What I Don't Find
I help a client manage its Foreign Corrupt Practices Act risks by doing public record research on its distributors. In a recent matter, I learned that a distributor had been fined for anti-competitive practices; exactly the kind of thing the client did not want to know. Needless to say, in this business, finding something like this made for a satisfied customer. There’s a truism ingrained in my head from almost 30 years of doing research, that is, you’re only as good as your subjects are bad. All it took was typing the company name to find that finding, but to the client I was a genius. I want you to notice when I don’t find the smoking gun. It’s not just in most cases, there’s no sensitive, material findings (as I would say), but the bigger challenge in most of my cases is what I don’t find. What I don’t find can be of as much value.
Now, this can be an entirely different blog post. In fact there’s a topic here I really want to write too, and that’s what I do all the time to figure out that the Michael Smith with the RICO case is not the Michael Smith who wants to buy your company. There’s a lot to be said on when I don’t find anything on your Michael Smith. Today, however, we are covering the cases where I don’t find anything I would call sensitive: a crime, a significant piece of litigation, accusations, recriminations, misrepresentations. All that goo that sticks to the target and makes the client say ooh.
A lot of researchers pride themselves on finding the needle, a well hidden gem. I surely don’t don’t want to miss anything, but I take my pride in researching entities when there’s a lot there. Plenty of nothing, no wow moments, but enough things I want you to see. Like the other day, I looked a prominent cryptocurrency venture. There were firstly, thousands of articles on the entities, their current and former companies. Secondly, there were a whole other set of articles on the industry, on the risks associated with what they target wanted to do even if they were not the ones doing it. What do you do when the answer is in between the one smash finding and the hundreds of little bits of noise.
The standard way researchers go from 1,000’s of articles to a few articles is to use keywords. The idea is that you only need the articles that cover the important things: the frauds, the racketeering, the accusations, recriminations, misrepresentations. It’s the boolean connector AND. General Motors AND (fraud! or lawsuit! or indict!)* That works fine, but as we keep saying it’s what we don’t find. We do not need to just find sensitive issues. We want to find other articles for you. Articles that will help you understand the target or help you prepare for a long term relationship. If there’s nothing that’s going to stop the transaction, what will help you cement the deal.
Moving from connectors, what else can find the good articles. I employ a couple of tricks that work well over the years. I can look for my subject in the headline or headline and lead paragraph of an article. Then, I know it’s an article about them, not just a casual reference. Another great way to really know it’s a meaningful article is to look at length; how many words. Yes, I give more credence to those who write with a heavy hand. Pithiness tends to keep you off my final article run. These tricks help me find those background articles, the histories, those fun facts, that do the opposite of call things off. They bring you together.
Not all good articles come with search technique. All the keyword and boolean connectors and segments searches may help, but at the end you also got to cast a wide net. Rely on broad searches. Use insight to know when to pull an article. One way I decide that it is meaningful is by getting a sense of risks for the industry or the transaction. Not that long ago, I looked at a medical marijuana company. A key risk I learned, had to do with banks taking their accounts, so those articles became valuable regardless of the length or where the subject’s name appeared in the article. Another way I decide is based on what I already know, For years, I knew that penny stock fraudsters operated out of Englewood Colorado. If I saw Englewood Colorado anywhere in any article, the target’s daughter was a star student at Englewood High, I was all over that article. You cannot always tell a person exactly how you did the search. You just have the results.
In the vast majority of research assignments, it’s not going to be what I find. It’s not going to be one single article that points to something nefarious, a clear-cut answer. Rather, in most cases, I’m going to provide a set of articles that I think you’ll like. It may be a smattering of what I think “represents” their media profile or it will be a set that provide some needed background. What we don’t find will help you manage your risks and react to unforeseen events.
* The !, at least in Lexis/Nexis is a “truncator” it gets any words from the letters fraud on, so a search on fraud! would include fraud as well as fraudulent, fraudster, even fraudish if that showed up in an article.