Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Theodore Omtzigt on March 19, 2008 at 10:42am

Hazel:

Here is what I tend to do: I use MSN, Yahoo, Wikipedia, and Google to cross correlate. You can't trust any of the information on these networks so you need to cross correlate. If I find information that is corroborated by at least three sources I am starting to trust it. What I have found is that with market research data the devil is in being able to compare statistics. Almost all news articles will quote statistics without stating the population and thus this makes it very hard to compare statements. Gut estimate is that 95% of your time will be spent trying to piece back together the market make-up. Once you are getting an idea what is what, then it becomes easier to bring in professional reports, but I suggest you don't start there since 99 out of a 100 times these reports are nothing but fluff making the same mistakes that the news organizations make.

So, no silver bullet, just hard work. Good luck.

Permalink Reply by Shafeeq Rahman on November 20, 2009 at 10:02pm

I think most reliable is public domain information managed by govt, semi govt or international bodies. These sources have little bit outdated information but it can easily forecasted or projected by getting the data in time series manner. For travel, you may serach the barometer of World Tourism Organization www.unwto.org for free accessible data or may alos purchase their publication. For any country specific information, department of tourism is more authentic source.

Regarsd,

Shafeeq

Permalink Reply by Daisy Ding on June 26, 2012 at 9:59pm

I think social media is a good choice, you can join the related groups and post the questions you want to know, many experts will answer you friendly.

Permalink Reply by Larry Heathcote on June 29, 2012 at 3:54pm

Search and skim, refine search and skim, refine search and skim, etc.

When I search for info, I most often find that I don't know what I don't know. I start my search with what I do know, skim through a bunch of info, then refine the search or take it in a new direction and keep repeating this process until I get comfortable with my learning.

With sooooo much info available, there is info you can trust and info you cannot trust. How do you know the difference? At first, you don't. But as you read more and more and get a better picture in mind, you can start making some evaluations of the info fairly quickly. One of the searches I typically do is for PDF files and PPT files on my topic, and filter it for info created in the past 3 or 6 or 12 months. I usually get white papers and presentations made at conferences - typically pretty trustworthy.

It takes a lot of time, but just think - what would we be doing without the Internet??