| In the “information economy,” we recognize the increasing availability of
information. On the one hand, we can be intimidated by the overwhelming
amount of information bearing down on us. On the other hand, we now have
tools to enable us to garner great value from that information quite readily.
New information products can better inform decision processes. As businesses
are making decisions under tremendous competitive pressures, they increasingly
seek better information.
This book addresses how to inform technology management by mining a
particularly rich information resource—the publicly accessible databases on
science and technology. These include amazing compilations of the world’s
open R&D literature, patents, and attendant business and public aspects. This
information, when integrated with other data sources (the Internet) and expert
review, can improve decisions concerning development, licensing, and adoption
of new technology.
“Tech mining” presents particular challenges. Most fundamentally, it uses
information resources in unfamiliar ways. In the past, we searched abstract
databases to find a few articles worth reading. However, when there are literally
thousands of relevant articles or patents, we also need to present the “big
picture.”This book helps understand the value in “profiling research domains,”
mapping topic relationships, and discerning overall trends. This is a qualitatively
different way to use technology information. |
