Database Mining: Our Tips

Your eyes are sore, your vision is blurred, and you feel neck pain. Hours spent mining data, browsing through websites, news feeds, emails, social media and now numbers, letters, or words are doing jumping jacks when you blink. You probably wish they all meaningfully lined up and rushed their way into the spreadsheet. Well, it is not that hopeless once you know key data mining techniques. I suggest you stop mining data for a while, take your mind and eyes off your screen, sit back, and look about 15 feet in front of you for 30 seconds. Now that you’ve rested your eyes, consider optimizing your work with a few database mining techniques or data tips, if you wish.

Tip 1: Take the right turn

In fact, you are facing two cuts here. You can take a shortcut and leave your data mining tasks to professionals who know the necessary database and data mining techniques to free you from this tedious and routine work. They will get this burden off your shoulders by handling your tasks in a rapid and efficient manner on an hourly basis without a time lag. Apart from securing high-quality work with a professional who has the knack for using data mining algorithms and knows all ins and outs of web search, you get to significantly cut your overheads, labor costs, payrolls once you choose to outsource data mining tasks to remote specialists.

Or you can take the long cut and follow this far more challenging and time-consuming do-it-yourself trend. To make the trip worth the effort, make sure you are well-equipped with a few data mining techniques given by data entry experts to their fellow newbies.

Tip 2: Customize your searches

You wouldn’t want to waste most of your time filtering out junk that search engines return upon too general requests. To reduce search time and mine quality data, initially master Google’s advanced search features by skimming through this really short but extremely useful Power Searching With Google manual, and also practice by using Google’s Advanced Search interface. For example, the – operator in a data entry job allows excluding results polluted by information about data mining tools. Suppose you are searching for information about data entry tools and software, and wouldn’t want to have results returned about data entry workers or companies. You could go an extra mile and become a really proficient fact-finder by taking Google’s Advanced Power Searching online courses, where you’ll find out about data mining methods, learn data mining algorithms, and practise applying them.

Tip 3: Use open data portals to mine data

Whenever you need statistics to validate some data, infographics to improve content, credible data, or accurate credentials for your marketing contact list, it is time to step outside of Google search comfort zone and dive into data that is stored in databases, which are often free, user-friendly, and accessed through certain queries and interfaces. When it comes to retrieving information or mining data from your own customer database, you can always ask your data specialist to apply his professional mining techniques and help you cope with this task.

In other times, consider sourcing data from open data portals. For instance, if you are looking for public data sets, check out free public databases for users with interests in data analysis, statistics, and research results such as Knoema.com, Freebase.com, Socrata.com, Datahub.io, Reddit.com, and Researchbuzz.me. You could even subscribe to newsletters that keep you apprised when new data and resources go public.

Tip 4: Leverage social media sites for data mining

Social media sites are often viewed solely as means of building social networks among people who travel in the same circles and share similar interests. Huge mistake. Whenever you have this multi-column Excel file of registrants from your client’s recent webcast or long marketing list riddled with gaps, then you should instantly change your way of thinking and use Facebook and LinkedIn for database and data mining or fleshing out contact lists. LinkedIn is better suited for data mining purposes since this is primarily a business-oriented social networking service where people constantly update the work and location section of their profiles

Tip 5: Go for free research tools

Add to your armoury a few more widely-applied database mining techniques. Improve your data search results by experimenting with free online research tools that are ripening like so many cherries on the tree. Keep an eye out for ever-emerging new tools and see for yourself what works for your data mining task. Here are a few to get you started: everycaller.com – a free tool that helps you to identify caller’s location and comes in handy when you have person’s phone number but information about location is missing in your spreadsheet; itools.com is another free search tool that helps you find someone’s contact information (address, phone number, email address) upon entering this person’s first and last name; useful tools for email verification like Email-checker.net also fall into a group of integral database mining techniques. All it takes is an input email address, and this clever tool connects to the mail server and checks if the mailbox exists for that user.

Tip 6: You could use some help

You may have an extensive background in research and academic writing, but sometimes it is hard to find scholarly articles to fall back on or academic research on a certain topic. Then consider tapping into resources that are hidden from general web searches but could be accessed from Scholar.google.com.ua. This data search tip allows you to find digital copies of books, articles, and research abstracts related to your topic of interest. At other times, the task is time-sensitive, but data are scarce. If you are stuck, it is worth trying to contact virtual assistant companies or personal research services like Askwonder.com. Just type in and send your question, and a team of researchers will proceed with it, applying all necessary data mining methods.

Now you see, database mining tasks shouldn’t be all that boring and dead-end. With the right approach, experimental attitude, and a few data tips and data mining techniques up your sleeve, you’ll deepen your understanding of solving complex research issues and join the global community of Power Searchers.