Google: A Powerful Mental Eraser
October 23, 2008
Earlier today I learned that a person who listened to my 20 minute talk at a small conference in London, England, heard one thing only–Google. I won’t mention the name of this person, who has an advanced degree and is sufficiently motivated to attend a technical conference.
What amazed me were these points:
- The attendee thought I was selling Google’s eDiscovery services
- I did not explain that organizations require predictive services, not historical search services
- I failed to mention other products in my talk.
I looked at the PowerPoint deck I used to check my memory. At age 64, I have a tough time remembering where I parked my car. Here’s what I learned from my slide deck.
Mention Google and some people in the audience lose the ability to listen and “erase” any recollection of other companies mentioned or any suggestion that Google is not flawless. Source: http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/ii215/Katieluvr01/eraser-2.jpg.
First, I began with a chart created by an SAS Institute professional. I told the audience the source of the chart and pointed out the bright red portion of the chart. This segment of the chart identifies the emergence of the predictive analytics era. Yep, that’s the era we are now entering.
Second, I reviewed the excellent search enabled eDiscovery system from Clearwell Systems. I showed six screen shots of the service and its outputs. I pointed out that attorneys pay big sums for the Clearwell System because it creates an audit trail so queries can be rerun at any time. It generates an email thread so an attorney can see who wrote whom when and what was said. It creates outputs that can be submitted to a court without requiring a human to rekey data. In short, I gave Clearwell a grade of “A” and urged the audience to look at this system for competitive intelligence, not just eDiscovery. Oh, I pointed out that email comprises a larger percentage of content in eDiscovery than it has in previous years.
Third, I described the Recommind system. I showed six screen shots of the Recommind search and eDiscovery interface. I pointed out that the system uses a version of content processing that shares some features with Autonomy’s system and with the latent semantic indexing system used in Inxight Software, among other vendors. I pointed out that Recommind developed a following in law firms and is now making headway in the enterprise. I pointed out the features of the Recommind system which were essentially those of Clearwell Systems. The two distinctions I mentioned were that Clearwell is an appliance and Recommind is software; and I mentioned Recommind’s locking feature to prevent information from being changed. Email can be changed despite what most people think.
Fourth, I showed three images from the Google Postini system. The key point in my Google examples was that few know Google is in the eMail archiving business. Even fewer know that Google offers this service at a very aggressive price point. I wrapped up the Google portion by reminding the audience that Google was moving into the enterprise on different vectors.
My conclusion was basic. Librarians, who comprised the majority of the attendees, could find new ways to contribute to their organization by participating in eDiscovery procurements, setting up the systems, assisting those using these systems to make use of their more advanced features.
I pay money for questions, took three from the audience, and bid the conference adieu.
Now what’s the Google eraser?
I have a hypothesis that if I mention Google in a talk, the audience only hears the word “Google”. The force of the brand is so strong and users are predisposed to respond to Google in an intense way any other companies mentioned fall to the wayside. Google, therefore, obliterates some folks’ ability to listen to information about other companies. In this case, one person heard my criticism of Google’s bargain basement pricing as praise for Google.
Absolutely amazing!
Stephen Arnold, October 23, 2008
Comments
4 Responses to “Google: A Powerful Mental Eraser”
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Stephen
I was there and I vouch for every word you say. But it’s not just Google that makes delegates lose the power of intelligent thought. I recently ran a one day course on intranet governance. I asked what the attendees wanted to talk about and then we talked about them. One topic was usability, which was raised by a couple of delegates and we covered off in 10 minutes of a one day course. A delegate then complained on their evaluation form that usability was not intranet governance and should not have been included. Another gave me low scores because they were not involved in intranet work, even though they had paid to come to a one day course on intranet governance given by the founder of a company called Intranet Focus.
Absolutely amazing!
Martin
I know that audiences today consist of folks who like MTV cuts, smarmy tele evangelist type promises, and breathy reassurances that everything will be peachy in the morning. The notion of listening carefully, taking notes, and formulating thoughtful questions is not “with it” in my opinion. I have learned my lesson. Just don’t mention Google, avoid referencing important companies that are not in the $12 million in sales Gartner search quadrant, and avoid words such as “predictive analytics,” “search enabled applications,” and “critical thinking”. Maybe I should wear a Bart Simpson mask? I am actually glad I am old. I won’t have to deal with 20 somethings who want to multi task during a lecture.
Stephen Arnold, October 23, 2008
An interesting article, and I couldn’t agree more. I find that I often need to take a hypnotic approach in these sorts of situations; I have to plan carefully what is said and consider what I am pre-disposing the listener to thinking. Not only in large open sessions, but also in smaller more intimate settings like product demonstrations.
The phraseology is very very important and I can almost predict the outcome of a meeting based on how the ‘listener’ responds to what I’ve said.
I have found that the principles of NLP, although somewhat flawed, can help in the smaller sessions where the conversation is two way, but larger sessions are a little more tricky.
What routinely surprises me is that no matter how simply I pose a suggestion or premise the interpretation varies wildly..
Orlando
Thanks for the comment.
Stephen Arnold, October 24, 2008