How we HelpYou are intent on running your business as efficiently and as profitably as possible, so you have put systems in place that help you and your staff monitor the business on a daily, or perhaps even hourly, basis. You have people in your business who are responsible for customer-facing activities; Sales, Marketing, Communications, etc., and they keep you informed of market changes. If you have a number of suppliers, your suppliers' representatives can give you more information about general market conditions. And then, of course you have the media; Radio, Television, Newspapers, and Magazines. You also have information from industry associations, government advisories, and economic reports, not to mention newsletters published by your bank, your legal advisors, and your auditing and accounting firm. Plus, you get information from ad hoc networks of friends and past colleagues. If you rely on the media and other publications, you should be aware that they are mainly concerned with delivering snapshots of individual events that can be presented in the limited space between adverts. The reader, or viewer, is left to determine how significant the event might be; and how it might relate to other events, both current and historic, in determining how the world might change in the future. An then there are the good-news stories; news as entertainment, rather than news as fact. And of course, some news reports are not news at all, but press releases designed to influence readers' perceptions and attitudes. These "news items" can often contain misinformation, or half-truths, rather than fact. In reality, you have too much information to be useful.
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