Five Simple Ways to Get Free (or “Almost” Free) Company Information

By Chris Cochran

Finding information about publicly traded companies in the US has never been easier. For the most part, companies want to share information about themselves as both a marketing tool and a way to bring in more investors. Publicly traded companies are also required to provide their financial and other regulatory information to the US government. In this blog post, I’m focusing on open information resources about publicly traded companies in the US for the general researcher and knowledge consumer.

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Five Tips for Getting Strategic on LinkedIn

By Chris Cochran

Staying up-to-speed on LinkedIn tools is an ongoing process. I’ve had a profile there for many years but didn’t start getting more active until I started my own business last year. I remembered a door prize I’d won at a conference for information professionals a few years earlier, a book I still hadn’t read called 21 Days to Success with LinkedIn. It was sitting on my bookshelf just begging to be read. Even though it was a few years old and likely outdated, it was a slim volume and worth a quick read. It gave me a good introduction to looking at LinkedIn with a strategic mindset.

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Professional Development: Getting Back to In-Person Conferences

By Chris Cochran

I recently returned from the first in-person conference I’ve attended since April 2019. At both that time and last month, it was the Association of Independent Information Professionals (AIIP) annual conference, which was canceled in 2020 and was virtual in 2021 and 2022. The 2023 edition was a hybrid conference – an in-person component spanning four days in Milwaukee combined with virtual events held over the last two weeks of April. In some cases, live events from our in-person component were simultaneously broadcast on Zoom.

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The Devil in Due Diligence Details

By Chris Cochran

The due diligence devil is usually in the details. Investigating reputational risks shouldn’t just be an “add on” to make due diligence more thorough. As Jeff Berkowitz points out in his recent Forbes article about political and reputational risks, digging deep and understanding all the potential vulnerabilities of key participants in a deal is crucial. But really, it always has been.

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My Top 10 Morning Briefing Resources

By Chris Cochran

I’ve been a current affairs and news junkie for most of my life. Since I was about 10 years old, I found myself driven to know what’s going on in the world daily or weekly. It was easier to do before the internet exploded our access to vast information resources and created even greater volumes of content producers. That’s not an inherently bad development – just a challenge to be met.

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Random Acts of Good Fortunes

By Chris Cochran

Opening a fortune cookie is sometimes akin to sitting down for a psychic reading. Fortune writers and psychics inhabit a world of truisms and the human experience. They both know what human beings want to hear – ultimately that everything will be all right and we’ll be just fine.

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Good Year-End Reminders

By Chris Cochran

As an independent information business owner who works from home, it’s important for me to not only be a member of professional associations, but to also participate in those groups as actively as possible so that I continue to learn new things, reinforce established norms, and network with colleagues. I attended a great professional development webinar today hosted by the Association of Independent Information Professionals (AIIP) titled “The Good, the Bad and The Ugly: Top Info Pro Lessons for Growing Your Business.”

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An Inquiring Mind

By Chris Cochran

When I started thinking about what to call this blog, I gave myself an informal time limit. I’m notorious for thinking about things from all sides, all angles, weighing the pros and cons, trying to find just the right way to do or say something. There are times when that’s appropriate, but usually it just means hours, possibly days, deciding on something. It might mean I’m indecisive or can never make up my mind or that I overthink things. Maybe I’m a perfectionist.

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