A record that speaks for itself
Sentinel Research Associates is an association of independent scholars and researchers with professional backgrounds and expertise in higher education, public policy, law enforcement, corporate management and leadership principles, magazine and book publishing, broadcast media, and mass communications. Since 1990, our analysts and researchers have participated in and directed dozens of research projects, from analyses of primary research materials to literature reviews and studies for numerous books, journals, and periodicals. We have provided research, original writing and authorship, collaboration and related editorial services for more than forty books, and we have prepared feasibility studies for implementation of new departments and programs, as well as organizational histories, and documentation for new products and services.
This is an incredible amount of data to contend with, and at the same time a remarkable testament to the wealth of knowledge that is now available to information consumers. According to the IT journal, Interactive Week, Internet search engines such as Yahoo! and Google have cataloged less than a sixth of the information available on the Web, in large measure because the total amount of Internet traffic is currently doubling every hundred days. In fact, Internet use has already outpaced conventional telephone usage, and is growing at a faster pace than world population. As reported in the International Herald Tribune, global population growth of three persons a second is easily outpaced by increases in the number of new Internet users, growing at a rate of seven new users every second.
Locating, gathering, and using information can be a major concern for anyone in this environment. To make the situation even more complex, however, one business statistician has suggested that the typical office worker in this country may have to deal with as many as fifty phone messages, three-dozen E-mail messages, two dozen letters, eighteen internal memos, fifteen faxes, a dozen Post-It notes, eight pager alerts, four cell-phone calls or text messages, and as many as a half dozen FedEx or UPS deliveries on any given workday. Finding the time and energy to juggle all of this in an information-intensive environment can be a monumental task.
When you take the explosion in book and journal publishing into account, the situation becomes immeasurably more complex. According to the leading catalog of the publishing industry, R.R. Bowker, there were 375,000 new titles and new editions printed in English in the year 2004. By 2008, thanks to the advent of on-demand technology, the number of books published in this country in a single year rose by 38 percent, to a total of 560,626 titles. And this is on top of the five million books, audio books, and video titles currently listed in the Bowker catalogs.
Much of this information is redundant, and much more will be irrelevant and useless for the specific needs of the researchers and writers tasked to deliver timely communications in any given field. How do you decide what's important and what to leave out? And where will the individual already innundated by the demands of the typical office routine find the time and energy, or the creative resourcefulness, to deliver the kind of information that’s needed.
- Focused Secondary Research
This is an incredible amount of data to contend with, and at the same time a remarkable testament to the wealth of knowledge that is now available to information consumers. According to the IT journal, Interactive Week, Internet search engines such as Yahoo! and Google have cataloged less than a sixth of the information available on the Web, in large measure because the total amount of Internet traffic is currently doubling every hundred days. In fact, Internet use has already outpaced conventional telephone usage, and is growing at a faster pace than world population. As reported in the International Herald Tribune, global population growth of three persons a second is easily outpaced by increases in the number of new Internet users, growing at a rate of seven new users every second.
Locating, gathering, and using information can be a major concern for anyone in this environment. To make the situation even more complex, however, one business statistician has suggested that the typical office worker in this country may have to deal with as many as fifty phone messages, three-dozen E-mail messages, two dozen letters, eighteen internal memos, fifteen faxes, a dozen Post-It notes, eight pager alerts, four cell-phone calls or text messages, and as many as a half dozen FedEx or UPS deliveries on any given workday. Finding the time and energy to juggle all of this in an information-intensive environment can be a monumental task.
When you take the explosion in book and journal publishing into account, the situation becomes immeasurably more complex. According to the leading catalog of the publishing industry, R.R. Bowker, there were 375,000 new titles and new editions printed in English in the year 2004. By 2008, thanks to the advent of on-demand technology, the number of books published in this country in a single year rose by 38 percent, to a total of 560,626 titles. And this is on top of the five million books, audio books, and video titles currently listed in the Bowker catalogs.
Much of this information is redundant, and much more will be irrelevant and useless for the specific needs of the researchers and writers tasked to deliver timely communications in any given field. How do you decide what's important and what to leave out? And where will the individual already innundated by the demands of the typical office routine find the time and energy, or the creative resourcefulness, to deliver the kind of information that’s needed.
The Information Explosion
In the 150 years between 1750 and 1900, the total amount of information available to consumers of knowledge worldwide doubled. However, in the next quantum jump, between 1900 and 1950, the amount of information had doubled in just fifty years. In the mid-1960s, the total amount of information avaiable to knowledge consumers in any area was doubling in less than five years. Today, thanks to the Internet and all other forms of digital communications, the total amount of information that can be readily consumed in either printed or digital form is doubling in less than a year.
A study conducted in the early 1990s showed that the total amount of information available to consumers of knowledge in the education sector was expected to double every 73 days by the year 2020. But that was well before the dramatic achievements in nanotechnology, mass storage devices, and widespread digital communications via the Internet.
With an estimated 1.6 Billion Internet users currently online worldwide, and more than 235 million websites (according to an international web server survey), the challenges for fast and authoritative information gathering are enormous. And, even more important in the midst of such a wealth of good and bad input, the need for experience, sound judgment, and selectivity cannot be overestimated.
That’s where we come in. Our associates are specialists in gathering, preparing, and delivering timely and informative communications in a format that will satisfy the requirements of the busy executive, manager, or team leader. If you have a project that demands time-sensitive, well-researched, and professional handling, let’s talk. We’ll arrange to meet with you, and once we know what you’re looking for, we’ll provide an assessment of what we can do to meet your expectations.
Education, law, government, media, non-profit organizations, and business clients can rely on our professionalism, discretion, and rapid response. We're proud of what we do and our record speaks for itself. We look forward to hearing from you.
We're just an E-mail away.
In the 150 years between 1750 and 1900, the total amount of information available to consumers of knowledge worldwide doubled. However, in the next quantum jump, between 1900 and 1950, the amount of information had doubled in just fifty years. In the mid-1960s, the total amount of information avaiable to knowledge consumers in any area was doubling in less than five years. Today, thanks to the Internet and all other forms of digital communications, the total amount of information that can be readily consumed in either printed or digital form is doubling in less than a year.
A study conducted in the early 1990s showed that the total amount of information available to consumers of knowledge in the education sector was expected to double every 73 days by the year 2020. But that was well before the dramatic achievements in nanotechnology, mass storage devices, and widespread digital communications via the Internet.
With an estimated 1.6 Billion Internet users currently online worldwide, and more than 235 million websites (according to an international web server survey), the challenges for fast and authoritative information gathering are enormous. And, even more important in the midst of such a wealth of good and bad input, the need for experience, sound judgment, and selectivity cannot be overestimated.
That’s where we come in. Our associates are specialists in gathering, preparing, and delivering timely and informative communications in a format that will satisfy the requirements of the busy executive, manager, or team leader. If you have a project that demands time-sensitive, well-researched, and professional handling, let’s talk. We’ll arrange to meet with you, and once we know what you’re looking for, we’ll provide an assessment of what we can do to meet your expectations.
- Original Research
- Intelligence
- Rapid Response
Education, law, government, media, non-profit organizations, and business clients can rely on our professionalism, discretion, and rapid response. We're proud of what we do and our record speaks for itself. We look forward to hearing from you.
We're just an E-mail away.