The Information You Didn't Know You Were Missing

Photo by Alexander Hafemann on Unsplash

Where do you go when you need information or to answer a question? I wouldn't be surprised if you said Google initially, or maybe the internet in general. Depending on what you're looking up, you may think of print books, academic journals, or blogs from thought leaders in your field. Any place you can find information is called an information source and the examples above are exactly that. However, they represent only a fraction of the information landscape that actually exists. There's a whole layer of sources underneath and alongside those familiar tools that most people never think to look for. These sources often hold some of the most valuable and specific information available. I call these "unseen information sources," and finding them is one of my favorite parts of my work.

At their core, unseen information sources are the connections between sources that aren't obvious. They're the information that lives outside of the obvious search results and don't always have a URL, a DOI, or a formal citation attached to it. Although they run parallel to the more surface level sources, they are unlikely to be acknowledged in a formal context. Think social media posts, word of mouth, community records, anecdotal knowledge, and oral traditions. This is usually where the real story lives.

Using unseen information sources can help you find extremely important information: the community concern that your stakeholder survey missed, the oral history that makes your creative work ring true instead of hollow, the researcher who has been quietly doing the relevant work in your field, and the exit interview pattern that tells you your organization has a culture problem, not a hiring problem. The connections between sources can reframe everything you thought you already knew.

Whether you're running a business, crafting a piece of art, making a big decision, or trying to build something that actually serves your community, the unseen information sources are pertinent. But why? Here are four reasons I've identified throughout my years of researching.

First, they give you more context. The surface sources rarely tell the whole story, so the unseen sources fill in the gaps, especially between data points. The unseen sources give you a richer and more accurate picture of whatever you're trying to understand.

Second, they lead you to additional sources and people who would otherwise go uninvestigated. One social media post points you to a practitioner you've never heard of. One comment thread surfaces a community organization doing exactly the work you're researching. Following the connections between sources opens doors that a straightforward database or Google search keeps firmly shut.

Third, they provide a larger scope for how a topic relates to and affects other topics. Information doesn't exist in a vacuum. Unseen sources are often where you discover the unexpected intersections. For example, the way a local historical event connects to a national policy shift or the way a trend in one industry is quietly reshaping another.

Finally, they help you understand anecdotal evidence in a way that leads to a better understanding of your customers, your community, or your audience. Anecdotal information gets dismissed a lot, but if it is aggregated and examined thoughtfully it tells you things that formal data simply can't. Unseen information sources tell you how people feel, what they actually need, and where the gap is between what an organization thinks it's doing and what people on the receiving end are experiencing.

When you're making important decisions, you're only as good as the information you have. If the information you have is limited to what shows up on page one of a Google search, you're leaving an enormous amount of context, nuance, and insight on the table.

This Is What I Do

At Tricrown Information Solutions, LLC I help people see the full information landscape available to them, not just the obvious parts. When I work with a client on research and information gathering, I'm not just running database searches. I'm thinking about the whole ecosystem of information that exists around their question: who is talking about this, where are they talking about it, what communities hold relevant knowledge, what historical record exists, what conversations are happening in academic and professional spaces, and what data is hiding in plain sight in reviews, interviews, social media, and community documents.

I can help you figure out which information sources are most relevant to your specific question or project. I can help you access academic conversations and databases that aren't available without institutional access or specialized knowledge. I can help you think through how to gather and contextualize oral and anecdotal information so it strengthens rather than undermines your work. And I can help you see the connections between sources that open up an entirely new dimension of understanding into the unseen layer.

Research is not just about finding information. It's about finding the right information and knowing where to look for it when it isn't obviously sitting there waiting for you. That's what I love to do, and I'd love to do it for you.

I'll be writing some blog posts more in depth about some of the most useful unseen information sources, so make sure to subscribe so you don't miss out!