Enterprise Search: The Quest for a Big Red Button
October 9, 2014
I just returned after three days at a content processing conference. This was not one of the search engine optimization or vendor rah rah shows for search and business intelligence. Nevertheless, several presentations and numerous participants voiced a need for a “big red button.”
I think search and content processing vendors may want to spend a few minutes thinking about this metaphor.
So what’s a big red button? The idea among the law enforcement and intelligence professionals at this conference in the suburbs of Washington, DC embrace an office supply vendor advertising campaign. The ad made the point that ordering from the vendor was as easy as pressing a big red button labeled “Easy.”
How does an ad for ink jet cartridges and pencils relate to six and seven figure enterprise search and content processing systems?
Easy, of course.
At this conference, the attendees and a number of speakers talked about the need to simplify findability, tracking, and analysis systems. The fancy visualizations, the ability to store massive amounts of data in a secure cloud, and the appetite among investigators for data is rising.
The usability of the systems is either choked by work cycles that do not produce useful outputs, held back by a shortage of specialists who can operate these systems, or weighted down with bells and whistles that get in the way of some essential functions.
Enterprise search, analysis systems, and intelligence systems were described as one exhibitor as “the major barrier to sales.” One of the speakers from an investigative unit groused, “Once set up, my team has a very difficult time making changes to get the outputs in line with our operational needs.”
A recent study by the Association for Information and Image Management (AIIM) reported that “more than half of the organizations surveyed show little maturity in their approach to search, with no strategy, no allocated budget and no identified owner.”
How can vendors deliver solutions when the customers exhibit indifference to useful technology? How can the technology deliver results to the user so that more informed decisions can be made?
These are important questions that cannot be answered by references to low cost search options, buzzwords, and bootlegging fixes so a single user or a small unit can access digital information.
Several observations are warranted:
First, the sales cycle is becoming longer for many vendors, not just those at the intelligence trade show I attended. Digital solutions are procured in a way that defers a decision. None of the individuals involved wants to make a choice that will lead to pushback from users or scrutiny from the accounting department.
Second, the users get tangled in complex systems. When new systems are explored, the users want simplicity and the vendors deliver complexity. The “failure to communicate” adds bureaucratic friction and in some cases flare ups among vendors, decision makers, and technical staff reviewing a solution.
Third, the benefits of a system or an incumbent system are often very difficult if not impossible to demonstrate. Without concrete data about cost/benefit or crimes solved or good decisions/bad decision ratios—search and content processing has a credibility problem.
The big red button is a powerful metaphor that suggests a pivotal moment in digital information access has arrived. Without a big red button, search and content processing may face even stronger headwinds going forward.
Stephen E Arnold, October 9, 2014
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