor Reprints Desk has entered into an agreement with Deep Web Technologies to integrate Deep Web’s Explorit federated search product with Reprints Desk’s single-article document delivery service. Once integrated, researchers, or the research librarians and information professionals who support them, will be able to search across multiple databases for relevant information and have it delivered through a single online service.

As a Reprints Desk user on behalf of my clients, I look forward to this option, in addition to the continued ability to order copies of articles, conference papers, and other materials, regardless of the source. Nice!

Need research assistance? Perhaps I can help!

Nora K. Stoecker, NKS Info Services

Finding Local Business Information and Why Would You Care?

nksinfo2 — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 02:12:56 +0000

Hi all,

The topic of “finding local business information” might not sound relevant for a technical audience, but there are many instance in which it could very well be.

Considering entering into a cooperative research agreement with a small firm outside your stomping grounds? Received an RFP from a potential new supplier but don’t know too much about them? Thinking of expanding manufacturing to another State/town? These are just a few examples of the need for local business information.

It so happens that an AIIP colleague, Marcy Phelps, has written an outstanding book on finding local business information — Research on Main Street.

And another AIIP colleague, Ellen Naylor, wrote a comprehensive blog post about a recent webinar by Marcy, on strategies, techniques, and sources to find local business information. It’s still on my to-do list to sign-in for a recorded version of that webinar but even if I’d attended it already I could not have written a better post. So read Ellen’s instead. Strategies, Techniques, and Sources to Find Local Business Information.

And let me – or them – know if you need any research assistance

Nora K. Stoecker, NKS Info Services

ARPA-E Offers Good News for Advanced Energy Research

nksinfo2 — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 13:03:53 +0000

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency -Energy (ARPA-E) has announced an additional $130 million for innovative research focusing on rare earth alternatives and breakthroughs in biofuels, thermal storage, grid controls, and solar power electronics. More specifically, the five advanced energy technology areas are called:

Rare Earth Alternatives in Critical Technologies (REACT) (up to $30 million)
Plants Engineered to Replace Oil (PETRO) (up to $30 million)
High Energy Advanced Thermal Storage (HEATS) (up to $30 million)
Green Electricity Network Integration (GENI) (up to $30 million)
Solar Agile Delivery of Electrical Power Technology (Solar Adept) (up to $10 million)

Concept papers are due May 19, 2011. Learn more at the Funding Opportunity Announcements page.

Good for the DOE and for the the congressional appropriations process that retained ARPA-E funding. It’s this kind of high risk/high reward scientific research that industry can’t or won’t sustain alone, but is so essential for scientific advances we and the rest of the world need.

Need research assistance? Perhaps I can help!

Nora K. Stoecker, NKS Info Services

Elsevier, SciTopics, and Free Stuff – What I learned at Websearch University

nksinfo2 — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 12:33:28 +0000

Earlier this week I spent two days in Scottsdale, AZ (poor me) at “Websearch University”, where I and the other attendees delved deep into tips, tricks, tools, and resources for internet-based research – both fee-based and free.

A session titled “Market Research for Sci-Tech” opened my eyes to a resource I’d never heard of … which led to me exploring the site … which led to me being reminded of how much “free stuff” can be found on all kinds of otherwise fee-based, commercial sites. Take Elsevier for example.

“SciTopics: Distilled, authoritative and up-to-date information for researchers on scientific, technical and medical topics.”

Elsevier is a HUGE publisher of scientific and technical journals (and many other fields). It’s not known for being inexpensive. Quite the contrary. But from its website you can get to a wonderful (and free) resource called SciTopics . Select a research summary from your field of choice (materials science, for example) and, in addition to the short research summary, you’ll find a list of related SciTopics pages, other recent related articles, web search results, and a list of related keywords. (invaluable to me as an information researcher for building a good search strategy!)

SciTopics research summaries are not peer-reviewed, if that’s important to you. But they can provide a nice starting point and point to additional resources. A great find – but there’s more!

Top 25 Hottest Articles! Another way to begin exploring a topic.

As long as I was at the Elsevier site, I did a little exploring and clicked on ScienceDirect. I’d forgotten about ScienceDirect – it’s a tool to search across Elsevier’s journal and book content for topics of interest (hint – use the “advanced search” feature).

At no cost, you’ll get a list of citations, a “preview” look, and links to related articles and related reference works (i.e. encyclopedia sections). All that at no cost, along with links to the PDF files of the articles, which can be purchased. But wait, there’s more

If you register with ScienceDirect, you can set up “alerts” , identify a set of favorite journals, and customize the page to meet your needs as a researcher. And, ScienceDirect offers up lists of the “Top 25 Hottest Articles” in any or all of their subject areas. A quick way to take a mental break whule still, sort of, working.

Rooting around in these sites can turn up all kinds of useful – and no cost – good stuff!

While rooting around in SciTopics and ScienceDirect, I clicked on the link for Scopus, also an Elsevier product. Scopus is a not-inexpensive abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature. But the Scopus website, I discovered, provides an “Author Preview” link. Again, full details cost $$, but you CAN type in an author’s name and find out a little about their subject area, affiliation, and sometimes city and country. OK, admittedly this limited bit of information might not be that useful very often — but there have been times I’ve been trying to track down author affiliations. This tool could help!

Thank you Websearch University (and Mark Goldstein who taught the session) for showing something new to me, and for reminding me of the value of rooting around for the gems to be found in so many sites.

Need research assistance? Perhaps I can help!

Nora K. Stoecker, NKS Info Services

On vacation for 3 weeks

nksinfo2 — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 16:20:05 +0000

I’ll be on vacation and essentially off the internet until March 4th; will begin posting again thereafter. Regards!

NKS Info Services – Your research and writing partner

ScienceCinema – DOE’s Search Engine for Videos from National Labs

nksinfo2 — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 12:14:19 +0000

ScienceCinema is a new search engine for videos from the national laboratories and other DOE research facilities. One more way to find interesting and potentially useful scientific and technical information from the national laboratories. See more information at my blog post ScienceCinema: DOE Search Engine for Videos, which I shamelessly lifted from colleague Peggy Garvin of the Special Libraries Association Government Information Division.

NKS Info Services – Your research and writing partner

A challenge – managing the deficit and supporting scientific research

nksinfo2 — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 04:24:52 +0000

How will the country balance the competing demands of managing and reducing the budget deficit while also investing in the kind of scientific research and development needed for future economic prosperity?

I expect the National Academies, the scientific societies, the national labs, and universities among others will line up to support funding for the sciences. I’m sure others of equal stature will argue the country can’t afford it right now. I wish I had a good answer; I don’t.

For now I’ll just try to follow what others are writing – such as George Will’s Sunday Jan. 2nd Washington Post column. http://tinyurl.com/2dtk447

George F. Will – Rev the scientific engine washingtonpost.com

New Republican legislators should come down Capitol Hill to the National Museum of American History , which displays a device that in 1849 was granted U.S. patent 6469 . It enabled a boat’s “draught of water to be readily lessene…

What do you think? — nks

NKS Info Services – Your research and writing partner

Open Government Innovations Gallery

nksinfo2 — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 17:02:44 +0000

Have you heard about the Open Government Innovations Gallery? It was established to “celebrate the innovators and innovations who are championing the President’s vision of more effective and open government.” It features projects of federal agencies and others that epitomize the open government initiative call for increased transparency, participation, and collaboration.

Why mention it on the Techinfo-notes blog? Because browsing any or all of the project descriptions provides the opportunity for a serendipitous “ah-ha” moment – and those are important for innovation And because some of those projects are directly related to business and science and technology.

Here are a few examples:

Business.gov – a “government-sponsored online community for small business” – includes discussion forums, blogs, idea exchange tool, and a website design intended to make navigation and information retreival easy.

Data.gov – a platform that provides access to federal agency datasets, with a searchable “data catalog”. Creative members of the public are free to develop web applications to help others access, sort, visualize, and understand this publicly available data. The site provides examples via its apps showcase.

IdeaFactory and IdeaLab - two terrific versions of internal agency efforts to foster innovation and peer-to-peer communication within widespread employee populations. We can’t access the actual too0ls because they’re on agency intranets, but I LOVE the concept and wish that private sector employers would explore similar options!

Go ahead, explore these and other projects highlighted at the Innovations Gallery. Enjoy! –nks

NKS Info Services – Your research and writing partner

What can an independent information professional do for your business? Many things!

nksinfo2 — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 03:12:43 +0000

Thanks to Ulla de Stricker for blogging about a recent ASIST Bulletin article highlighting the variety of ways independent information professionals can add value to your business, be it in the biomedical field, high tech, government contracting, the non-profit sector, or more. These IIPs provide competitive intelligence, market research, patent searching, government information, writing services, knowledge management, and so much more. But I don’t need to expound – please visit Ulla’s blog about the ASIST article “Adding Value: The Business of Independent Information Professionals.”

And P.S. – yes, I am an independent info pro too –nks

http://www.nksinfoservices.com