When I majored in Journalism in college, professors taught us to get "both sides" of a story.
Information Disorder, or Why Hire an Info Pro?
Why hire an Information Professional when you can just use the Google or the DuckDuckGo yourself?
An InfoPro has honed his or her skills on conducting Primary and Secondary research, online and offline, that cuts through and bypasses the Internet's frustrating misinformation and disinformation while sorting out ad-cluttered, SEO-manipulated, irrelevant search results.
The aggravation of trying to find credible, correct, current answers to questions and problems that you trust enough to act on even has what sounds like a psychiatric diagnosis now -- Information Disorder.
""Today, mis- and disinformation have become a force multiplier for exacerbating our worst problems as a society," concluded the Aspen Institute's Commission on Information Disorder in its Final Report on the issue in November 2021. "Hundreds of millions of people pay the price, every single day, for a world disordered by lies."
Among the hundreds of millions paying a price can be private and public sector leaders. Misinformation, disinformation, propaganda, and outdated, inaccurate, incomplete, biased, unattributed, poorly sourced and flat out false information, can all lead to decisions detrimental to an organization.
An article from MIT's Sloan Review this month also noted the problem ... "Executives can find themselves on the receiving end of falsified data, facts and figures -- information too flawed to base critical decisions upon. Misinformation, regardless of whether it was mistakenly passed along or shared with ill intent, obstructs good decision-making."
One case in point ... in my IT business that includes cyber security services, a startling statistic attributed to the National Cybersecurity Alliance stated that 60 percent of small businesses file for bankruptcy within six months of a data breach. IT businesses like mine ran with that number in marketing materials and sales pitches.
However, the NCA would soon deny making that claim. The NCA later commissioned a Zogby Analytics survey that found 35 percent of small businesses close or file for bankruptcy after a breach, but the false statistic still shows up high in search results. No doubt some small business owners spent money on unnecessary cyber security measures based on the fear instilled by that false 60 percent bankruptcy figure.
As a busy executive, can you afford the time to sniff out the good information from the bad?
If not, consider an Information Professional. We deal with bad information routinely. We know how to vet the bad stuff and find relevant, credible, accurate, current, actionable, research-driven information and deliver it to you in an understandable format so you can make decisions with confidence.
I am Eric Magill, an Information Professional. To put order to your information, Contact me for credible, current, proprietary, research-driven answers to the questions and problems your public or private sector organization faces. You can also request an online meeting with me.
