February 4, 2009

Google Alerts: Track What Matters To You

Analytical software enables you to shift human resources from rote data collection to value-added customer service and support where the human touch makes a profound difference. --- Bill Gates

How can be find the gems in the clutter than surrounds us?

Define what you want to track and use Google Alerts, a remarkable overlooked tool. Google will then scour the online world and send you links as they happen, daily or weekly. You can quickly scan the results to decide what to keep. I use PersonalBrain to turn this data into information and then wisdom (see my review). I'm building up a nice database for quick, future reference.

Examples
I'm tracking these keywords at present:
  • Canada Revenue Agency
  • life expectancy
  • life insurance Canada
  • trust
Life Expectancy
Here are some of the interesting, timely articles about life expectancy:
Since we're living longer and longer, we need to save more, save sooner and squeeze more out of our savings. We need to look after ourselves better so we can enjoy the extra years in good health.

There's plenty that you can do with the results. Do you send interesting, relevant articles to clients, prospects or centres of influence? You've now got more sources --- some obscure. Do you want to keep track of your competitors? Setup an alert. Do you want to see if you or your company make the news (which can be good or bad)? Setup an alert.

Try It
Education is not the piling on of learning, information, data, facts, skills, or abilities - that's training or instruction - but is rather making visible what is hidden as a seed. --- Thomas More
Go to www.google.com/alerts and give it a try. There's lots you can do. If you don't want comprehensive searches, you can even limit monitoring to news articles, the web, blog posts or video.

Links

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