Microsoft Extends DLP to SharePoint
September 9, 2014
Microsoft is unveiling data loss prevention for the Office 365 suite. Administrators will be able to search for information across SharePoint Online and OneDrive. Read more in the PCWorld article, “Microsoft Rolls Out DLP to SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business.”
The article begins:
“Microsoft has extended the data loss prevention features in Office 365 so that they are available not only for its email tools but also for data in SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business. Office 365 already had DLP capabilities for Exchange Online and Outlook, so that compliance officers could monitor email communications and enforce corporate and regulatory rules regarding the use of sensitive corporate data, such as confidential intellectual property details and customers’ financial information.”
Microsoft continues to improve the Office 365, spending special attention on streamlining and improving the user experience for SharePoint. For users who are interested in keeping up with the latest updates, keep an eye on ArnoldIT.com and particularly the SharePoint feed. Stephen E. Arnold has made a career out of all things search, and his expertise shines through as he offers the latest tips and tricks for SharePoint users.
Emily Rae Aldridge, September 09, 2014
Thinking about Enterprise Search? VUCA Is for You
September 8, 2014
the Harvard business Review is embracing some of the alleged jargon used by intel analysts, warfighters, and with-it Beltway Bandits. Now the relationship between use of the acronym VUCA and everyday business decisions about toner and where to have lunch is tenuous at best. The term warrants a comment.
First, however, what does the write up “A Framework for Understanding VUCA” share with the managers of the world? The article defines VUCA as “volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity.” Ah, these are the concepts that have launched a 1,000 marketing presentations about search, analytics, and content processing. A fancy new, state of the art, analytics system incorporating entity extraction, faceting, and linguistic understanding will help make VUCA a bad dream. VUCA is like Ebola for an organization. Bad indeed. No reliable cure. High mortality rate. VUGA = Bad.
Next, VUCA makes planning difficult. “Hey, it’s crazy out there.” This seems pretty tricky. The HBR write up suggests tackling VUCA with flexibility. Fight with a quadrant, not the original analytics based Boston Consulting grid. VUCA requires one of those squishy grids with quite a bit of subjectivity.
Also, the HBR content requires reading and a sound function. When I accessed the rich media, I heard nothing. A flaw in my system or a reminder of the challenges VUCA presents to publishers as well as lesser managers.
Second, what’s VUCA have to do with search, analytics, and content marketing. Given the spectacular thrashing over Autonomy and the lesser stomping around about Lucid Works (originally Lucid Imagination), VUCA seems to be a large part of the information retrieval sales process and the management process. Stated another way, search, analytics, and content processing are supposed to decrease VUCA. The reality seems to be that where search, analytics, and content processing are deployed, VUCA becomes a very big deal. It does not work particularly well and there is no easy way to figure out what’s right, what’s incorrect, what’s broken, and what’s actually useful.
So the equation can be modified to state VUCA=Search.
One of the comments to the HBR VUCA analysis is interesting to me; to wit:
The VUCA label is so typical in the business world. The idea
that it’s new is such a load of crap. To use it for an excuse not to develop and execute a strategy or plan is abdication of the highest order. I’d say I have as much experience in this as most. Launching a successful international passenger and cargo airline in an active war zone clearly involved all the elements of VUCA. Your analysis is correct. Any leader must deal with these elements daily. The idea that the world is somehow more uncertain, complex or ambiguous is garbage. Volatility varies regularly over time. You create and execute a strategy in this world the same way you did in the world of yesterday and stop whining.
Why not order up a T shirt with VUCA=Ebola to make the point.
For me, consultants will love VUCA. I can’t wait for mid tier consultants to use this hip military lingo in their content marketing.
Stephen E Arnold, September 8, 2014
ElasticSearch Rides The Rails
September 8, 2014
If you have been reading this blog for a while, then you are aware that search is an important feature for using any computer with ease. Without search, people would be forced to scan information one piece at a time or rely on indices. For those who remember microfiche, you can understand. Search in applications has been a semi-fleeting endeavor for some developers, but SitePoint has an article, “Full-Text Search In Rails With ElasticSearch” that explains how to integrate ElasticSearch into a Rails application.
“A full-text search engine examines all of the words in every stored document as it tries to match search criteria (text specified by a user) Wikipedia. For example, if you want to find articles that talk about Rails, you might search using the term “rails”. If you don’t have a special indexing technique, it means fully scanning all records to find matches, which will be extremely inefficient. One way to solve this is an “inverted index” that maps the words in the content of all records to its location in the database.”
As applications become more versatile, they will need to be searched. The article provides one way to make your applications searchable, scan the Web with a search engine and learn about other ways to integrate search. Also make sure that it is a decent search code, otherwise it will not be worth the deployment.
Whitney Grace, September 08, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Algorithmic Quality Control for Wikipedia
September 8, 2014
Wikipedia is a wonderful thing, but we all know it has its limitations. ScienceDaily points us to a tool that can help seekers of information separate the wheat from the chaff in, “Computer Program Assesses Quality of Wikipedia Entries.” The quality control system is the creation of computer scientists Jingyu Han and Kejia Chen at China’s Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications. The article reveals:
“Han and Chen have turned to Bayesian statistics to help them create just such a system…. Today, Bayesian analysis is commonly used to assess the content of emails and to determine the probability that the content is spam, junk mail, and so filter it from the user’s inbox if the probability is high.
“Han and Chen have now used dynamic Bayesian network (DBN) to analyze in a similar manner the content of Wikipedia entries. They apply multivariate Gaussian distribution modeling to the DBN analysis, which gives them a distribution of the quality of each article so that entries might be ranked. Very low-ranking entries might be flagged for editorial attention to raise the quality. By contrast, high-ranking entries could be marked in some way as the definitive entry so that such an entry is not subsequently overwritten with lower quality information.”
Reportedly, tests of the algorithm’s article assessment chops have performed well. In fact, they claim it out-performed human quality-rankers by 23 percent (though how they determined that is left unexplained). The article notes that an algorithmic quality control would “avoid the subjective need to have people classify each entry.” Wait, isn’t some subjectivity necessary? As far as I know, we have not developed an AI that can comprehend all the subtleties of human expression. Not yet, anyway.
Cynthia Murrell, September 08, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Another Weekend, More HP Autonomy Mud Slinging
September 6, 2014
I read “HP Alleges Autonomy Email Warning of Falling Revenues and ‘Imaginary Deals’ Shows Fraud.”
HP released an email from Autonomy’s CFO to Autonomy’s president. It would be helpful to have a larger number of emails and some context for a message sent from a mobile phone.
According to the write up:
HP claims the disclosure supports its allegations of fraud against Dr Lynch, who was then chief executive of Autonomy. It has today accused him in a Californian court of lying “to an extraordinary extent” about the performance of his company during the due diligence process that led to its $11.7bn (£7.1bn) acquisition.
If Autonomy were in such bad shape, how did HP miss these signals?
HP is going to keep Autonomy in the center of its content marketing campaign. The charges and counter charges underscore the risks associated with search and content processing software.
Stephen E Arnold, September 6, 2014
LucidWorks Takes Bullets, Mid Tier Consultant Gets Some Info Upside Down and Backward
September 6, 2014
Navigate to “Trouble at LucidWorks: Lawsuits, Lost Deals, & Layoffs Plague the Search Startup Despite Funding.”
Another search vendor struggling for survival is not a surprise. What is interesting is that the write up identifies that venture money was needed to stay afloat, a youthful whiz kid cannot deliver revenues, and that former staff say some pretty negative things.
What struck me as interesting was the information smashed into some sentences from a mid tier consulting firm’s search expert. Did you know that Microsoft gives away Fast Search & Transfer technology. This the same code that received high marks in a magic quadrant and contributed to a jail sentence for the founder of Fast Search. Did you know Did you know that the Google Search Appliance was a low cost search option? I did not. In fact, if you look up prices on the US government’s GSAadvantage.gov site, the GSA is a pretty expensive solution. Did you know that make money in open source search is not easy? Maybe not easy but it seems as if RedHat is doing okay.
Why do I ask these questions? I enjoy pointing out that what looks like reasonable statements from an expert may be “out of square.” For color on this reference, see this Beyond Search article.
What about LucidWorks? The company struggled with creating revenue around a layer of software that interacts with Lucene. There were squabbles, turnover in senior management, and pivots.
What is important is that even when a search and content processing company minimizes these and other issues, search is a darned tough software segment to make spin cash.
LucidWorks may survive. But in the larger context of information retrieval, the long shadows cast by Autonomy and Fast Search & Transfer are reminders that painting word pictures about complex technology may be much easier than building a search company with sustainable revenues.
Stephen E Arnold, September , 2014
YouTube: The Real Giant in Online Advertising
September 5, 2014
I wonder who suggested this study? I wonder who sponsored the study? How about a gigantic multi million pool of data? Could the “study” shore up Google’s ad revenue as folks shift to mobile search? What about that lousy Web site traffic? How is that working out for those who chase sales leads and sales with a mere Web site? So many questions.
Navigate to “Study: In Social Advertising, YouTube Converts More Customers Than Anyone Else.”
I learned from a testimonial:
“We believe that YouTube does well in both of these important purchase funnel areas for a number of reasons,” Jeff Zwelling, CEO and co-founder at Convertro told me by phone this week. “YouTube’s own search volume and preferential positioning on Google’s results help drive large amounts of traffic, of course. But when you get to YouTube, the content is rich, descriptive, and usually helpful.” “I’ve done this myself. I recently bought a coffee machine. I had the decision down to three alternatives and couldn’t decide which one was best for me,” Zwelling said. “In the end, I watched videos on YouTube of people using all three machines and chose the one that matched my idea of a good coffee maker.”
But Twitter has some value:
“Throughout our study, it is clear that social media in general — and Twitter in particular — is much more likely than any other marketing channel to provide the customer with brand awareness and consideration of a product,” Zwelling said.
Oh, oh. Twitter. Grrr.
And for you duffs with a Web site. Here’s a “finding” for your consideration:
As we know from recent studies, 99% of organic messages get almost no interaction on social media. Aol Platforms’ report backs this up, showing that only 1% of organic product-promoting tweets lead to a direct purchasing decision. But what happens when you sponsor a tweet?
So there. You can download this report at this link.
Go, YouTube.
Stephen E Arnold, September 5, 2014
An IBM Watson Boot Camp: Gimmee 20!
September 5, 2014
Hopefully a demo will become available. Do you think?
Navigate to “IBM, CUNY Launch Watson Student App Competition.” From a content marketing article, I learned from eWeek:
The contest, known as the CUNY-IBM Watson Case Competition, is an opportunity to learn and develop apps for applying the IBM Watson cognitive technology to improve the operation of organizations and the delivery of services to customers. The IBM Watson technology embodies the future, and this competition enables CUNY students to be part of the new generation involved in the jobs and businesses that will be created.
This is not the first Watson competition. The content marketing article does a round up.
Alas, no links to demos. Just more Watson is wonderful; for example:
Indeed, some possible examples to apply IBM Watson are improving the quality and effectiveness of public undergraduate education and helping to better deliver public services such as public safety, health and transportation. Teams of CUNY students will work through various milestones during the fall 2014 semester, while being mentored by IBM, CUNY faculty and other experts in the field. Teams of three to five students will present their preliminary concepts during Watson “boot camp” Oct. 24 and 25. The finalists will participate in a final round of presentations on Jan. 15, 2015, when cash prizes will be awarded to the top three teams.
Indeed.
Stephen E Arnold, September 5, 2014
Open Text Excellence: Oh, the System Did It
September 5, 2014
This is the outfit that once employed the name surfer Dave Schubmehl. He is the IDC expert who sold information on Amazon without my permission. Once he bailed, I assumed Open Text would improve.
Nope. Wrong.
I received this in the mail today.
OpenText <UKMarketing@opentext.com>
3:04 PM (3 hours ago)
to me
If your email program has trouble displaying this email, view it as a web page:
http://now.eloqua.com/es.asp?s=459&e=364560&elq=e8df3eefea2d4395ac3aa3fd70a82281We would like to give you our sincere apologies
Dear Stephen ,
As an unfortunate consequence of a system problem, we have been made aware that an email titled “OpenText UK Partner Day” has been accidentally sent to a wider audience than expected. You received this in error and we would ask that you ignore the email.
Best regards
OpenText UK Communications Team
Not only do I live in Harrod’s Creek, Kentucky, I have never attended an Open Text event. I do know that Red Dot used the Autonomy search system and that Red Dot performance was—ahem, well, let’s see—processing queries in minutes at one client location, long enough for staff to get a coffee…outside the building.
Also, I know Open Text has to support BASIS, Bray’s SGML Search, BRS Search, and probably some other systems. My, isn’t this too expensive to do well?
Anyway, Open Text apologizes for its spam and erroneous communications. Nice stuff. I like the passive voice. Who wants to assign responsibility for spam? Anyone? Oh, a system problem.
Stephen E Arnold, September 5, 2014
The Right to Be Forgotten and Monkey Selfies
September 5, 2014
The tension between privacy and open information is on full display now that the European Union’s “right to be forgotten” ruling is being implemented. BBC News reports, “Wikipedia Reveals Google ‘Forgotten’ Search Links.” Despite its strongly voiced objections, Google is complying with the court’s decision; it has set up this page where Europeans can request information be unlinked.
Now the Wikimedia Foundation (which manages Wikipedia) is posting removal notices it has received from Google related to the ruling. Perhaps the top name in open information, the foundation protests that the process is leaving the Internet “riddled with memory holes.” The BBC article goes on to report:
“The Wikimedia Foundation has also published its first transparency report – following a similar practice by Google, Twitter and others. It reveals that the organisation received 304 general content removal requests between July 2012 and June 2014, none of which it complied with. They included a takedown request from a photographer who had claimed he owned the copyright to a series of selfies taken by a monkey. Gloucestershire-based David Slater had rotated and cropped the images featured on the site. But the foundation rejected his claim on the grounds that the monkey had taken the photo, and was therefore the real copyright owner.”
Those monkey photos alone are worth clicking through to this story—there’s a short news video about them that well illustrates the absurdity of the situation. Besides, this is a very handsome monkey. And, apparently, quite the photographer.
Cynthia Murrell, September 05, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
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