Searching a Priority? Also a Source of Fascinating Confusion?
February 18, 2013
The headline of a news release from Concept Searching caught my eye: Survey Results Indicate Enterprise Search is still the Number One Priority.
The subtitle puts the data in what I call the “marketing context.” Here is is:
Recent Concept Searching Survey Finds CIOs are Still Struggling with Search
The basic findings are revealed in this paragraph:
With the explosion of unstructured content, enterprise search has become inadequate for the knowledge worker but also renders relevant content inaccessible when applying it to collaboration and text analytics. Organizations are recognizing that search is not a stand-alone technology or application, but must be integrated with business processes and corporate objectives as a key infrastructure component. Regardless of the enterprise search solution, the delivery of meaningful results depends on the ability to effectively index and classify content, and to develop taxonomies to better manage the content. With the unabated growth of unstructured content and the introduction of diverse environments, such as on-premise, cloud, or hybrid, the need to access relevant information is falling far behind organizational needs. Content can exist in multiple repositories, and if not effectively managed increases organizational risk.
The sponsor of the study is Concept Searching, and a “white paper” providing more information is available from the company at www.conceptsearching.com.
Several observations:
- Search is a nebulous term. Many vendors are using the nomenclature of customer support, data analytics, eDiscovery, and Big Data. The reason, based on what little I know, is that search is not a hot term in some circles. See, for instance, the “comScore Releases the 2013 Digital Future in Focus Report.” The message there is that the digital landscape is rich and varies, in flux, and moving in unexpected directions.
- Open source plays are picking up steam. Based on my recent interview with Miles Kehoe and a forthcoming interview with Mark Bennett, both at LucidWorks, organizations are embracing open source solutions for a number of reasons. Could this be good news for open source solutions and less good news for vendors of walled garden systems which support “standards”? With the wave of consolidations and the HP Autonomy dust up, has cold water been tossed on the raging fires of information retrieval?
- Good, bad, or indifferent, Google has become the touchstone for many people when the word “search” is used. I saw a discussion on the LinkedIn search forum which presented the idea that appliances are back in vogue, specifically, the Google appliance. Simplicity may be gaining traction in markets confused or under cost pressure. Do licensees want complexity, multiple moving parts, and highly refined components or a solution that works?
- Companies in data management like MarkLogic are going back to their roots in publishing because the search push has not resulted in the revenue windfall some anticipated. Have the hopes for big paydays via enterprise search shifted to paydays for services firms and consultants?
Search, it seems, remains fascinating and confusing. Thank goodness I am old and content with my paper files and steam powered computer.
Stephen E Arnold, February 18, 2013
PolySpot Uses Disorganized Data and Churns Out Deliverable Insights
February 18, 2013
Big data is exploitable, increasingly necessary for enterprise functionality as organizations become more complex and can provide endless opportunities for ROI. However, there are some organizations that have not fully realized their potential to tap into this resource. ZDNet‘s article “Big Data: Why Most Businesses Just Don’t Get It” discusses how these organizations want to look at multiple pieces of data across different information sources but cannot execute the technology and manpower required.
Gartner vice president and distinguished analyst Debra Logan offers up her insights in the referenced article stating that 95 to 97 percent of organizations she knows are only exploring possible big data solutions currently. However, research from Microsoft says 75 percent of organizations are implementing solutions in the next 12 months.
The article quotes Logan:
Software companies in general have no interest in helping you make anything smaller because they make their money from more data and the more disorganised that data is, the more money they make. The most advanced industry in terms of big data is retail. It’s the stuff they do with all the RFID, the supply chain, with loyalty cards. Those are big-data problems.
Enterprise organizations are faced with the very real problem of too much information that is scattered across various departments in silos. However, there are solutions like PolySpot that use connectors to break the barriers of incompatible data types to draw out important knowledge and information.
Megan Feil, February 18, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search.
Liferay Upgrades Mobile Capability
February 18, 2013
Liferay is an open source enterprise portal supported by the established JavaScript framework, Alloy. Liferay frequently makes headlines and is quick to try new techniques and develop new add-ons. Their latest update is a venture into mobile technology. CMS Wire has the full story in their article, “Liferay Upgrades Mobile Collaboration App – Sync & Javascript Framework – Alloy.”
The article begins:
“Open source enterprise solutions provider Liferay is updating its Liferay Sync document sharing/synchronization tool for mobile usage, while also introducing version 2.0 of its Alloy Java script framework. In response to growing popularity of the Sync data management/collaboration solution among Android and iOS users, Liferay is providing new mobile Sync capabilities.”
We anticipate that mobile will continue to be a hot topic within enterprise content management and search. Even established solutions like LucidWorks will need to find a way to function on mobile platforms. Many are already quite functional on the Cloud, but the next step will definitely be mobile device integration. Mobile devices are not quite ready for intense data input and are still primarily for information retrieval. However, that distinction will not last long and open source enterprise solutions will be ready with responsive solutions.
Emily Rae Aldridge, February 18, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
An Overview Of eDiscovery From A Lady
February 18, 2013
The practice of e-Discovery is currently blossoming in the legal system. It provides important insights in litigation and evidence for cases, but what does the future have in store for e-Discovery? Laura Zubulake was a plaintiff in a case that changed the legal system and how it uses technology. She was recently interviewed for Clearwell Systems e-Discovery 2.0 blog in the post, “Q&A With Allison Walton Of Symantec And Laura Zubulake, Author Of Zubulake’s e-Discovery: The Untold Story Of My Quest For Justice.”
Zubulake voiced that technology had advanced greatly for e-Discovery, but organizations have not made any great strides in information management. She believes as time goes on e-Discovery will become absorbed in information governance, though a need for e-Discovery experts will arise and require companies to bring in third-parties. Organizations will come to realize the importance of e-Discovery and start restructuring to include it. The government will be one of the main forces that drive e-Discovery adoption, especially when it comes to procuring information or evidence. State and federal governments will be among the first to have laws and procedures for using it. One of the biggest changes is that users will finally understand the power of search algorithms:
“Algorithms become an accepted search tool. Although keyword, concept, cluster, etc. searches will still play a role. For years, law enforcement, government, and Wall Street have used algorithms—the concept is not new and not without peril (significant market corrections were the result of algorithms gone wrong). Parties confronted with volumes of data and limited resources will have no choice but to agree to computer assistance. However, negative perceptions and concerns about algorithms will only change when there is a case where the parties initiate and voluntarily agree to their use.”
Will 2013 be the year e-Discovery is magically accepted without question? The technology will continue to advance and newer, “younger” organizations will be quick to adopt, but moving established organizations (like the government) is going to be pushing a boulder up hill. People like Zubulake are taking a hammer and finding the boulder’s weak point, then carrying the pieces up hill.
Whitney Grace, February 18, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Experts Are Only A Search Away
February 18, 2013
Have you ever heard of Funnelback? Probably not, unless you are a search expert or come from the land down under. While the search experts are at work, allow me to explain a bit more about Funnelback. It is an enterprise and Web site search that sports an algorithm that can be tweaked to reflect a user’s customizable search results, editable search parameters, and a development platform for multimedia, e-commerce, e-mail media alerts, and plagiarism detection systems. The last option is one of the reasons Funnelback has gained a huge following in Australian universities.
If you are searching for a prime Funnelback experience, check out the University of Melbourne’s Web site with its “Find An Expert” search engine. The Funnelback “Find An Expert” searches through the university’s staff and faculty directory and retrieves experts related to the user’s keyword. In our example, we searched for “politics” and the results yielded 232 experts. Department, types of politics, and topics on politics, can filter the results. What makes Funnelback more entertaining than Google is that it creates a “capability map” aka a visual representation of the search results and how they connect with each other. The capability can be manipulated by filtering out or including other results.
Funnelback demonstrates that search can be entertaining and intelligent. When will Google add this to their search results page?
Whitney Grace, February 18, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Original Ways To Use Social Media Data
February 18, 2013
I recently heard on a news program that instead of taking cigarette breaks, people are now taking Facebook, Twitter, or social media breaks. The concept of constantly being connected is integrating into society as a regular, even necessary habit for some people. As a result social media creates a lot of data and organizations want to take advantage of its multiple uses. While social media data provides the standard trends, habits, etc. of people, some organizations have found interesting ways to harness it. Digimind takes a look at “5 Innovative And Original Uses of Social Media Data.”
The article lists five amazing and practical ways universities have used various social media outlets. The University of Bristol tracked the UK’s public mood and found that negativity resulted strongly from poor economic times. The University of Virginia is trying to detect early signs of adverse drug reaction, while Virginia Tech is looking into a project to find vehicle defects for auto manufacturers. Digimind even launched a Web site to track global funding deals in real time. The best, though, involves saving dolphins:
“This is a definite contender for one of the most noble uses of social media ever. Scientists in Australia’s Duke University used data from social media (Twitter, Flickr, Facebook and YouTube) to document ecosystems and development in Western Australia in an impressive bid to protect “the last great marine wilderness left on Earth”.
By using the digital footprint of volunteers to map the state of coastal ecosystems, in particular the snubfin and humpback dolphins, researchers were able to detect where human activities and marine resources overlap and potentially conflict. It’s easy to imagine how a similar social media mapping project could be extended into other areas of conservation to monitor the status of endangered and threatened plants and animals.”
Imagine! Using technology to save the Earth instead of destroying it. Social media information holds a lot of potential to do more than track consumer habits. Maybe it even holds the key to world peace.
Whitney Grace, February 18, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
IBM and Price Cuts: Is Watson a Factor?
February 17, 2013
I read “IBM Cuts Price of Watson Based Power Servers.” I have no clue if the story is correct, half current, or incorrect. What’s important is that CIOL.com thought the notion of a Watson related price cut newsworthy.
The Power7 based servers were hot stuff several years ago. CPU performance is no longer the gating factor as it was in the days of STAIRS III. Input output, memory subsystems, and various types of latency make a system fast or not. Heck, careless programming can make Google’s zippy boxes howl with pain when its innards suffer a computational cramp.
The write up asserts:
IBM will roll out eight new Power Systems for entry level starting at $5,947. The new systems include Power Express 710, 720, 730 and 740 family of products…. IBM will also introduce two new PowerLinux Systems – 7R1 and 7R2 – optimized for IBM InfoSphere BigInsights and InfoSphere Streams big data analytics software. The company will also introduce two new Power Systems – 750 and 760 – for midsized and large enterprises.
The hot item in the story in my opinion is this reference:
The new systems are based on IBM’s Watson system and are powered by its Power7+ microprocessor technology. These will enable users to build and deploy infrastructure for private and hybrid clouds, as per a release.
The write up includes the now obligatory baloney about the big data, cloud and caching tactics for performance.
If the story is incorrect, no big deal. Any publicity is good, even for a dog movie like “Heaven’s Gate” and its expensive roller skates. If the story is half correct, why is Watson making an appearance in juxtaposition to “entry level.” Is the vaunted Jeopardy winning technology not generating sufficient revenue to payback the development time and the sunk marketing costs? If the story is correct, I am interested in the fact that high end information technology has to be bundled at lower prices.
Years ago, I was told by an informed person that IBM knew what it was doing when it came to search and information retrieval. Maybe the company will come to dominate the enterprise market for big data, analytics, and smarter search. On the other hand, hasn’t IBM travelled this road before and yet the journey continues.
Stay tuned to Jeopardy or monitor the cancer related news stream. Watson is with us along with a Power7 chip which may be experiencing some symptoms of rheumatism.
Stephen E Arnold, February 17, 2013
A Big Data Partnership
February 17, 2013
Big data inspire companies to partner up and pool their research and products. Datameer, the Hadoop big data analytics leader, and Caserta Concepts, a consulting and technology business specializing in big data analytics, BI, and data warehousing, have formed a joint partnership. Virtual Strategy runs through the details in the article, “Caserta Concepts Announces Partnership With Datameer For Big Data Analytics On Hadoop.”
The companies have paired up, because of a study done by Ventana Research’ entitled, “The Challenge of Big Data” by Mark Smith. The research explains that average users find it hard to make sense of the data Hadoop captures, because they are more used to working with Excel or other BI intelligence dashboards. Datameer’s software allows the everyman user to read and harness the power of Hadoop with familiar dashboards and tools.
“’We are very pleased to partner with Datameer, the only provider of big data analytics built natively on Hadoop’” said Joe Caserta, founder and CEO of Caserta Concepts. ‘As organizations struggle to make sense of all their available data, Datameer’s big data analytics and discovery solution makes Hadoop’s power and flexibility instantly accessible to business analysts and data scientists alike.’”
What does this partnership teach us? It teaches that while big data is desirable, many users do not have the experience using analytics tools. Big data tools need to be user-friendlier if anything is going to be gleaned from it.
Whitney Grace, February 17, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Facebook, Search, and the Real World
February 16, 2013
I think there is or was a television program about the “real world.” I am hazy on this, but I perceive “reality television” as a semi scripted, low cost way to fill the gaping maw of 24×7 programming at a bargain basement price. In fact, when anyone suggests that something is “real” I take a second look. This applies to “real stories”, “real life examples”, and “real consulting insights”. In today’s world, the notion of “real” is slippery. I think of Plato, Hollywood special effects, and marketing baloney.
I read “You’re Not Gonna Like It: Facebook’s New Search Struggles with the Real World.” The title caught my attention because of its use of the familiar “you,” the word “gonna”, the inclusion of “search”, and the phrase “real world.” In a horse race there is a big payday from picking win, place, and show. Here the headline snags the top four spots in the social media World Cup.
The article points out that some of the features of Facebook search need to be rethought. That’s a fair statement. The product is a beta and represents the first somewhat edible fruit of the marriage between the Facebook crowd, the injected Googlers, and the post IPO attention of the kind and loving stakeholders.
Facebook has to produce revenues, keep its costs under control, and cope with a number of darned exciting issues. These include the mandatory registration Google has slapped on Google Plus and the awareness by some Facebookers that there may be something else to do with the time invested in posting information about one’s comings and goings.
Here’s the passage I noted:
Facebook launched Graph Search at a big press event at its Menlo Park, CA headquarters almost exactly one month ago. CEO Mark Zuckerberg delivered a large part of the event keynote himself, highlighting the feature as one of three “pillars of Facebook” alongside the News Feed and Timeline. Graph Search is supposed to help you gather friends for a Twin Peaks marathon, find photos taken in London on your last trip, and see which sushi places are most popular among your friends. After a month of testing Graph Search, I’ve found that it’s fantastic at finding people and photos, but not so good at finding anything else.
Is any search system able to do more than one or two things well? Google does the ad thing. Lexis does the legal laundry list thing. Chemical Abstracts does the structure thing. Sure, these systems purport to provide more functions than a bucket of Swiss Army knives.
But the reality of search and information retrieval is that each system has a strength. Each system has gaps, blind spots, and stuff that just does not work as the users expect.
The write up identifies some of Facebook’s notable gaps; for example, dirty data. Don’t most Facebook users perceive content in Facebook is as accurate?
Net net: Facebook social search is a beta. What changes are coming? Wait and see.
Stephen E Arnold, February 16, 2013
Whitepaper Sheds Light on Predicting the Future
February 16, 2013
A new white paper from Microsoft Research indicates that search is now future-oriented. The detailed paper, “Mining the Web to Predict Future Events” (PDF) was composed by Kira Radinsky of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and Microsoft Research’s Eric Horvitz. The introductory Abstract specifies:
“We describe and evaluate methods for learning to forecast forthcoming events of interest from a corpus containing 22 years of news stories. We consider the examples of identifying significant increases in the likelihood of disease outbreaks, deaths, and riots in advance of the occurrence of these events in the world. We provide details of methods and studies, including the automated extraction and generalization of sequences of events from news, corporate, and multiple web resources. We evaluate the predictive power of the approach on real-world events withheld from the system.”
The researchers delve into the management of large amounts of information from a variety of sources (including bits of news that may seem insignificant at first) and patterns that can be extracted from such data. They illustrate their points with a series of evaluations and representative examples, and conclude that automated analysis can, indeed, discover helpful new relationships and context-sensitive outcome probabilities.
Radinsky and Horvitz conclude with the hope that other researchers will take up this topic, and that such research will lead to “valuable predictions about future events and interventions of importance.” See the paper for the thorough details behind this optimistic stance.
Cynthia Murrell, February 16, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
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