Business Insight Zone

If you ever have a question about Hoover’s or a problem with our product, I want to make sure that you know how to get in touch with us. Here are some options:

• The Feedback page leads you to our online knowledge base, a feedback form, our contact e-mail, and a form you can use to offer updates about any company we cover.
• If you want to talk to our award-winning customer-support team, you can call 800.486.8666 between 7 a.m. and 6 p.m. Central Time, Monday through Friday.
• The Products & Services page gives you more information about our subscription levels. If you’re in the U.S., you can dial 866-307-3812 to talk to an account rep who will walk you through the sales process; otherwise you can use this page of international sales office numbers to reach our sales staff.
• We use the @hoovers Twitter account actively, and that’s often an easy way to catch our attention.
• Failing all else, you can always try contacting me directly at twalker {at} hoovers {dot} com.

My turnaround time runs much slower than our support reps’ (they tend to answer within a couple of rings of the phone), but I’ll do what I can to get you pointed in the right direction.

Today we’re happy to celebrate one of our own for his extra-curricular endeavors: it’s the official release date for The Day-Glo Brothers, the first published book by long-time Hooverite Chris Barton.

The book chronicles the invention of day-glo colors by Joe and Bob Switzer, brothers who collaborated in the 1930s and 1940s to make the daylight-fluorescent pigments that we take for granted today when we see things like safety cones and highlighters. Chris actually stumbled across their story while doing his job here:

The project started at Hoover’s, actually. In August 1997, when I was in [the] Editorial [department], I read Bob Switzer’s obituary in the New York Times. I started writing for kids about three years later, and the Switzers’ story had stuck with me all that time. I started researching it in mid-2001.

Chris is wry about the very long time it can take to bring an illustrated book like this to fruition, pointing out that it’s taken eight years to produce a 48-page book. But he’s also highly methodical in his pursuit of writing projects outside his duties as a senior business analyst in the Hoover’s IT department:

I get up at 5 a.m. six days a week — seven days a week, when I’m on deadline. Most lunch hours, I spend writing or researching. If I have any free time in the evenings, I’m probably working on something related to my writing.

Besides his own patient efforts to build his audience through his blog, Chris benefits from the outstanding job that Charlesbridge did in publishing the book. Tony Persiani’s cheerful illustrations include swathes of the day-glo colors Fire Orange, Signal Green, and Saturn Yellow.

Charlesbridge also set up a page with animations that explain the difference between regular light, regular fluorescence, and day-glo fluorescence. Even better, Wired ran a blurb on the book last week. And if you’re in Austin, you can join Chris and many of his friends and fans for a book party on July 11 at BookPeople.

This isn’t the last you’ll hear from Chris, either: he already has several other books for children under contract, including a picture book “a lot sillier” than The Day-Glo Brothers that should be out from Little, Brown in early 2010.

Congratulations, Chris!

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Bonus Coverage at the “Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast” blog, including an interview with Barton and Persiani and a generous peek at sample pages from the book. Check it out!

BONUS Bonus: The Day-Glo Brothers just earned a starred review from Publisher’s Weekly!

UPDATE — Wednesday afternoon: WOW! The Day-Glo Brothers lands a review in BoingBoing!

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A while back I talked about our mission to make Hoover’s information a key part of your information ecosystem. You may also recall that we attended Microsoft’s “Convergence” conference to support the launch of Hoover’s integration into the Microsoft Dynamics CRM application.

Now I’d like to share three more relevant items in this vein, all of which can help you decide if it makes sense for you to be using Hoover’s with Dynamics CRM:

1. Hoover’s Integration to Microsoft Dynamics CRM at the Microsoft Dynamics CRM online team blog — Lots of screenshots and descriptions, along with contact information to learn more.
2. FY09 Dynamics Platform Adoption Stories: Hoovers at the Microsoft Dynamics Channel 9 blog — This entry includes Sanjay Jain’s 11-minute video interview with our very own Heidi Tucker and Malcolm Domecq, who explain the integration of Hoover’s into Dynamics.
3. The Access Hoover’s site for Dynamics integration — Go here to watch an explanatory video and to sign up for a “Test Drive” of the product so you can see it in action!

Comments? Questions? Let us know!

You may recall that our colleague Russell Secker, who recently wrapped up a 25-year executive career with D&B and Hoover’s, embarked two months ago on the TransEurope footrace.

The grainy cell-phone picture above tells the rest of the story in a nutshell: Russ has finished the race, which took him and his fellow crazy intrepid runners 2,800 miles through Italy, Austria, Germany, Sweden, Finland, and Norway. In the picture, he’s standing at the final finish line at the Nordkapp — the northernmost point in Europe.

To recap: 64 days with no days off, at an average of 45 miles per day.

What can I say about Russ’s achievement that would tell you more than those simple — but unbelievably grueling — numbers? Our former colleague Rob Lifford got it right when he quoted Rocky IV:

“He is not human. He is made of iron.”

With that, I’ll just add my best wishes for Russ’s safe and speedy trip home — and for his re-accumulation of body fat, since he’s burned off what little he had during this adventure!

You can read the stage-by-stage account of the race at Russell’s blog.

Job hunting is hard enough — but this part’s a piece of cake.

Step 1: Go to our free “Generate Custom Lists” page. There, you can build a list of companies you’d like to target for your job search. You can refine the search according to U.S. metro area, U.S. state, or country . . .

[Click on images to see full-size screenshots.]

. . . by company size, in terms of employees or sales or both . . .

. . . and by industry, based on Hoover’s own tailored industry categories, or by SIC or NAICS codes.

Click the gold “BUILD LIST” button at the bottom of the page, and the search tool will return all the relevant results, sorted alphabetically. You’ll be able to view the first ten results in your search for free. Here, for example, we see the results for a search of software companies over $50 million in annual sales that are headquartered in Austin:

Step 2: View the individual records to find out more about companies that are relevant to you.

(Advanced tip: use a tabbed browser like Firefox or Internet Explorer 7 to open each relevant record in a separate tab, then work your way through them one by one.)

Here, I’ve clicked on our record for Borland Software:

Note the circled areas: you can click through to read more about the company’s business, to get phone, fax, and URL info, or to see recent financials. (There’s lots more available, too — feel free to explore.)

Step3: Review job listings on each company’s record.

(Note that the jobs listed for a company may be for other locations besides the headquarters city.)

Optional Step 4 — not free but low-cost: If you know the industry you want to target, you can get a Hoover’s industry report tailored for jobseekers’ needs for just $15. Follow this link to find out more.

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Easy enough, eh?

I’d love to know what you think of this method. Is it helpful to you?

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Well, actually, it would be “Film in late June” – because that’s when Hoover’s EVP Russell Secker will finally be done running across Europe, from south to north, in the TransEurope 2009. A summary of the insanity:

• Starting point: Bari, Italy (near the “boot heel”).
• Finish line: the Northern Cape of Norway, well above the Arctic Circle.
• 2,800 total miles.
• 64 days of running.
• Average of about 45 miles (72 kilometers) per day.
• No days off.
• Accommodations in gyms or tents.

Russell, besides recently retiring after three decades with D&B and Hoover’s, has run all of the major marathons in the world, plus many ultramarathons. In 2005 he ran the Transe Gaule, which traverses France in the course of three weeks, and in 2007 he ran the Deutschlandlauf, which does the same thing for Germany.

But that wasn’t enough.

At Russell’s blog, you can read day-by-day updates and view photos documenting his progress across Europe. (Pretty amazing, when you think of it, that he can keep up the pace with his posts after days in which he’s run the equivalent of back-to-back marathons.) One of the most interesting things to me is that Russell now has old friends who ran those same races across France and Germany in past years. There’s a very small band of ultra-ultrarunners in the world, and they seem to stick together.

Keep it up, Russell! All of us here are rooting for you from afar!

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Related:

• Russell’s participant page (in German) at the TransEurope 2009 site.
• My 2005 feature on Russell in the Transe Gaule.
• Russell’s race blog.

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Between the annual meetings of the Special Libraries Association that Hoover’s attends and business functions around Austin, I’ve gotten to know April Kessler, a business librarian who’s a long-time user of Hoover’s. April was kind enough to field some questions about how she and the students she works with use Hoover’s.

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Tell us a little about yourself: what’s your professional background, and how long have you been at UT?

Actually I didn’t start out in libraries. I have my MBA and worked in advertising and marketing for 12 years before getting my Master’s in Information Studies in 2004. Since then I’ve done business research in corporate and academic libraries and I’ve been the Business Librarian here at UT for 2 years now.

How do you use Hoover’s in your professional role?

As the library liaison to the McCombs School of Business I work with students and faculty to fill their information needs. Since we are often looking for competitive intelligence Hoover’s is one of our favorite resources. With one search, we can link to competitors, financials, executives — it’s perfect for finding the fundamentals.

How has Hoover’s helped McCombs students land internships or other jobs? What sort of feedback have the students given you?

Working  closely with the McCombs Career Services Department I help students create lists of companies in a specific industry and also direct students to Hoover’s for background information on a particular company to help them prepare for interviews. Students are always surprised by what Hoover’s can do for them and how easy it is to use. These are pretty motivated and competitive students, so any extra edge is appreciated.

What’s your favorite aspect of Hoover’s?

Other databases let you create lists of companies, but one of the features in the Hoover’s Build A List function is that you can search executive bios by keyword. So much of business is about networking and finding a connection to someone. Being able to search via an alma mater can be the ice breaker someone needs to get in the door.

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Given that Hoover’s has been headquartered in Austin from the beginning, you can guess that many of the folks on staff here are UT alums, and we’re happy to have an informal pipeline of McCombs graduates into our ranks. Thanks to April for taking the time to field these questions — and for continuing to be one of Hoover’s biggest fans.

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Photo by ydhsu, used under a CC-Share Alike license.

Although it’s been many years since Gary Hoover was involved in the operations of this company that bears his name, I like to think his spirit of constant inquiry still infuses what we do here.

Now I’m pleased to report that Gary has bowed to the requests of many friends to start a blog. In his typical style, he’s made it an avenue of exploration and discovery, both in form and content. Gary is one of the most fascinating conversationalists you could ever hope to meet, and you get the same flavor from his writing, which ranges widely over many topics. (That’s him in the picture, amid some of the 50,000 books he owns.)

My advice: give HooversWorld a look.

Good guys finish first. Hoover’s parent company, Dun & Bradstreet, has been named to EthiSphere’s 2009 list of the World’s Most Ethical companies.

You can read more about it by following this link.

Four things I would like to bring to your attention:

Item the First — This week our corporate siblings at AllBusiness are hosting a D&B Digital Idea Exchange on a topic that couldn’t be more timely — “Sales: Surviving Tough Times.” Follow this link to sign up for a reminder about the video program, which will be streaming on-demand on March 24th & 25th.

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Item the Second — Although we do most of our business online these days, we at Hoover’s never forget our roots as a reference-book publisher — and it looks like we’re keeping our skills in that area nice and sharp. The Hoover’s Handbook of Industry Profiles just won gold in the 2009 Axiom Business Book Awards. (I believe the correct, professional response to this is “Woo-hoo!”)

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Item the Third — Last Friday I drew the fun assignment of talking with hosts Jen Zingsheim and Mark Story on the Media Bullseye Roundtable. We talked about: (1) how a bit of social-media inside-baseball (regarding Mzinga) has leaked over into the real world of business; (2) the mug’s game of predicting what’s going to happen in the social-media world; and (3) what I took away from South by Southwest. You can listen to the half-hour (no-)bull session via this link.

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Item the Fourth — A week ago, while I was at SXSW, I had the pleasure of meeting Crystal Beasley of StepChange Group. Crystal was pursuing a nifty idea: use a simple Flip video camera to record one-minute answers to short questions from social media pros. Here’s the twist: each person answered a question, then asked their own new question and designated who should answer it. Here is the “videochain” I joined.

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Photo by John Barreiros, used under a CC-Share Alike license.