Silobreaker: Breaking thorough Information Access Silos
June 12, 2008
Silobreaker is an information access system that pushes the limits of search, content processing, and text analysis. The company makes its system available here. You can launch queries and manipulate a range of features and functions to squeeze meaning and insights from information.
Mats Bjore–former Swedish intelligence officer and McKinsey & Co. knowledge management consultant–asserts that certain types of “real world” questions may be difficult for search systems to answer. Echoing Google’s Dr. Peter Norvig, Mr. Bjore believes that human intelligence is needed when dealing with facts and data. He told Beyond Search:
We always emphasize the importance of using our technology for decision-support, not to expect the system to perform the decision-making for you. The problem today is that analysts and decision-makers spend most of their time searching and far too little time learning from and analyzing the information at hand. Our technology moves the user closer to the many possible “answers” by doing much of the searching and groundwork for them and freeing up time for analysis and qualified decision-making.
The low-key Mr. Bjore demonstrated the newest Silobreaker features to Beyond Search. Among the features that caught our attention was the point-and-click access to link analysis, mapping, and a useful “trends search” function.
Mr. Bjore said:
The whole philosophy behind Silobreaker is to move away from the traditional keyword based search query which generates just page after page of headline results and forces the user into a loop of continually adjusting the query to find relevance and context. We see the keyword-based query as a possible entry point, but the graphical search results enable the user to discover, navigate and drill down further without having to type in new keywords. No-one can imagine managing numerical data without the use of descriptive graphical representations, so why do we believe that we can handle vast quantities of textual data in any other way? Well we don’t think we can, and traditional search is proving the point emphatically. Today’s Silobreaker is just giving you a first glimpse of how we (and I’m sure others) will use graphics to bring meaning to search results.
Explaining sophisticated information access systems is difficult. Mr. Bjore drew an analogy that provides a glimpse of how technology extends the human decision mechanism. He said:
Silobreaker works like one of our dogs. Their eyes see what is in front of you, the ears hears the tone of voice, the nose smells what has happened, what is now and what’s around the corner.” I agree. Silobreaker is more than search; it’s an extension of the information envelope.
This graphic shows the key trends in the content processed by the system in a period specified by the user. When the system processes an organization’s proprietary information, a user can see at a glance what the key issues are. Silobreaker can combine internal and external data so that trend lines reflect trends from multiple sources.
The system is available to commercial organizations via a software as a service or an on-premises installation. Mr. Bjore characterized the pricing of the service as “very competitive.” You can contact the company by telephoning either the firm’s London, England, office at +44 (0) 870 366 6737 or the firm’s Stockholm, Sweden, office at +46 (0) 8 662 3230. If you prefer email, write sales at silobreaker dot com. More information about the company is here. Like Cluuz.com, Silobreaker ushers in the next-generation in information access and analysis.
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