Over the last 20 years in what ways have the information needs of those in science and industry evolved and how will CompareNetworks continue to deliver the most important and timely information to its readers?
Information needs have significantly evolved over the last 20 years. Evolution is not a linear or simple phenomenon and I think our information needs follow this trend. Generally, I've seen and continue to see two key trends:
- Some mechanisms of content delivery and content itself have not changed much, they are the tried and true elements for providing information access. These, to sum it up, are high quality distribution vehicles, including a nice, good to hold print publication, and reading in a clear, crisp medium high quality content that engages, informs and teaches.
- A radical evolution over the last 20 years has been in the electronic content distribution medium. This has provided new dimensions on how to deliver and provide content which has driven the demand or needs of science and industry overall. Within this technology or content medium continued evolution, there are two types of information; a lean back and consume or a lean forward to perform settings.
The lean-back information consumption has changed with mobile becoming more and more of a daily tool, providing timely content to improve one’s professional journey. The lean forward or workflow information needs are significantly expanding, where data, summarized results, and educational materials are more than ever accessible and packaged to meet the demands of the science industry. Combining this trend with the fact that tools and lab/workflow related technologies continue to be expanding at a greater rate, we believe keeping up to date on these tools and how best to use these tools will be an ever expanding need for the science industry overall.
The days of accessing information from a few discrete channels are gone. We believe science information needs will continue to evolve and the demands of users will increase as the complexity of their tools and jobs increase. Therefore we imagine more targeted specific content in the context of educational information and more lean forward workflow related information tools which will fulfill the ever expanding needs of science and pharmaceutical professionals worldwide. At CompareNetworks we are passionate about innovating and providing new solutions to this awesome market and most importantly we're honored to serve the information needs of the science and pharmaceutical industry. We feel very fortunate to have been part of the past 20 years through supporting the evolving information needs of the science industry, our audiences and our partners with American Pharmaceutical Review.