Consultants Take It in the Snoot: IDC Criticizes Itself and a Competitor
April 5, 2013
Have you ever been hammering a nail and smacked your finger. Imagine what it feels like to whack your nose. Ouch.
Navigate to to “Gartner and IDC predictions: Oops, Forget What We Said Last Time.” The main point of the write up it seems to me is that azure chip consulting firms just crank out predictions. When the spirit moves the azure chip crowd, new predictions are generated using fancy math, a dash of spreadsheet fever, and inputs from other azure chip consultants.
With new outputs, new predictions are possible. The predictions, if I read the IDC write up correctly, have little connection with previous predictions. Here’s what IDC said about itself:
IDC is no better: It predicted last month that total PC shipments in 2013 would fall 1.3 percent from 2012. Of course, before that, it predicted an increase of 2.8 percent. It too predicted that Windows Phone would be a major hit, based apparently solely on the fact it came from Microsoft.
What was the benchmark against which IDC’s work was measured? IDC points to the estimable Gartner Group which warranted several paragraphs of commentary. I won’t repeat the IDC summary of another firm’s predictions. Please, read them in a “real” news publication, not a free blog produced by a 70 year old in rural Kentucky.
But per my want I will set forth several observations:
First, for many years I worked at a couple of above average outfits very much into the prediction game. After moving to other tasks, I have watched the rise of the prediction industry. At Halliburton NUS, fancy math was needed to figure out which fuel rods should be moved. Moving nuclear fuel rods is a useful function but I know that most of my two or three readers are fully conversant with nuclear engineering’s use of statistical methods. At Booz, Allen & Hamilton in the days when the firm competed fiercely with McKinsey, Bain, and Boston Consulting, most of the technology group’s units relieved on a wide range of fancy math to perform tasks which most “real” journalists and “experts” have a comfortable familiarity. I won’t enumerate the methods to perform nuclear plume modeling, a topic which I am confident most “experts” discuss at lunch each day. Now every “expert” is a master of advanced math. How comforting it is to know that technical expertise is widely available to perform a range of data centric tasks. Obviously talk about skills shortages in math and related disciplines is wrong.
It is easy to make predictions using back of the envelope methods like Briggs’s Equations. Azure chip outfits can work these sequences in their head, whilst texting, and writing client reports I surmise.
Second, the notion that predictions exist without context is an interesting one. What the IDC criticism of azure chip consultancies suggests is that just about any old estimate is good enough to today’s busy, super sophisticated professional. However, is it possible that azure chip firms and their number crunchers are edging into the murky swamp of marketing. Creating a number and providing an insight based on that number is easy to do. Without critical thinking about a prediction, is it possible that fiction takes the place of fact? Just a question to consider. You may want to take a look at The Cheating culture: Why More Americans Are Doing Wrong to Get Ahead.
Third, are predictions part of the shift from doing work the way my grandfather did it to the thumb typing methods of today? My view is that the shift to knowledge work allows almost everyone hang out the “expert” shingle. Take me. I studied medieval poetry in Latin and bumbled into computing by accident. The journey from that first programming job in 1963 to the present has been a long, arduous journey. Is it possible today that individuals better suited to running a lathe or making cookies find themselves working at azure chip consulting firms cranking out predictions?
Click the image to learn about expert marketing. It is easy to create a video to communicate one’s capabilities.
Fourth, the information technology world is in flux. Those running technology units are not sure what to do. For guidance, these folks want to have back up, data, and case studies. The information flows from azure chip consultants and “experts”. What happens if the inputs are not on point? Perhaps the niggling glitches like security issues, flawed software, ever present cost overruns, and stuff that just doesn’t work as advertised provide some indication? Glitches are standard operating procedures in many “smart” systems. What if the experts’ advice is not accurate? Won’t problems escalate and cascade? Are the present economic challenges attributable to some degree to expert inputs which were incorrect? Interesting question in my opinion.
The IDC critique of itself and Gartner Group seems like an isolated and infrequent incident. But even the search engine optimization crowd. Now this group has almost as many unemployed “real” journalists and failed middle school teachers as the azure chip consulting industry, published “Big Data—Has It Blinded Us with Science?” When folks who intentionally distort the results of an “objective” search engine, maybe there is something troubling even today’s always-on, always-busy, always-selling crowd. Is marketing more important than anything except generating revenue?
I wonder how that self inflicted poke to the nose feels. At my age, my most forceful blow is as gentle as a summer breeze.
Stephen E Arnold, April 5, 2013
Sponsored by Augmentext
Liferay Unveils New Community
April 5, 2013
Liferay’s efforts of late have centered on their enterprise open source portal. Their most recent announcement is the creation of the Ideation initiative, designed to foster development and creativity. PR Web covers the full story in the article, “Liferay Unveils New Community Ideation Initiative.”
The press release begins:
“Liferay, Inc., provider of the world’s leading enterprise-class open source portal, announced today the launch of a new Ideation initiative designed to foster the development of new products and features for the Liferay Portal platform. The initiative is aimed to empower Liferay’s worldwide community of users, customers and partners to better coordinate the technical resources and business requirements needed to develop new features for Liferay’s products and create new apps.”
Creativity and development underpin open source initiatives across the board. A strong community ensures both qualities. LucidWorks also does a good job of cultivating a strong community through SearchHub, an open source search community resource portal, and commitment to the Apache Lucene Solr project. LucidWorks employs one quarter of the core committers on the project.
Emily Rae Aldridge, April 5, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
LinkedIn Focuses on Search
April 5, 2013
LinkedIn wants to make search easier for its members. The Computerworld article “LinkedIn Sharpens Search Engine Feature” gives all of the details about the new revamped search system. With this new system LinkedIn wants its members to be able to find information easier on their site. LinkedIn’s initial goal was to provide a place for professionals to place their career bios as well as interact with their peers and colleagues. However, LinkedIn has grown and now serves a much larger audience. Companies as well as various groups have set up pages. In addition there is a job section as well as a section where individuals and publishers can share or posts comments, as well as provide links to articles. LinkedIn’s search engine sales 5.7 billion queries last year alone so the new search features will definitely reach a large audience. Johnathan Podemsky, a LinkedIn product manager shared the following
“Now, all you need to do is type what you’re looking for into the search box and you’ll see a comprehensive page of results that pulls content from all across LinkedIn including people, jobs, groups and companies.”
In addition to segmenting their results users will also enjoy auto-complete and suggested search capabilities to help them fine-tune their query terms. The search engine will also keep a log of members search queries in order to help deliver better results. It is important to note that these changes will only be applied to the main site and not the mobile application. Regardless, these new search features will definitely improve LinkedIn search capabilities for users. It seems that LinkedIn is definitely paying attention to the needs of their users and takes search very serious. Users want good results but they also want a user friendly and efficient search system. Looks like LinkedIn is on the right page.
April Holmes, April 05, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
The Big Picture with Google
April 5, 2013
Google has announced that they are doing away with their Google reader. According to The Economist article “Google’s Google Problem” the Google reader is a tool that can be used for reading online content via RSS or Really Simple Syndication. Unlike its search engine only a small group of faithful users regularly rely on the program. However, many of these users rely heavily on the application so there were definitely some bruised feelings when it was announced. On one hand it’s easy to see why Google is making this decision. Google Reader doesn’t make them much money but yet it takes time, resources and money to develop. Getting rid of it won’t put a ding in their pocket and eventually someone else will probably provide the same service. Sounds like a no brainer for Google, right? However, there is another side to the story and something that perhaps Google may not have considered. To some they might come across as if they don’t care about the “little people” and are only focused on serving the majority.
“But as Ezra Klein notes, Google may face a trust issue. Translated into economese, Google has failed to consider the Lucas Critique: adoption behaviour for newly offered services will change in response to Google’s observed penchant for cancelling beloved products.”
Many have built their life around Google products such as the search platform, calendars and other apps but does Google really care about what we want. Google definitely has a lot of power in the mass majority but if they continue to yack away programs that are not as popular and step on the shoes of those “little people” they could eventually be deemed untrustworthy. As more and more companies produce products to battle against Google and they can provide the same type of services, some might decide to take their trust and more importantly their business elsewhere.
April Holmes, April 05, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Lucene Solr Revolution
April 5, 2013
It’s that time again. The Lucene/Solr community is eagerly awaiting the sixth annual Lucene/Solr Revolution Conference. The Sacramento Bee article “Lucene/Solr Revolution Catalyzes Open Source Search Industry” gives all of the juicy details about the event. LucidWorks recent announced that leaders from Linkedin, bitly and the Lucene/Solr Project Management Committee (PMC) will spearhead this year’s event which will be held April 29-May 2, 2013 at The Westin in San Diego, California. This event is the world’s largest gathering of Lucene/Solr game changers. This conference highlights the latest and greatest search breakthroughs. In addition to learning about the Lucene/Solr world attendees also get a chance to rub elbows with some of the best and brightest IT leaders in the industry. Also this year in addition to the various speaking guests, attendees will also get a chance to work up close and personal with experts. The new “Birds of a Feather” luncheon sessions will allow attendees to meet in smaller groups and discuss their ideas as well as other interesting topics related to Solr. Grant Ingersoll, CTO and Co-founder of LucidWorks had this to say.
“Thousands of Lucene/Solr developers worldwide already know that open source search will eclipse other technologies as the safe yet state-of-the art way to access information and sharpen their competitive edge. Lucene/Solr Revolution brings together a cross section of the greatest minds in the field to set the agenda for open source search innovation, packing years of expertise and networking into four action-filled days.”
With the growing popularity of the platform, Lucene/Solr lovers worldwide are expected to come out and be a part of this event. With so many great minds at one event, one can only guess what new ideas and technology will be born.
April Holmes, April 05, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Game Over Mode: Consumers and Searching
April 4, 2013
This morning I read “As Web Search Goes Mobile, Competitors Chip at Google’s Lead.” Keep in mind that when the link goes dead you will need the paper edition of the story on pages A 1 and A 4 of the April 4, 2013 issue or a for fee password to the New York Times’s online service.)
The main point is that mobile is surging. For many reasons, mobile search does not work the way desktop search and Web surfing worked when Backrub was bubbling toward Google. The article identifies the geolocation trend where coordinates coupled with some data about user behavior can deliver a place to buy coffee.
The article then says:
No longer do consumers want to search the Web like the index of a book — finding links at which a particular keyword appears. They expect new kinds of customized search, like that on topical sites such as Yelp, TripAdvisor or Amazon, which are chipping away at Google’s hold. Google and its competitors are trying to develop the knowledge and comprehension to answer specific queries, not just point users in the right direction.
The story then points out that there are 30 trillion Web address which is definitely quite a few places to index content. Searching a massive index with 2.5 words just does not work for “consumers.”
The story identifies social systems which put a person closer to someone or some information from someone which answers the user’s question. The wrap up to the article quotes a Google “fellow” who correctly states a Google truism:
“Most people have this very strong Google habit,” he said. “I go there every day and it gives me information I want, so it’s a self-reinforcing cycle. Not anyone can come in and just do those things.”
So what exactly is happening in consumer search? Outfits like Amazon and LinkedIn look like they are growing and presumably taking traffic from Google. On the other hand, Google seems confident that its market share and its remarkable diversity of ways to present information to users is in pretty good shape. Is this a chess-type draw, a paradox, or an analysis which makes search almost impossible to discuss without getting lost in clicks, segments, traffic, and user behavior data?
My view is that search has become a word which is acceptable in some circles and the equivalent of a curse word in others. Consumer wants answers to questions, and according to some experts, answers to questions the user does not know she yet has formulated. Vendors want revenue. Advertisers want people to buy their products and services. Teens want whatever teens want. Each tiny grouping of online users which can be labeled has search needs.
The problem is that figuring out exactly what the “need” is in a specific context is a field where further research and innovation are needed.
Robert Steele on Open Source Intelligence in 2013
April 4, 2013
Robert Steele has been a prescient thinking and actor in the intelligence sector for decades. In 1979 he was competitively selected to join the Central Intelligence Agency’s clandestine service. He spent nine years with the CIA, doing three tours overseas as a case officer recruiting and handling agents. In 1986, helped write the Marine Corps Master Intelligence Plan (MCMIP) as well as a plan for a Marine Corps Intelligence Center (MCIC). In the last 30 years, Mr. Steele has worked on a wide range of projects around the world.
In the interview which appeared in HighGainBlog, he said:
For all the money we spend on it, the secret world is not really providing the return on investment taxpayers should expect. Intelligence – decision support – is simply not being provided to everyone that needs it.
His views on the relationship of intelligence to decision support caught my attention as well. He said:
intelligence helps to emphasize that intelligence is synonymous with decision-support – the output of a very robust process of requirements definition, collection management, source discovery and validation, multi-source fusion, historically- and culturally-informed analytics, and the sharp visualization that answers an important question for a particular decision-making considering a particular decision challenge. Few realize that most of what is produced by the secret world is not intelligence at all. Rather, it is secret information that is generic in nature and often not useful to decision-makers.
Mr. Steele’s views on open source software identifies a trend which has been accelerating in the last few years. Proprietary software has issues which have added a turbo charger to open source software adoption. He asserted:
Proprietary software is unsafe, does not scale, and is unaffordable. I have been unhappy with all vendors for the past 40 years because not a single one of them is committed to helping people make sense of information – they focus on trapping customers into using them as a core system, make promises they cannot keep, and then over-charge for configuration management and data conversion. I am also very concerned about Google’s computational mathematics and programmable search engines – I have a very high regard for Google’s expertise, and a very low regard for the government’s ability to understand now Google can manipulate search outcomes and other forms.
For those interested in intelligence activities, the new Robert Steele interview is a must read. You can find the Steele 2013 interview in HighGainBlog. Mr. Steele’s Public Intelligence blog is a valuable resource.
Stephen E Arnold, April 4, 2013
Sponsored by Augmentext
Ingersoll Says the Solution is Search
April 4, 2013
For companies tackling big problems related to large sets of data, Grant Ingersoll has the solution – search. At the recent GigaOm Structure: Data Conference, Ingersoll, CTO of LucidWorks, recommends that organizations take another look at search solutions. GigaOm covers the details in their story, “How Search Can Solve Big Data Problems.”
The article begins:
“There are many solutions for figuring out how to parse large amounts of data, but LucidWorks CTO Grant Ingersoll has a suggestion: use search. At GigaOM’s Structure:Data conference in New York City Thursday, Ingersoll laid out his case for why search is a big part of dealing with databases and indexes. ‘Search should be a critical part of your architecture,’ he told attendees. It is a system building block for any large problem you’re trying to solve that requires a ranked set of results. And it doesn’t have to be just text search, it can be for any type of search, he said.”
Ingersoll goes on to assert that search has changed dramatically quickly. For those organizations that have not updated their search solution in several years, there are more options on the market that are likely to serve their purposes more effectively. LucidWorks, Ingersoll’s company, is a longstanding name in the field, and yet has undergone dramatic changes even in the last few years. If your organization is exploring options for more effective search and Big Data management, LucidWorks is worth a serious look.
Emily Rae Aldridge, April 4, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Federal Paper Overload
April 4, 2013
With all of the things that are going on in the federal government world it seems that they can add paperwork overload to the list. The GCN article “How to Get on Top of the Federal Records Tidal Wave” sheds light on not only the increasing amount of paperwork that federal agencies are dealing with but also how they are exceeding their annual records management budgets by millions. The MeriTalk survey of federal records managers survey report “Federal Records Management: Navigating the Storm” found the following
“A single federal agency currently spends an average of $34.4 million per year on records management, and manages an average of 209 million records. That number is expected to increase as much as 144 percent — to 511 million records — by 2015.”
Survey participants felt that the inability for their agencies to properly manage their records posed as a hindrance to their agency operations. It was estimated that 18 percent of the annual budget is lost due to inefficient records management. The number of records is expected to grow from 8.4 billion to 20.4 billion so the lack of proper paperwork management could snowball if not gotten under control. 43 percent of survey respondents thought that records management personnel needed better training, 33 percent suggested more funding and 32 percent suggested more support from agency leadership as the best ways to improve managing records. The report recommended that records management should be a top priority and that agencies should invest in training. In addition “agency managers should adopt smart digitization methods and timely destruction of records.” The Federal Paper Work Act was supposed to be the answer to the paperwork overload but looks like big data has taken over. Only time will tell if this is really an improvement or just another shot in the dark.
April Holmes, April 04, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Advice for Scalable Search from Parse
April 4, 2013
Ah, the excitement of scaling. The ParseBlog gives developers some practical advice in, “Implementing Scalable Search on a NoSQL Backend.” As the makers of the popular cloud platform used by such conspicuous clients as Cisco, Ferrari, and the Food Network, Parse should know what they’re talking about, particularly when it comes to working with their product.
Engineer Brad Kittenbrink emphasizes that simple search algorithms, perfectly good for quickly getting a prototype up and running, can lead to seriously bogged-down performance later. He writes:
“The key to making searches run efficiently is to minimize the number of documents that have to be examined when executing each query by using an index. To do that you need to keep in mind what kinds of queries you want to support when designing how to organize your data. The more structured and limited these queries are, the easier this will be. . . .
“To organize your data model to support efficient searching, you’ll need to know a bit about how our systems are operating behind the abstraction. You’ll need to build your data model in a way that it’s easy for us to build an index for the data you want to be searchable.”
The post notes that Parse has implemented some new features to make searches more efficient, and goes on to give a couple of examples, including some sample code. Launched in 2011, the company is located in San Francisco. And, by the way, they are hiring.
Cynthia Murrell, April 04, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
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