Microsoft Streamlining Update Process for SharePoint 2016
April 9, 2015
One of the most frequent complaints from SharePoint users and administrators is the cumbersome update process. It seems that Microsoft is listening and finally responding. Read more in the Redmond Channel Partner article, “Microsoft To Revamp Update Process for SharePoint 2016.”
The article sums up the news:
“The process of updating SharePoint Server will become less cumbersome in the next version of the product, according to a Microsoft executive. Speaking about the upcoming SharePoint 2016 during an IT Unity-hosted talk last Friday, Bill Baer, a Microsoft senior technical product manager and a Microsoft Certified Master for SharePoint, said that IT pros will get smaller updates and that applying them will entail less downtime for organizations.”
Less downtime for organizations will be a welcome change. Stephen E. Arnold is a longtime search expert, and has followed SharePoint through its ups and downs. He often finds that though SharePoint is the most widely adopted enterprise solution, its complicated nature and poor user experience often lead to perceived failures. Keep up with the latest SharePoint news on ArnoldIT.com, specifically the dedicated SharePoint feed, to determine if the streamlining of updates leads to higher marks for SharePoint.
Emily Rae Aldridge, April 9, 2015
Stephen E Arnold, Publisher of CyberOSINT at www.xenky.com
Funnelback and Its Value Proposition
April 8, 2015
Short honk: I was cruising through the Web sites of search vendors which have dropped off my radar. The Funnelback Web site is now red and gray. Aside from the bold colors, the Web site introduces an interesting capability of the Funnelback system. I won’t go into the long history of Funnelback and how it became a commercial enterprise search system. I want to focus on this phrase: tangible insights. Here’s the context for the phrase:
Funnelback is a search platform that enables you to go further, faster, with tangible insights that help you transform your business.
I thought that “tangible” meant this courtesy of Dictionary.coma:
1. capable of being touched; discernible by the touch; material or substantial.
2. real or actual, rather than imaginary or visionary: the tangible benefits of sunshine.
3. definite; not vague or elusive: no tangible grounds for suspicion.
4. (of an asset) having actual physical existence, as real estate or chattels, and therefore capable of being assigned a value in monetary terms.
I thought that “insights” meant this:
1. an instance of apprehending the true nature of a thing, especially through intuitive understanding: an insight into 18th-century life.
2. penetrating mental vision or discernment; faculty of seeing into inner character or underlying truth.
I remember the former president’s comment to me that my write up of Funnelback was no good. The wizard did not recall that I provided the draft to him and he delegated the editorial review to a member of his staff. The wizard, who is undoubtedly brighter than I, was criticizing his own colleague’s inputs to the document. I suppose that is an example in the addled world of big time search based on government funded research a “tangible insight.” Well, could it be an example of how addled thinking can surface because of the organization’s DNA?
Now the question: What exactly is a tangible insight output from the Funnelback system? I am waiting because I do not want to go further or faster. I want some clear thinking when it comes to explaining what an enterprise search system actually does? Has language lost its meaning before the search engine optimizers bring semantics to their fine work?
Penetrating and real too.
Stephen E Arnold, April 8, 2015
Enterprise Search-Splaining: Obfuscating Cost and Value Yet Again
April 8, 2015
When a bean counter tallies up the cost of an enterprise search system, the reaction, in my experience, is, “How did we get to this number?” The question is most frequently raised in larger organizations, and it is one to which enterprise search staff and their consultants often have no acceptable answer.
Search-splainers position the cost overruns, diminish the importance of the employees’ dissatisfaction with the enterprise search system, and unload glittering generalities to get a consulting deal. Meanwhile, enterprise search remains a challenged software application.
Consulting engineers, upgrades, weekend crash recoveries, optimizing, and infrastructure hassles balloon the cost of an enterprise search system. At some point, a person charged with figuring out why employees are complaining, implementing workarounds, and not using the system have to be investigated. When answers are not satisfying, financial meltdowns put search vendors out of business. Examples range from Convera and the Intel and NBA matters to the unnoticed death of Delphes, Entopia, Siderean, et al.
Search to most professionals, regardless of occupation, means Google. Bang in a word or two and Google delivers the bacon or the soy bean paste substitute. Most folks do not know the difference, nor, in my view, do they care. Google is how one finds information.
The question, “Why can’t enterprise search be like Google?”
Another question, “How can a person with a dog in the search find search-plain; that is, “prove” how important search is to kith and kin, truth and honor, sales and profit.
For most professionals, search Google style is “free.” The perception is fueled with the logs of ignorance. Google is providing objective information. Google is good. Google is the yardstick by which enterprise search is measured. Enterprise search comes up short. Implement a Google Search Appliance, and the employees don’t like that solution either.
What’s up?
Inside an organization, finding information is an essential part of a job. One cannot work on a report unless that person can locate information about the topic. Most of the data are housed in emails, PowerPoints, multiple drafts of Word documents stuffed with change tracking emendations, and maybe some paper notes. In some cases, a professional will have to speak face to face or via the phone to a colleague. The information then requires massaging, analysis, and reformation.
Ah, the corporate life is little more than one more undergraduate writing assignment with some Excel tossed in.
Progress in Image Search Tech
April 8, 2015
Anyone interested in the mechanics behind image search should check out the description of PicSeer: Search Into Images from YangSky. The product write-up goes into surprising detail about what sets their “cognitive & semantic image search engine” apart, complete with comparative illustrations. The page’s translation seems to have been done either quickly or by machine, but don’t let the awkward wording in places put you off; there’s good information here. The text describes the competition’s approach:
“Today, the image searching experiences of all major commercial image search engines are embarrassing. This is because these image search engines are
- Using non-image correlations such as the image file names and the texts in the vicinity of the images to guess what are the images all about;
- Using low-level features, such as colors, textures and primary shapes, of image to make content-based indexing/retrievals.”
With the first approach, they note, trying to narrow the search terms is inefficient because the software is looking at metadata instead of inspecting the actual image; any narrowed search excludes many relevant entries. The second approach above simply does not consider enough information about images to return the most relevant, and only most relevant, results. The write-up goes on to explain what makes their product different, using for their example an endearing image of a smiling young boy:
“How can PicSeer have this kind of understanding towards images? The Physical Linguistic Vision Technologies have can represent cognitive features into nouns and verbs called computational nouns and computational verbs, respectively. In this case, the image of the boy is represented as a computational noun ‘boy’ and the facial expression of the boy is represented by a computational verb ‘smile’. All these steps are done by the computer itself automatically.”
See the write-up for many more details, including examples of how Google handles the “boy smiles” query. (Be warned– there’s a very brief section about porn filtering that includes a couple censored screenshots and adult keyword examples.) It looks like image search technology progressing apace.
Cynthia Murrell, April 08, 2015
Stephen E Arnold, Publisher of CyberOSINT at www.xenky.com
Google Altered Search Results?!
April 8, 2015
If you know anything about search results, search engine optimization, and search algorithms, you probably wondered if Google ever changed its search results so they would be favor one search result over another. Google already alters results with Google AdWords, the Right to Forgotten, and removing results if they break rules.
The FTC revealed via The Wall Street Journal that Google has been altering its search results for profit: “Inside The US Antitrust Probe Of Google.” The FTC found that Google was using its monopoly on search to harm Internet users and its rivals. FTC recommended a lawsuit be brought against Google for three of its practices. The FTC voted to end the investigation in 2013, which is strange, but they did so because they had competing recommendations.
Google continues to stand by its own innocence, citing that the case closed two years ago and that people continue to use its services. There is one big thing that the Wall Street Journal points out:
“On one issue—whether Google used anticompetitive tactics for its search engine—the competition staff recommended against a lawsuit, although it said Google’s actions resulted in “significant harm” to rivals. In three other areas, the report found evidence the company used its monopoly behavior to help its own business and hurt its rivals.”
Can this be considered part of their “do not evil” bylaw?
Whitney Grace, April 8, 2015
Stephen E Arnold, Publisher of CyberOSINT at www.xenky.com
Cyber Wizards Speak Publishes Exclusive BrightPlanet Interview with William Bushee
April 7, 2015
Cyber OSINT continues to reshape information access. Traditional keyword search has been supplanted by higher value functions. One of the keystones for systems that push “beyond search” is technology patented and commercialized by BrightPlanet.
A search on Google often returns irrelevant or stale results. How can an organization obtain access to current, in-depth information from Web sites and services not comprehensively indexed by Bing, Google, ISeek, or Yandex?
The answer to the question is to turn to the leader in content harvesting, BrightPlanet. The company was one of the first, if not the first, to develop systems and methods for indexing information ignored by Web indexes which follow links. Founded in 2001, BrightPlanet has emerged as a content processing firm able to make accessible structured and unstructured data ignored, skipped, or not indexed by Bing, Google, and Yandex.
In the BrightPlanet seminar open to law enforcement, intelligence, and security professionals, BrightPlanet said the phrase “Deep Web” is catchy but it does not explain what type of information is available to a person with a Web browser. A familiar example is querying a dynamic database, like an airline for its flight schedule. Other types of “Deep Web” content may require the user to register. Once logged into the system, users can query the content available to a registered user. A service like Bitpipe requires registration and a user name and password each time I want to pull a white paper from the Bitpipe system. BrightPlanet can handle both types of indexing tasks and many more. BrightPlanet’s technology is used by governmental agencies, businesses, and service firms to gather information pertinent to people, places, events, and other topics
In an exclusive interview, William Bushee, the chief executive officer at BrightPlanet, reveals the origins of the BrightPlanet approach. He told Cyber Wizards Speak:
I developed our initial harvest engine. At the time, little work was being done around harvesting. We filed for a number of US Patents applications for our unique systems and methods. We were awarded eight, primarily around the ability to conduct Deep Web harvesting, a term BrightPlanet coined.
The BrightPlanet system is available as a cloud service. Bushee noted:
We have migrated from an on-site license model to a SaaS [software as a service] model. However, the biggest change came after realizing we could not put our customers in charge of conducting their own harvests. We thought we could build the tools and train the customers, but it just didn’t work well at all. We now harvest content on our customers’ behalf for virtually all projects and it has made a huge difference in data quality. And, as I mentioned, we provide supporting engineering and technical services to our clients as required. Underneath, however, we are the same sharply focused, customer centric, technology operation.
The company also offers data as a service. Bushee explained:
We’ve seen many of our customers use our Data-as-a-Service model to increase revenue and customer share by adding new datasets to their current products and service offerings. These additional datasets develop new revenue streams for our customers and allow them to stay competitive maintaining existing customers and gaining new ones altogether. Our Data-as-a-Service offering saves time and money because our customers no longer have to invest development hours into maintaining data harvesting and collection projects internally. Instead, they can access our harvesting technology completely as a service.
The company has accelerated its growth through a partnering program. Bushee stated:
We have partnered with K2 Intelligence to offer a full end-to-end service to financial institutions, combining our harvest and enrichment services with additional analytic engines and K2’s existing team of analysts. Our product offering will be a service monitoring various Deep Web and Dark Web content enriched with other internal data to provide a complete early warning system for institutions.
BrightPlanet has emerged as an excellent resource to specialized content services. In addition to providing a client-defined collection of information, the firm can provide custom-tailored solutions to special content needs involving the Deep Web and specialized content services. The company has an excellent reputation among law enforcement, intelligence, and security professionals. The BrightPlanet technologies can generate a stream of real-time content to individuals, work groups, or other automated systems.
BrightPlanet has offices in Washington, DC, and can be contacted via the BrightPlanet Web site atwww.brightplanet.com.
The complete interview is available at the Cyber Wizards Speak web site at www.xenky.com/brightplanet.
Stephen E Arnold, April 7, 2015
Blog: www.arnoldit.com/wordpress Frozen site: www.arnoldit.com Current site: www.xenky.com
Microsoft Veteran Transitioning to New Role
April 7, 2015
Chris Jones, a veteran with Microsoft since 1991, is transitioning to a new role within the organization. Jones is the former head of the OneDrive and SharePoint teams. Microsoft has been making many announcements regarding changes with SharePoint lately, including the impending release of SharePoint 2016. Read more in the ZDNet article, “Microsoft’s OneDrive, SharePoint Chief to Take on a New Role.”
The article begins:
“Microsoft veteran Chris Jones, the current head of the OneDrive and SharePoint businesses at the company, will be transitioning to a new job in Microsoft’s Applications and Services Group (ASG) later this year. Jones, who has been at Microsoft since 1991, will be passing the Corporate Vice President torch to Phil Smoot, another Microsoft veteran who has worked on the Hotmail and Azure Storage businesses.”
To stay apprised of all the latest SharePoint news and developments, keep a close eye on Steven E. Arnold’s Web site, ArnoldIT.com. Arnold is a longtime search expert and operates a dedicated SharePoint feed on his Web site. Changes within SharePoint’s highest management could indicate additional directional changes that may affect customers. Stay tuned.
Emily Rae Aldridge, April 7, 2015
Stephen E Arnold, Publisher of CyberOSINT at www.xenky.com
Google has Made Web Sites Hot and Angry
April 7, 2015
Business Insider tells more about Google’s dominating behavior in “The Google Backlash Is Growing.” The backlash spawned from the FTC’s recently leaked report about how Google threatened to remove Web sites from search engine results if they did not allow Google to use their content.
“At the heart of the matter is the internal FTC report’s finding that Google was effectively blackmailing competing sites like Yelp and Amazon into using their data in its own search result. If they didn’t agree, they would get blacklisted from search results entirely.”
Google was facing a lawsuit, but they made some changes so they were able to escape…in the US. In Europe, an investigation is still underway. Some think the EU is harboring hostilities against a US company, but they are say it is not.
People in the US like Consumer Watchdog want the US Senate to reopen investigations to prove that Google is favoring its own services in search results and making competition appear in lower search rankings. Google, however, maintains its innocence and wants the matter to rest.
Is it not common business practice to downplay the competition? Not to say Google is innocent, but it makes logical sense to use that old school business tactic, especially when they control a whole lot of search.
Whitney Grace, April 7, 2015
Stephen E Arnold, Publisher of CyberOSINT at www.xenky.com
AI May Give Edge to Small and Medium Businesses
April 7, 2015
Over at the B2B News Network, writer Rick Delgado shares some observations about the use of data-related AI in small and medium-sized businesses in his piece, “Building Business Intelligence Through Artificial Intelligence.” He asserts that using AI-enhanced data analysis can help such companies compete with the big players. He writes:
“Most smaller companies don’t have experienced IT technicians and data scientists familiar with the language required for proper data analysis. Having an AI feature allows employees to voice questions as they would normally talk, and even allows for simple-to-understand responses, as opposed to overly technical insights. The ability to understand a program is key to its functionality, and AI shortens the learning curve allowing organizations to get to work faster.”
The article observes that AI can help with sales and marketing by, for example, narrowing down leads to the most promising prospects. It can also make supply chains more efficient. Delgado notes that, though existing supply-chain tools are not very adaptable, he believes they will soon automatically adjust for changing factors like transportation costs or commodity prices around the world. The article concludes:
“Any attempt to predict how AI will evolve over the coming years is a fool’s errand, because every new discovery leads to countless possibilities. What we do know is that AI won’t remain restricted to just improving sales and organizational supply chain. Already we see its availability to everyday users with announcements like Microsoft combining AI with Windows. Experts are also exploring other possibilities, like using AI to improve network security, law enforcement and robotics. The important takeaway is that the combination of Big Data and AI will allow for rapid decisions that don’t require constant human oversight, improving both efficiency and productivity.”
Wonderful! We would caution our dear readers to look before they leap, however. To avoid wasting time and money, a company should know just what they need from their software before they go shopping.
Cynthia Murrell, April 7, 2015
Stephen E Arnold, Publisher of CyberOSINT at www.xenky.com
Google and Metapersonnel Insights
April 6, 2015
Forget Xooglers. The ranks of the former Googlers continue to swell. Focus on the new Googlers. These are the folks eager to join the online advertising, Loon balloon, and Glass is not dead parade. In this article I am going to reference two allegedly factual incidents involving Googlers in the last year or so. You may want to read:
I read “How to Get Ahead at Work: 10 Tips from Google’s Head of HR.” The write up lays out a checklist to help me advance in my career. Spoiler alert: There was not a word about legal hassles, senior management liaisons, or projects that get killed, shelved, or forgotten.
The write up is a happy thing, and it contains some advice I suppose I would follow if I were a precocious 21 year old again. Ah, those were the days. I was impressionable, and I thought that pronouncements from well paid professionals wearing blue jeans were the pinnacle of sartorial savvy.
Let’s look at these “tips.”
The first tip is that I as the callow 21 year old have to give my work meaning. Now I suppose that works like a champ when one is employed at Google. But my first job as a 21 year old was dealing with the Byzantine bureaucracy of the US nuclear establishment. I am into meaning, but what “meaning” is there when smashing atoms and avoiding contamination are daily fare? Oh, a quick question: What is “meaning”? I am baffled still, even at age 70.
The second tip is to trust people. I find this interesting. I recall that a certain senior manager at Google left his wife to interact with a more youthful Googler. Then there was the Googler who died of a controlled substance event in the presence of a person who allegedly rented herself to those with free cash. I wonder how that “trust” thing is working with the wives affected by the alleged behaviors of Googlers?
The third tip is to hire people who are better than I. Okay. I am not sure if I do that. I have a yard crew, assorted failed middle school teachers, a couple of addled 60 year olds, and the odd 20 something wizard. I am just not very good, so I am not sure how to judge if someone on the yard crew is better than I when it comes to analyzing Google’s human resource tips. Does “good” mean smarter, stronger, healthier, better sighted, or more comely? I am not sure what the angle is. In terms of work, there is a task, and I assumed one should hire an individual who can perform that task. The “better” fools me. For example, if I do not cavort with a 20 something while wearing a Google product, does that make me less “better”? I am puzzled.
The fourth tip is also confusing to me: “Don’t confuse development with managing performance?” I assume this is on the job performance, not the extra curricular stuff like the drugs on the yacht or the marketer seeking medical attention. The write up explains:
Even the most successful people fail to learn. And if they can’t learn, what hope is there for the rest of us? It’s not pleasant to confront your own weaknesses. If you marry criticism with consequence, if people feel that a miss means that they will be hurt professionally or economically, they will argue instead of being open to learning and growing. Make developmental conversations safe and productive by having them all the time. Always start with an attitude of “How can I help you be more successful?”
The assumption is that the person “guiding” me is someone who has a character and interpersonal integrity to which I can relate. When that is absent, I am sorry. I do not learn. I am an old fashioned sort tangled in notions of ethical behavior. Again, the tip is falling on my imagined 21 year old deaf ears.
The fifth tip is pretty amazing. The idea is to pay attention to the best employees and the worst employees. That works out in a normal curve to a small percentage of the total employee count. So if a manager has two employees, the tip wants me to pay attention to the two people. Okay, that makes sense. But if I have 150 employees reporting to me as I did when I was at Halliburton Nuclear, that means I ignore that majority of my employees. Hmm. I suppose that is practical, but what if one of the ignored employees has a good idea or decides to photocopy confidential documents and high tail it to another company. As a manager of people, what do I say: “Well, that person was on I ignored”? Sorry. Doesn’t make sense to my job seeking imaginary 21 year old self.
The sixth tip is one of those odd ball catch phrases that don’t make any sense to me: “Be frugal and generous.” Okay, so I don’t want to throw away a sheet of paper with writing on one side. I can use the other side for notes, assuming paper is still in use in the Google HR office. But the notion of penny pinching and being generous is the stuff of Dickens, not my life. The point is to know how to think about a financial issue and make a decision that makes sense. I suppose the largesse of the US Congress buying the Department of Defense tanks the DoD does not want is part of the frugal-generous truism. Perhaps it is the money Google spends on lobbyists in Washington? I am baffled in the way I am when someone tells me, “Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.”
The seventh tip is fascinating: “Pay unfairly.” Let’s see. I have a small company. I have to keep the lights on, pay taxes, and pay people. The money has to be allocated in a manner which the employees perceive as fair; otherwise, the employee is likely to complain or quit. No good. So the Google HR outfit wants to further the wage gap. In my warped sense of appropriate behavior, I find the idea somewhat disconcerting. I am okay with paying an individual for contributions to the firm. I am not okay with overt discriminatory compensation. But, hey, I am not likely to be the type of candidate who wants his virtual 21 year old self involved with womanizers or drug takers and search results that are neither objective nor particularly relevant to anyone but an advertiser. Bummer.
The eighth tip is nudge. Okay, okay, finally something I understand. One can nudge a pixel in Photoshop and one can nudge a co worker to behave in a manner appropriate to the company, the customer, and the context. But the Google HR view of a nudge is interesting:
Look around you right now and discover how your environment is nudging you and those around you already. Is it easy to see other people and connect? Are the least healthy snacks in your refrigerator at eye level? When you email or text your colleagues and friends, is it to share good news or snark? We are all constantly nudged by our environment and nudging those around us. Use that fact to make yourself and your teams happier and more productive.
If we go back to the womanizing executive and the alleged drug taker with compensated companion examples, I can see how nudges work. I am unfortunately non on board with nudges that become ego satisfying and lead to what I perceive as deleterious behavior. No future for me at the GOOG I suppose.
The ninth tip is an MBAism: “Manage rising expectations.” Now if I pay attention to the losers and the winners, members of each group will perceive themselves as special. The losers will assume I care and won’t fire them. The winners will assume that I will promote them or give them my job. No so fast. I try to avoid what I call the “cliff phenomenon.” The idea is that expectations get built up, like “Starved Rock in Illinois. Then one can either leave the people to die of starvation figuratively or literally or push them off the cliff. I don’t see much support for the notion of keeping folks from getting into a dangerous spot. I am, therefore, ill equipped to manipulate employees in the manner of turning a dial on an old Hewlett Packard wave measurement device.
The last tip is just plain brilliant or incredibly stupid. I am supposed to go back to square one and begin again. I much prefer non circular activities, but, hey, why listen to me. I am not as a virtual 21 year old going to cut it with Google personnel.
Thank heavens for small favors. Did I once cash checks from Google? Nah, must have been an imaginary quirk of time. I would search for more information but I have Google information access syndrome right now.
Stephen E Arnold, April 5, 2015
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