Business Blog

Since it’s birth in May 2004, the Business Blog has been a hit with Ohio University business students and faculty. It has been a great place for students to look for ideas about conducting business research for a particular topic. I have enjoyed writing posts to the blog, as it is a great way to communicate information to business faculty and students. As a matter of fact, the usage has been extraordinary, with more than 2600 hits last year.

I originally built the Business Blog as a place to post recommendations for specific business research topics or questions. It contains articles such as Doing Business in Another Country, Country Economic Analysis Information, finding a swot analysis, or looking for market share information. The articles are not meant to do the research for the student, but rather to refer them to the most appropriate resource for the project. By posting this information online, I am able to reach a larger percentage of the CoB population.

The success of the Business Blog has caused me to think about expanding this type of resource. The Business Blog is certainly not very comprehensive, as it only covers answers and suggestions for frequent topics or questions. Traditionally librarians have referred researchers to online research guides or pathfinders for more comprehensive information. I have three in the area of business: one for general business, one for international business, and one for marketing. These guides are typically organized by topic and contain recommended websites, reference books, and databases for each topic. While these Research Guides contain good information, they are difficult to update, as they are three separate html pages. In addition, they are not the most interesting things to read, are not searchable, and contain duplicated information. As a result, it can often take some time to find the best resource to use when consulting these traditional research guides for help.

Because of these limitations to the traditional research guide, I have decided to experiment with putting the information into a wiki. This wiki, or Biz Wiki, is a collection of business information resources available through Ohio University Libraries. It can be found in the Business & Finance section of InfoTree, and is designed to assist business researchers in finding the best resources for their projects or topics. The Biz Wiki contains links to reference books, databases, websites, and other sources. The Biz Wiki is organized by category, with the main categories being General Business, International Business, Company Information, Industry Information, and Marketing. Each of these categories contain resources and subcategories that assist the business researcher in finding needed information. I have also added a category called Research How-to’s which contains a growing list of research topic hints.

So why the change? Putting the research guides into a wiki format will make the content easier to update and use. Unlike the research guides, the Biz Wiki is browsable by category and is searchable. The software interface makes it easy to update and create new entries, so I’ll be able to add or edit content more frequently. Also, because of the ease of linking items together, it is incredibly easy to cross-reference similar resources.

Well, enough about that, here’s the really cool part. Because the Biz Wiki is a wiki, that means that anyone can edit the content. That’s right! Faculty, staff, and students can add or edit content in the Biz Wiki. Now you are probably asking who in their right mind would allow this to happen? Well, I am working off the model for Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The content of the Wikipedia is created and edited by a community of users, and its users (and the strength of the resource) continue to grow. My idea here is that to be a really good resource, the Biz Wiki should be edited by its users. Now right now you may be a little concerned about the Biz Wiki containing wrong or misleading information. Not to worry, as I will retain top editing privileges. This is outlined in the disclaimer section of the Biz Wiki, and I make it clear that bad information will be removed from the wiki when discovered. If you are interested in editing or creating a page in the Biz Wiki, take a look at the Biz Wiki help page to learn how.

So, will the birth of the Biz Wiki lead to the demise of the Business Blog? Right now, I don’t think so. If anything, I believe the resources will work very well together. I will still post information about finding resources for particular projects or topics in the Business Blog, while referring to the more general resources found in the Biz Wiki. For example, if a student is working on a project about General Motors and the automobile industry, I might write a post about where to find out how many vehicles were sold or point to specific resources the library owns that are about the automobile industry. In the same Business Blog post, I will probably refer the reader to the Industry Information and Company Information sections of the Biz Wiki for things like company histories, industry overviews, or swot analyses. I also hope to use the Business Blog to link to interesting news stories in the business world. I think this will not only help me to keep up with what is going on in the current business environment, but I believe it might help the Business Blog readers as well.

This should prove to be an interesting experiment in the organization, communication, and use of library resources. If at any time you have any questions about the Biz Wiki, the Business Blog, or anything else, please feel free to contact me.

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