VWVRSD: What Would Roger Summit Do?

摘要

Irecently received an email query from someone considering becoming an independent info pro. His background was in IT, and he was adept at designing databases and search engines. He wanted to know if those were the key skills he would need to become an info entrepreneur. Had he asked me that 5 or 10 years ago, I would have told him he had just the right set of skills. I know of very few infoentrepre-neurs who don't have years of expertise in using the fee-based online services: Creating effective queries and retrieving content cost-effectively have always been critical info pro skills.Today, though, building an effective search query is just one of the areas of expertise that are necessary (but far from sufficient) for info pros. With Facebook and Twitter just an app away and Siri able to do our Google searching for us, information has become a commodity. In fact, this morning I checked the day's weather from my phone as I turned off its alarm; I literally conduct searches before I get out of bed in the morning. Clearly, searching ain't what it used to be.