Mindbreeze Demystifies Enterprise
November 16, 2011
SharePoint is supposed to be a broad-based solution to solve the enterprise needs of most users. However, there seems to be quite a bit of buzz regarding additional trainings, conferences, and webinars geared toward equipping installers and users on the ins-and-outs of the program. One such list of recommendations can be found here, at “Staffing is key to a successful SharePoint Server 2010 deployment.”
The author, Brien Posey, acknowledges that SharePoint 2010 deployment is happening at a rapid rate, but many are finding the process to be lengthier and more complicated than expected. Here is some of his advice:
“The key to assessing SharePoint staffing needs rests with determining the kind of expertise required for deployment and its long-term administration, and then mapping those requirements to staff roles. Some of those roles can likely be filled by existing members of the IT staff, but organizations might have to make additional hires.”
Posey goes on to provide a lengthy list of staff positions for consideration, architects and administrators galore. Couple this recommendation with the recent boom in SharePoint training opportunities and one has to wonder if SharePoint is not as effortless as advertised. It seems implementation and usage are both fairly complicated.
We like what we are hearing about Fabasoft Mindbreeze and its suite of solutions. Implementation is reportedly intuitive and seamless. However, if problems do arise, solutions can quickly be found via brief tutorials or online training opportunities. Don’t be trapped by SharePoint. Consult the Mindbreeze suite of solutions and see if they might be the right choice for your organization.
*Disclaimer – Mindbreeze is currently upgrading their website. Links will be checked and if problems arise they will be updated. Thanks for your patience.
Emily Rae Aldridge, November 16, 2011
Search to Management: The eDiscovery Play
November 16, 2011
New regulations in both the US and the UK have e-discovery vendors anticipating profits. FT.com advises, “E-discovery: Manage Your Data Wisely—Regulators Now Have Teeth.” (This wise publisher wants you to subscribe to read the full document. Get out your credit card.)
Of course, managing data for e-discovery purposes takes time and resources, so most companies tend to put the issue off until regulators come knocking. This can mean last minute scrambling and, as a result, disadvantage in any proceedings. What can be done?
Writer Jessica Twentyman points to some key advice:
Dean Gonsowski, e-discovery counsel in the information management group at Symantec, a security software company, believes the answer lies in making e-discovery a ‘repeatable business process’, rather than a one-off response to a request. That means establishing company-wide rules on electronic information, governing what should be deleted or retained, applying those rules and using e-discovery software to retrieve information quickly, he says.
Perhaps surprisingly, email comes in third as an e-discovery request target. Files/ documents are the most requested, followed by database/ applications data. Social media records, corporate blogs, instant messages, and texts are growing categories.
It’s important that companies understand e-discovery at least as much as regulators do. Do your research and invest in good e-discovery software. Be prepared, even as you hope you never have to respond to a regulator’s request for information.
Vendors of search will have to “move up the value rope”. Finding is no longer enough we believe.
Cynthia Murrell November 15, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Adobe Back Out of the Enterprise
November 16, 2011
We came across another interesting write up from Megan Feil on the shifting business approach at Adobe. Here’s what we found:
When the markets invariably change, does a company follow suit and 180 with the changing times? Well, we know how Adobe responds after reading Mac World’s report on Adobe’s restructuring in their article, “Adobe to Reduce Enterprise Software Investment.” Adobe sees digital media and digital marketing products as the areas with the potential for astronomical growth and they want to cash in.
Adobe is changing things up for their company, but predictably choosing the safe route. It will continue to invest in its Creative Suite products and place more emphasis on HTML 5. As far as marketing goes, they plan on investing in analytics and reporting, especially on mobile devices and social networks.
Mac World quotes their CFO’s statement:
“We believe that by focusing resources on two large initiatives and shifting our business model, we can drive faster and more predictable growth in [fiscal year 2013] and beyond,” CFO Mark Garrett said in a statement.
Their enterprise software brought in less than 10 percent of their overall revenue last quarter, so it seems like they might be making a good move for their business. In regards to enterprise software in general, Adobe seems to be snubbing the possibilities this market has for expansion. With the consumerization of information technology, there are wide open spaces of room for companies to innovate software and applications for the enterprise. It’s all about tapping into what users want: business intelligence with intuitive ease.
We think that this shift is illustrative of how a company’s direction can shift. It is interesting to note that they are concentrating on HTML5 instead of Flash for the mobile world. We did find that Polyspot’s business intelligence approach was already poised to handle the mobile economy. Our colleague Constance Ard over at Answer Maven is pretty adamant about mobile: “If companies do not account for personal and business mobile devices in their enterprise information management they will suffer the consequences.” Guess it’s good that there are software companies that can help.
Andrea Hayden, November 16, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Bing and the Plus Sign
November 16, 2011
Google’s decision to name its social product Google+ was interesting. Non text characters are difficult to search. Many systems use ubiquitous characters like a dot or a minus sign as an “operator”. An operator in this sense tells the system to perform a function such as performing a Boolean NOT operation. Google dropped support for its Boolean AND operator which was the plus sign.
We learned from Boolean Black Belt that Microsoft Bing is Boolean AND friendly. And, the operator is the + sign. “Bing’s Semantic Search, Phonetics and Undocumented Operator” revealed this factoid on November 14, 2011.
The write up added this comment: “the +/Plus sign was serving to remove Bing’s attempt at semantic search and only return results with the exact terms I searched for.” The author then noted:
Now that I am on the lookout for Bing’s semantic search, I’ve noticed that sometimes Bing will slip in semantic search results without giving you the “Including results for ____ / Do you want results for _____” heads-up that lets you know Bing has included results with terms you didn’t actually search for that Bing thinks is related and relevant.
The article contains a number of annotated screen shots. The take away is that Bing has some useful search features. We agree.
Stephen E Arnold, November 16, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Google+ Benefits Debated
November 16, 2011
Everyone who performs a Google search, and honestly we all fall into that category, has noticed the +1 that appears next to certain Web sites. Despite the fact that over 40 million people have signed up for Google+ many people, myself included, remain suspicious of the role it will play in our daily lives.
While there has been some debate concerning the impact that Google+has on our personal lives, few would argue that it impacts our businesses. The Web Pro News article “Google+ Pages A Must For Businesses, But Come Off As Rushed” states:
Social and authorship are two big elements in ranking success these days, and Google+ plays to both of these. The +1 button, which we know influences rankings, is obviously a big part of the Google+ feature set. This is a signal that helps Google determine how good people think a piece of content or a Web site is, and now, perhaps even a business in general. Now, with the launch of Google+ Pages, businesses get to tie the +1’s on their Pages to the +1’s on their site (though this doesn’t seem to be working fully just yet), which should send a stronger signal of brand reputation to Google search.
While Google+ certainly has benefits for businesses, it’s far from a fool proof system. Google relies on fast-cycle product innovations. The idea that services for commercial organizations can be characterized as not “working fully” may be disturbing to some organizations looking to Google for industrial-strength services.
Jasmine Ashton, November 16, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Protected: CRM 2011 Offers Custom Document Management for SharePoint
November 15, 2011
Mindbreeze Satisfies Users Need for Findability
November 15, 2011
Stephen Fishman of CMS Wire discusses the problems that arise from Microsoft SharePoint’s desire for broad appeal in, “SharePoint is Crack and Microsoft is the Pusher.” Although a humorous title, Fishman makes some valid points about Microsoft’s attempt at reeling in the masses only to leave them yearning for more. Much like the touted panacea of Microsoft Access or Lotus Notes, SharePoint does not deliver on its promises.
Fishman drives home his main point after rolling out a list of smaller issues:
“But the worst thing about SharePoint by far is that it recreates the problem it was intended to solve, only on a much larger scale. What starts out as a hierarchically organized file share ends up as a hierarchically organized file share with a web interface on top of it.”
The Fabasoft Mindbreeze solution is clear in their latest update: “With the new release, Fabasoft Mindbreeze displays search results clearer and more structured. Index tabs break down search results in specific groups and topics. That way, users see immediately what documents contain the search term and in what context it is mentioned. With this structured overview, users find what they are looking for much faster.”
Fishman also finds fault with SharePoint’s disregard for sound implementation and taxonomies: “SharePoint is constantly rolled out in a slipshod manner with little thought to governance or developing scalable and maintainable taxonomies . . . The resulting organic growth inevitably results in buried content with no easy mechanisms for ambient findability.”
Mindbreeze accounts for synonyms and taxonomies in its search, features that are in place out-of-the-box, but also customizable. To solve SharePoint’s lingering issues of findability and a poor user experience, explore an efficient solution like Fabasoft Mindbreeze. Built with the user in mind.
*Disclaimer – Mindbreeze is currently upgrading their website. Links will be checked and if problems arise they will be updated. Thanks for your patience.
Emily Rae Aldridge, November 15, 2011
More Information Mounting in Anti-Trust Cases to Take Google Down
November 15, 2011
Tech Eye News reports on a piece to the ongoing antitrust cases jigsaw puzzle in their article, “Search Outfit Argues Panda Key to Google Antitrust Case.” Foundem, a product search site has asserted that Google directly targets household name search sites through the Panda algorithm.
Foundem initiated the European Commission antitrust investigation after witnessing their site drop down the page rankings upon the introduction of Universal Search in 2007.
We learned about the following perspective from the article:
Foundem does have some compelling data, which aims to show that Google has abused its position when it moved into product search. Google boss Schmidt was called before the Senate in September to discuss antitrust allegations, and it is Foundem’s research that was used to illustrate the dominance of Google’s product search.
Foundem believes they have support for stopping Google in their attempts to monopolize every technology market possible. Microsoft-owned Ciao and French search site Twenga have approached the European Commission in regards to Google as well.
Our opinion is that Google, as a search giant trying to integrate other services and applications has been forward thinking enough to stay on top thus far. We don’t see them weakening any time in the near future unless there is enough brute force to take them down.
Megan Feil, November 15, 2011
Up the Value Chain: Open Source Plus Commercial Know How
November 15, 2011
Along with open source applications comes a certain amount of risk. A recent article on Network World, titled “Advocating Open Source Management Can Be a Disaster,” explores how to balance praising the new technology and warning of the possible risks inherent.
Comparing open source technology to a four year old running free in a parking lot the article recommends combining praise for the gift of open source while keeping just the right amount of responsibility by reminding users of the risks.
The article provides several recommendations including some typical ones: be an expert in the area in which you are preaching and have buddies to back you up. They also suggest the following:
Associate with the mainstream- Communicate that having policies and procedures for managing risk are a normal part of doing business. (That’s what Sarbanes Oxley is about.) Managing how open source is used in software development is just another process like managing requirements, quality, security or issue tracking.
With so much at risk with this revolutionizing technology it pays to make sure the risk is managed right the first time. Companies which specialize in information management can offers its clients open source content connectors. Licensees can use these to handle many content acquisition needs.
After reading this information, I realized that the Paris-based Polyspot offers tools and know how which can deliver open source plus commercial know how. Whether infrastructure, search, or management processes in work flow, Polyspot is delivering.
Stephen E Arnold, November 15, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Business Process Is Not Information Management
November 15, 2011
We continue to run across some interesting stories about Enterprise Data. This one from Catherine Lamsfuss caused quite a debate at lunch. Here’s what we read:
As the amount of data within a business or industry grows the question of what to do with it arises. The article, “Business Process Management and Mastering Data in the Enterprise“, on Capgemini’s website explains how Business Process Management (BPM) is not the ideal means for managing data.
According the article as more and more operations are used to store data the process of synchronizing the data becomes increasingly difficult.
As for using BPM to do the job, the article explains,
While BPM tools have the infrastructure to do hold a data model and integrate to multiple core systems, the process of mastering the data can become complex and, as the program expands across ever more systems, the challenges can become unmanageable. In my view, BPMS solutions with a few exceptions are not the right place to be managing core data[i]. At the enterprise level MDM solutions are for more elegant solutions designed specifically for this purpose.
The answer to this ever-growing problem was happened upon by combining knowledge from both a data perspective and a process perspective. The article suggests that a Target Operating Model (TOM) would act as a rudder for the projects aimed at synchronizing data. After that was in place a common information model be created with enterprise definitions of the data entities which then would be populated by general attributes fed by a single process project.
While this is just one man’s answer to the problem of data, it is a start. Regardless of how businesses approach the problem it remains constant–process management alone is not efficient enough to meet the demands of data management.
“It’s not the process its the people that implement and use the process that matter” stated Jasmine Ashton in a final summary of the lunch debate. We had to agree. However, as we looked through the Polyspot data management description that Ms. Lamsfuss’ article pointed us to we had to agree that starting with a good technology implementation could go a long way towards helping the people follow the processes.
Constance Ard November 15, 2011
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