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Title:

Super Searchers Cover the World: The Online Secrets of International Business Researchers

Review:

As an international business researcher I'm always on the lookout for tips and ideas that can improve my own searching. This was my first foray into the Super Searcher series of books. Knowing that the series has been highly successful, I'd hoped that the book would not just spark curiosity sitting on a bookshelf but would spend most of its life, well thumbed and located prominently on my desk. Alas not! The book is full of tips for better international searching but by lacking a summary or final conclusion, the format does not allow it to become a guidebook to better searching.

"Super Searchers Cover the World" consists of a series of interviews with a number of international researchers. Unfortunately, most seemed to have a US bias even when they were stressing that it is important not to assume that what is true for one region or country will also be true for others. (A particularly jarring example was a comment about European unification saying that Europe is "still not a single entity" and that there are "differences between Germany and Spain, for example"!). This is a major failing in the book, for non-US readers, as almost half the researchers are based in the US, looking outside. Thus key sources that many European based researchers know were missed (for example ­ CAROL http://www.carol.co.uk, and the European Business Register portal (http://www.ebr.org) are not mentioned). Searching for information on France, Germany, Spain, Scandinavia and Eastern Europe is hardly mentioned. Reading the book I'd think that nobody wanted to find information from Russia, India, South Africa or Australasia and that hardly anyone was interested in the Middle East. So, in fact the super searchers selected cover only a few countries or regions: Latin America, parts of Western Europe and the Pacific Rim are the main focus.

So far, this review has been negative. This perhaps reflects my expectations rather than what the book does offer. The searchers featured give sound advice, emphasising that searching does not just involve bringing up a search engine and assuming that what came up was all there was. There is a strong emphasis on thinking laterally, and gaining familiarity with different sources: CD-ROM products, dial-up hosts, and especially offline sources such as the telephone and direct contact, reference books and directories and so on. There are also some excellent tips on judging reliability and when to stop searching. Other worthwhile tips cover keeping up-to-date, the importance of managing client expectations and translation / cultural issues.

In summary, if you want to learn how other people approach international search projects then this book is for you. However if you are looking to deepen your own knowledge of international search resources and techniques then you are likely to be disappointed.

Free Pint Reviewer:

Arthur Weiss is a UK based management consultant specialising in competitive intelligence and strategy. He has worked in the information industry for over 15 years and has spent time searching for information from many countries around the globe. Arthur has written and presented on competitive intelligence, marketing and Internet related topics in the UK, Europe and elsewhere. Arthur is the managing partner of AWARE, a CI consultancy offering clients CI research, analysis and training. He can be contacted through AWARE's web-site at http://www.competitive-intelligence.co.uk.

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