During an online seminar this week on Prospect Research (offered by the
Moran Company), I was literally dazzled by the rich array of tools that are now available on the Internet. Elizabeth McHugh, vice president for prospect research at the Scottsdale Healthcare Foundation, was our presenter and guided us through a fascinating maze of helpful websites.
Many resources are free or low cost. Some of the expensive ones are amazing in the depth of information they assemble about prospects. They are also a bit scary as once you see what's out there in public records about people of wealth, you know that there's a lot info out there about you, too.
First, Elizabeth reminded us to search names by putting them into a Search field with quotations, like "James Pierpont Morgan," to assure that the engine searches for those words together (and not separately). I had learned this before, but had forgotten it somewhere along the line, so my research will improve immediately.
Here are a couple of sites I found interesting. I'll share more after I've done a bit more investigating:
www.vivisimo.com has the slogan "Search Done Right." My comment was "look for Google to buy up this company very soon." Instead of delivering search results in the form of long, undifferentiated lists, they cluster the information for you. After a search you see your usual list of numbered returns. However, on the left side of your screen, the information is also grouped under categories. Related to a prospect the categories might be "Birth," "Career," "Bios," "KC Star," etc. Each listing indicates how many entries are available within it. Great shortcuts to the info you really want.
Want to know what corporate boards a propsect sits on? You may find it at
www.theyrule.com . There's a clever bit of Flash for the intro (which will probably get old--you can click on the graphics to get through it fast) and some irreverent talk about "the ruling class." But it could be a helpful tool as you make connections and get to know prospects better. It's run by one guy--Josh On--who hopes to update it annually (so much for that...last updated in 2004) and says he hopes we see "They Rule as a launch pad for investigations and not the definitive representation of reality."
You gotta love a search engine named Dogpile. At
www.dogpile.com, they search the leading search engines (Google, MSN, Yahoo, Ask) after you click on the "GO FETCH" button. You might benefit from their wide search, but for now, but right now I'm enamoured of Vivisimo's categories.
