Exclusive Interview with Ana Athayde of Spotter
January 19, 2010
Search solutions have the attention of some executives who want actionable information, not laundry lists of results. I learned about an information retrieval company that I knew nothing about from Ana Athayde. Ms. Athayde developed Spotter as a consequence of her work in business intelligence for a large international organization. She told me, “Laundry lists are not often helpful to a business person.” I agree.
Spotter is what I would describe as a next-generation content processing company. The firm’s technology combines content acquisition, content processing, and output generation in a form tailored to a business professional. Spotter’s chief technology officer (Olivier Massiot) previously worked at the pioneering content processing company, Datops SA.
In an exclusive interview on January 18, Ana Athayde, the founder of Spotter (based in Paris with offices several European cities and the US), provides insight into her vision for next-generation information retrieval. She described the approach her firm takes for customers with an information problem this way:
Our clients ask for strategic input on a brand or market; they require more than a general alert and subject monitoring as provided by the services of popular search engines. Spotter clients expect to know more about their customers and what motivates them, learn about their company’s reputation, and about the current risk pervasive in their environment; not simply obtain an internet search-result report. Our clients need deep dive analysis for decision-making, not just a simple dashboard tool and quantitative graphic displays. They want to be able to interpret what it all means and not just receive a simple data-dump. Spotter provides content analysis and leading edge solutions that meet our customers’ analytical needs such as the ability to map and analyze information pertinent to their business environment, so as to gain a strategic business advantage and make new discoveries. Our solutions solve complex problems and deploy these results throughout the enterprise in a form that makes the information easy to use.
A number of companies are providing knowledge management and business intelligence services that output reports. I asked Ms. Athayde, “What’s the Spotter difference?” She said:
I think the key point we try to make clear is our “bundle”; that is, we deliver a solution, not a collection of puzzle pieces. Our ability to capture, monitor and analyze decisions and their impact requires rich, higher order meta data constructs. Many companies such as Autonomy, Microsoft, and Oracle also promise similar services. But once this has been done, the process of information toward decision is not complete. The main competitive advantage of Spotter is to be able to provide to its clients a full decision-making solution which includes, as I mentioned, analytics and our decision management system… Our solution is engineered to link efficiency and quality control throughout the content processing “chain.”
You can read the full interview with Ms. Athayde on the ArnoldIT.com’s Search Wizards Speak features. For more information about Spotter, visit the firm’s Web site at www.spotter.com. Search Wizards Speaks provides one of the most comprehensive set of interviews with search and content processing vendors available. There are now more than 44 full text interviews. The information in these interviews provides a different slant than the third party “translators” who attempt to “interpret” how a search system works and “explain” a particular vendor’s positioning or approach. The Search Wizards Speak series is a free service from ArnoldIT.com lets you read the full text of key players in the search and content processing sector. Primary source material is the first place to look if you want facts, not fluff.
Stephen E Arnold, January 19, 2010
Full disclosure. Spotter’s sales manager tried to give me a mouse pad. I refused. As a result, no one paid me anything to chase down Ms. Athayde, interview her, and go through the hoops needed to understand the Spotter system. Because the Spotter team seemed quite Euro-centric, I will report my sad state of non compensated work to the US Department of State. An organization sensitive to the needs, wants, and desires of non US people and entities.
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