Practical guides

Define a monitoring channel in five steps

A channel is a specific monitoring effort: a set of topics, sources and rules. The clearer the question, the less noise.

1. Write down the decision you want to support. Entering a market or not, responding to a regulation, choosing a technology. If you cannot name the decision, the channel is too broad.
2. List entities and topics. Companies, public bodies, regulations, technologies and places, with their synonyms and acronyms. Also note what you want to exclude.
3. Choose a few starting sources. Better a few reliable ones than many noisy ones. Include at least one primary source per topic: the gazette, the regulator or the repository.
4. Set language, country and frequency. Decide which languages you read, which countries matter and how often you need to know: immediately, daily or weekly.
5. Review after two weeks. Remove the sources that add nothing, add the ones you missed and adjust the keywords.

Checklist for evaluating a source

Before adding a source to a channel, answer these questions and note the result next to it.

• Who publishes it? And with what authority on the subject.
• Is it a primary source? Or does it reproduce what others publish.
• How often does it publish? And how long after the event.
• Does it have a stable access route? A feed, a sitemap, an API or a page whose address does not change.
• Does it allow automated access? Check its terms of use and its robots.txt file.
• Which language and which region does it cover? And whether that matches what your channel needs.
• How much of what it publishes is useful to you? An excellent source with little relevant content also generates noise.

With the answers, rate the source by its reliability (for example A, B or C) and note why.

Weekly review routine

Monitoring degrades if nobody looks after it. This routine keeps it useful.

1. Check the status of the sources. Which ones failed and which ones stopped publishing.
2. Go through the week’s stories. Discard whatever does not contribute to the channel’s decision.
3. Mark what is useful and what is not. Over time, that feedback shows which sources and which topics truly add value.
4. Write three key messages. Each one with its source in plain sight.
5. Send the newsletter after a full human reading. Nobody should receive a text that nobody read.
6. Note the question that went unanswered. It usually points to the source the channel is missing.