Math Comprehension Made Easy
June 16, 2012
Want to dive into analytics as a data scientist? Get started with Stonehill College‘s “How to Read Mathematics.” The well-structured article by Shai Simonson and Fernando Gouvea details the reading protocol that will allow anyone to get the most out of reading mathematical explanations as opposed to, say, reading poetry or fiction. The authors explain:
“Students need to learn how to read mathematics, in the same way they learn how to read a novel or a poem, listen to music, or view a painting. . . . Mathematical ideas are by nature precise and well defined, so that a precise description is possible in a very short space. Both a mathematics article and a novel are telling a story and developing complex ideas, but a math article does the job with a tiny fraction of the words and symbols of those used in a novel. “
The article goes on to explain common mistakes math readers make, such as missing the big picture for the details, reading passively, and reading too fast. A wealth of tips for understanding math texts follows, including examples. Much of this is information I knew, but had trouble articulating when my son was in pre-calc. How I wish I had had this piece then!
For anyone looking at a math-heavy field like data analytics, this article is a must-read.
Cynthia Murrell, June 16, 2012
Sponsored by PolySpot
Assumed Pain of SharePoint and Proposed Solutions
June 15, 2012
There seems to be a disconnect between what employees say they need from their enterprise storage and search system, and what SharePoint delivers. However, SharePoint has become an assumed presence, regardless of the pain of configuration and upkeep. “Is SharePoint a Pain Point? Maybe It’s Time to Ditch It.” gets right to the point.
The disconnect is explained:
According to a number of studies, the No. 1 justification for spending money on a corporate intranet is to reduce the time and effort on enterprise search. With that being said, I personally haven’t met an employee at a company that feels their SharePoint system meets their needs. There is clearly a disconnect between theory and practice in the IT world.
So what are the major complaints about SharePoint? SharePoint is slow to deploy, difficult to configure, and users do not like it. Interestingly, it is estimated that SharePoint is not as cheap as it’s often said to be. For every $1 spent to license SharePoint, an additional $6 is spent to make it work.
Approximately 80 per cent of large organizations have a SharePoint system and while it can do a lot for you, it asks a lot in return. This system, designed to let people within a company collaborate and share information, requires heavy customization, has poor social computing capabilities and is not based on intuitive navigation whatsoever, making it difficult for most people to use.
So what’s the solution? We recommend using a smart third party solution like Fabasoft Mindbreeze to bridge the gap between what enterprise search should do and what SharePoint can do. Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise can stand along or work alongside an existing SharePoint infrastructure. The addition of Connectors ensures that the Fabasoft Mindbreeze platform works seamlessly across all manner of software.
See what the Federal Ministry of Justice Agency in Austria had to say about Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise:
Mag. Jürgen Atzlsdorfer: ‘In introducing ELAK light we have made it possible to manage and store data, some of which are highly sensitive, in a secure and traceable way. Using Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise as an integrated search solution simplifies our information search. This speeds up case processing, which in turn saves time and money.’
SharePoint has its shortcomings, so for those who need to rescue an existing infrastructure, look into Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise.
Emily Rae Aldridge, June 15, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Poll Questions the Facebook Staying Power
June 15, 2012
Nearly a decade after Facebook’s inception, skeptics remain critical of the social media tycoon’s ability to stay current as technology continues to rapidly progress. ComputerWorld recently reported on the results of a May survey regarding the way Americans feel about the staying power of the social networking site in, “U.S Facebook Users Skeptical of Site’s Privacy, Longevity.”
According to the article, a recent poll surveying 1,004 U.S adults found that Americans a split in their opinions regarding whether or not Facebook is a passing trend. Over 50% of survey respondents lack faith in the social network, but 43% believe it is here to stay. One of the naysayers primary concerns is regarding Facebook’s willingness and ability to keep their personal information private.
When breaking down the numbers, the article stated:
“Three of every five Facebook users say they have little or no faith that the social network will keep their personal information private. Only 13% trust Facebook to protect their information, and only 12% would feel safe making purchases through the site. The AP noted that half of those who use the site daily — Facebook’s most loyal users — say they would not feel safe making a purchase on the network.”
Despite the fact that many people believe that Facebook is overvalued, there are just as many people out there who use find its value to be right on track. I guess only time will tell.
Jasmine Ashton, June 15, 2012
Sponsored by PolySpot
PaaS Newest Fad in PLM Solutions
June 15, 2012
Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) has been a popular option for many companies unable to afford PLM platform solutions because it runs on cloud technology lowering costs. Now, according to the Software Advice article, “Three Manufacturing Apps Taking Advantage of Platform as a Service (PaaS)”, a new service is taking the manufacturing industry by storm despite the small number of providers, namely SAP, Salesforce and Net
According to the article,
“For now, the target audience for PaaS applications are smaller manufacturers because there are still computing and integration limitations that make it difficult to run complex manufacturing operations in the Cloud. However, large and complex manufacturers can still find value from point Cloud solutions or running Cloud ERP in subsidiary locations.”
PaaS and SaaS are great alternatives to entire PLM platforms for smaller companies because they keep costs low while still delivering results. Providers such as Inforbix rely on cloud technology to simplify PLM for their clients and thanks to such technologies “cloud based applications that need or can benefit from access to data from many different file types and disparate sources now have a means of increasing the value of their solution to their users.” As the article mentioned cloud technologies might just be the best thing to come along in a long time for the small and midsized manufacturing enterprise.
Catherine Lamsfuss, June 15, 2012
Research Made Easy With Google Docs
June 15, 2012
Those who write and perform research often come across a sea of messy open tabs that make it difficult to organize their work load. MacWorld recently reported on a new research tool put out by Google Docs that helps eliminate this problem in the article “Hands-on With Google Doc’s New Research Tool.”
According to the article, this new feature allows writers to streamline their browser based research and by making it easier for them to find and cite information while writing. It offers three types of searches: a basic everything search, an image search and a search featuring quotes by or about the topic or person you are researching. There is also a “places” search feature that is not shown in the main menu.
When discussing the “everything search” feature more in depth, the article states:
“The top Web links for a topic are displayed underneath that roster of information. You’re given three option with the links: First, you can “preview” the linked page within the Google Docs page—though you’ll have to open a new tab if you want to conduct a more thorough perusal of the pertinent info. The second option is to create a link to that page directly from the text you’re writing. The third is to create a footnote in the text that cites the link.”
While this exciting new tool doesn’t solve all of our research problems, it is certainly a step in the right direction.
Jasmine Ashton, June 15, 2012
Sponsored by PolySpot
Jousting with China: Google and Blocked Results
June 15, 2012
Internet Censorship in China is common knowledge with the Great Firewall of China and Google’s just took inventory. According to the article Better Search in Mainland China, Chinese search users were experiencing issues… so Google put a team right on it.
Ladies and Gentlemen, the problem was NOT Google. You’ll be amazed to learn the team of engineers found the issue revolved around key words the Chinese utilized when searching. I know that came as a shock, it did to Google too.
To rectify this issue, Google compiled a list of key words, along with replacement words to use and gave this to their users. You can probably imagine the dismay the Chinese government will feel upon hearing of this. Google is pushing the boundaries of patience with regard to China’s filtering search results.
Google stated:
“In order to avoid connection problems, users can refine their searches without the problem keywords. This won’t cause a timeout, but will still generate search results.”
“We’ve said before that we want as many people in the world as possible to have access to our services. Our hope is that these written notifications will help improve the search experience in mainland China. If you’re outside China and are curious to see what the notifications look like, you can visit this link to try it out.”
Isn’t this a great idea for building more revenue from the world’s largest market? The Chinese built their Firewall to prevent leaks and Google not only publicized forbidden words, but added a few escape routes.
Is this a tactic which will make China love Google even more? We’re not sure.
Jennifer Shockley, June 15, 2012
The Factiva Metadata Strategy Explained
June 15, 2012
Information Age recently reported on a new data management solution for Dow Jones & Company in the article “The Metadata Strategy Behind News Search Service Factiva.”
According to the article, the new search service, known as Factiva, allows users to keep track of the latest developments in their industries. Originally launched in 1999, the system has since evolved to reflect the changing information consumption habits of target customers.
As text analytics technology has progressed over time, so too have the concepts it can be used to define. Today, Factiva can identify whether a news story relates to a change of management at a company or a bankruptcy, and can encode as much in the metadata.
Greg Merkle, creative director at Dow Jones’ Enterprise Media Group explains:
“As the amount of information that Factiva can derive from its metadata is increasing, its search results are evolving beyond a simple list of relevant stories. We are developing situational solutions for specific business cases, such as supply chain analysis: if you have a list of supplier you rely on, you can do searches that not only show the news, but extract the facts from the stories and present them as interactive dashboard.”
Dow Jones is just one of many companies that has a metadata strategy in place to deal with the increasing amount of data put out by search engines daily. Does your company have one in place?
Jasmine Ashton, June 15, 2012
Sponsored by PolySpot
Coveo Positions Itself Insight Solutions
June 15, 2012
Coveo has a new positioning with Insight Solutions. It does search, business intelligence, and compliance. We learn from “3i Group Leverages Coveo Insight Solutions for Knowledge Continuity and Expertise Finding,” posted at the Wall Street Journal’s Market Watch, of at least one company that is very happy with the product. The press release states:
“3i needed a flexible solution that would easily scale as the amount of information and information sources continued to grow. After evaluating several vendors, 3i selected Coveo’s Insight Solutions based on ease-of-use, flexibility and Insight Consoles, the presentation layer of Coveo’s intelligent indexing technology, which provides information from across sources in a single, unified view, configured by role — so that each user views and interacts with contextually relevant, dynamically updated information.”
3i Group is a leading international investment company who used to rely on the on-board search functions of a myriad of data sources, from email to file systems. Naturally, this approach wasted a lot of time, and the company is happy to have found a solution to that problem that has also turned up more useful information than workers knew existed. 3i is so happy with Insight Solutions, it plans to expand its use to other initiatives such as legal, compliance, and business intelligence. They also look forward to an upcoming enterprise-wide roll out via mobile devices.
This development is an example of how Coveo shows ingenuity in positioning its search technology. The company was founded in 2005 by some of the team which developed Copernic Desktop Search. Coveo takes pride in solutions that are agile and easy to use yet scalable, fast, and efficient. They also boast that “people like doing business with us.” That is something not every company can say.
Cynthia Murrell, June 15, 2012
Sponsored by PolySpot
Protected: Pitney Bowes and iDiscovery Tack on Analytics
June 15, 2012
Prediction, Metadata, and Good Enough
June 14, 2012
Several PR mavens have sent me today multiple unsolicited emails about their clients’ predictive statistical methods. I don’t like spam email. I don’t like PR advisories that promise wild and crazy benefits for predictive analytics applied to big data, indexing content, or figuring out what stocks to buy.
March Communications was pitching Lavastorm and Kabel Deutschland. The subject analytics—real time, predictive, and discovery driven.
Baloney.
Predictive analytics can be helpful in many business and technical processes. Examples range from figuring out where to sell an off lease mint green Ford Mustang convertible to planning when to ramp up outputs from a power generation station. Where predictive analytics are not yet ready for prime time is identifying which horse will win the Kentucky Derby and determining where the next Hollywood starlet will crash a sports car. Predictive methods can suggest how many cancer cells will die under certain conditions and assumptions, but the methods cannot identify which cancer cells will die.
Can predictive analytics make you a big winner at the race track? If firms with rock sold predictive analytics could predict a horse race, would these firms be selling software or would these firms be betting on horse races?
That’s an important point. Marketers promise magic. Predictive methods deliver results that provide some insight but rarely rock solid outputs. Prediction is fuzzy. Good enough is often the best a method can provide.
In between is where hopes and dreams rise and fall with less clear cut results. I am, of course, referring to the use by marketers of lingo like this:
- predictive analytics
- predictive coding
- predictive indexing
- predictive modeling
- predictive search
The idea behind these buzzwords is that numerical recipes can process information or data and assign probabilities to outputs. When one ranks the outputs from highest probability to lowest probability, an analyst or another script can pluck the top five outputs. These outputs are the most likely to occur. The approach works for certain Google-type caching methods, providing feedback to consumer health searchers, and figuring out how much bandwidth is needed for a new office building when it is fully occupied. Picking numbers at the casino? Not so much.
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