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I supposed IBM’s senior management is consulting Watson for answers to its stakeholders’ rising impatience with the $100 billion technology services company.
I read “Exclusive: IBM Hires Advisers to Deal with Restless Investors.” IBM has been touting its billion dollar investments in initiatives that are supposed to get the company back on a growth track. Layoffs, stock buy backs, and missed financial targets have not had the desired effect, if the Reuters write up is on the money.
The article reports:
International Business Machines Corp is concerned about a possible attack by prominent activist hedge funds, and is working with two investment banks to formulate a defense plan, according to the people, who declined to be identified.
IBM has some significant problems. I want to point my aged finger at the crazy assertions made for Watson, but I shall sidestep that new product Zircon.
The write up highlights a deeper, far more significant problem:
Part of the activist funds’ concern was that IBM, whose stock is trading at around $159, is too expensive and the company’s structural problems could not be fixed easily, according to several sources.
Structural problems. No kidding.
My hunch is that stakeholders, employees, partners, and retirees are going to become increasingly agitated.
What I find interesting is that there are no easy answers from Watson or any other source. My question is, “Why has it taken so long for activists to tackle their IBM problem head on?”
Perhaps these folks did ask Watson and did not like the answer they received. What works for a TV game show does not seem to work in the non TV world.
Stephen E Arnold, April 6, 2015
It is no surprise that probability blogger Count Bayesie, also known as data scientist Will Kurt, likes to play with random data samples like those generated in Monte Carlo simulations. He lets us in on the fun in this useful summary, “6 Neat Tricks with Monte Carlo Simulations.” He begins:
“If there is one trick you should know about probability, it’s how to write a Monte Carlo simulation. If you can program, even just a little, you can write a Monte Carlo simulation. Most of my work is in either R or Python, these examples will all be in R since out-of-the-box R has more tools to run simulations. The basics of a Monte Carlo simulation are simply to model your problem, and then randomly simulate it until you get an answer. The best way to explain is to just run through a bunch of examples, so let’s go!”
And run through his six examples he does, starting with the ever-popular basic integration. Other tricks include approximating binomial distribution, approximating Pi, finding p-values, creating games of chance, and, of course, predicting the stock market. The examples include code snippets and graphs. Kurt encourages readers to go further:
“By now it should be clear that a few lines of R can create extremely good estimates to a whole host of problems in probability and statistics. There comes a point in problems involving probability where we are often left no other choice than to use a Monte Carlo simulation. This is just the beginning of the incredible things that can be done with some extraordinarily simple tools. It also turns out that Monte Carlo simulations are at the heart of many forms of Bayesian inference.”
See the write-up for the juicy details of the six examples. This fun and informative lesson is worth checking out.
Cynthia Murrell, April 6, 2015
Stephen E Arnold, Publisher of CyberOSINT at www.xenky.com
We have hear a lot about the semantic Web and search engine optimization (SEO), but both have the common thread of making information more accessible and increasing its use. One would think this would be the same kettle of fish, but sometimes it is hard to make SEO and the semantic Web work together for platonic web experience. On Slideshare.net, Eric Franzon’s “SEO Meets Semantic Web-Saint Patrick’s Day 2015-Meetup” tries to consolidate the two into one happy fish taco. The presentation tries to explain how the two work together, but here is the official description:
“Schema.org didn’t just appear out of thin air in 2011. It was built upon a foundation of web standards and technologies that have been in development for decades. In this presentation, Eric Franzon, Managing Partner of SemanticFuse provides an introduction to Semantic Web standards such as RDF and SPARQL. He explores who’s using them today and why (hint: it involves money), and takes a look at how Semantic Web, Linked Data, and schema.org are related.”
The problem with the presentation is that we do not have the audio to accompany it, but by flipping through the slides we can understand the general idea. The semantic Web is full of relationships that are connected by ideas and require coding and other fancy stuff to make it one big kettle. In fact, this appears to have too much of the semantic Web flavor and not enough of the SEO spice. One is a catfish for fine meal and the other is a fish fry without the oil.
Whitney Grace, April 6, 2015
Stephen E Arnold, Publisher of CyberOSINT at www.xenky.com
I read “Enterprise Search: The Answer to All Our Problems or Technology That Most Users Neither Need Nor Want?” The write up comes from Australia, a country with a long and quite interesting history of information retrieval. I have written about the contributions of Dr. Ron Sacks Davis, an individual whom most North American search vendors, ignore. Some of these vendors reinvented Dr. Sacks Davis’ wheels, but that is the norm in the “new” and “revolutionary” world of search and content processing. Today you can tap Funnelback, a product losing a bit of marketing steam in the last six months, to scratch your information access itch. And there are other Australian milestones to consider; for example, YourAmigo, which is now applying its technology to the search engine optimization problem.
The article which has New South Wales government spin mentions several of the enterprise search marketers’ favorite truisms; for example, find information wherever it resides and boost productivity (yep, that works in a government entity).
What I found interesting about the article is that it states, quite clearly, that “most employees don’t need or want to search for information enterprise wide.” Okay, that jibes with my team’s research. The write up states:
Most employees within these organizations work within a few discrete areas of the business and know exactly where the information they need to do their job is kept. They locate records by navigating structured network drives, document stores etc. One member of the group commented that it is interesting that employees will happily search for information online but prefer to browse for information at work. There are some ‘power users’ within these organizations who either already use or would benefit from the implementation of enterprise search technologies.
The issue, as I think about this statement is cost. Why spend massive sums to benefit a small percentage of a workforce? I think this question strikes at the heart of value, knowledge, and access assumptions.
The article points out that incoming information is classified by enterprise search systems. My take is that this is a useful function. Enterprise search, according to the article, “could be used to facilitate retention and disposal.” After decades of effort, the idea that one can eliminate digital information in order to perform a records management function strikes me as surprising. Does the statement imply that New South Wales does not have a records management system despite massive investments in content management technology.
Notice that the write up has blended enterprise search which means the user looks for content with indexing new information and disposing of old information. I find the mixture a compound with potent confusion power.
Net net: The article makes it clear that enterprise search is not exactly what some people want. Nevertheless, enterprise search performs various information functions which could—note the conditional—have some upsides.
Little wonder why marketers pitching enterprise search benefits talk in circles. The customers themselves are chasing information kangaroos. My question, “Are government entities world wide behaving in a similar fashion?” Fascinating.
Stephen E Arnold, April 5, 2015
Written by Stephen E. Arnold · Filed Under Enterprise search, Government, News | Comments Off on Enterprise Search: Mixed Messages from a Perpetual Confusion Machine
I read “Google Calls for Global Connectivity,” an article written by Sundar Pichai, who is Google’s senior vice president. I don’t have global thoughts, but Google does. Here are four which Mr. Pichai holds dear. I quite like the one which suggests that one no longer has to remember. My reaction was, “Do I need to remember that Google sells ads?” The answer may be, “Nah, you don’t need to remember that or our tracking, our need for mobile revenue growth, or our science club projects.” I am down with that. I don’t remember anything, which seems to be the subtext of the write up. Here are four quotes from the write up:
Remembering:
Plenty of children in developed countries now have smartphones by age 12 ? or even earlier.
These youngsters no longer have to worry about memorizing phone numbers ? in fact they have a world of information in their pockets.
Forget the computer:
Smartphones today are the cheapest, easiest way to bring the web to people who until now could only dream of it.
Google’s solar aircraft:
…A a project in the early stages, called Titan, would use a new type of super lightweight solar-powered plane capable of hovering in one area of the stratosphere.
Titan may be able to supplement existing services with extra bandwidth, or provide access in an area that is suddenly offline, such as after an earthquake or other disaster.
The Loon balloons:
Loon, in which stratospheric balloons beam Internet signals to the ground below, in regions such as mountainous areas that cannot be reached by regular infrastructure.
Recently we announced that our balloons had traveled across more than 15 million kilometers of sky. Some have stayed up nearly 200 days ? that is more than six months, well over the three months we had hoped for.
Oh, I just remembered. Ad revenue. And there is no need to search. Google’s approach is to predict what the user wants. Life is easy the Google way.
Stephen E Arnold, April 5, 2015
Written by Stephen E. Arnold · Filed Under Google, News | Comments Off on Quotes to Note: Google and Its Global Vision
I read “Google Wants to Teach You How to Dance with Google Glass.” I assume this is an April Fool’s story. I want very much to believe that it is accurate. The title alone evoked an image of me and the other high school math club members sitting around arguing about whether to show our work for a problem in Ms. Mildred Martin’s analytic geometry class. The prom was coming up.
The Woodruff High School math club had 12 members. There was Don Jackson, now deceased. He had a paper accepted for publication in a peer reviewed astrophysics journal, co authored with his brother Bernard. Don wanted to show work. My friend, Steve Connett, did not want to present anything but the answer. He argued that the process was obvious and the answer was the answer. I shifted gears and asked, “Hey, any of you going to the prom this weekend?”
No one answered. None of the math club was going to the prom.
Our math club advisor, Mr. Collier, asked, “Can any of you dance?”
Silence fell.
Google Glass will convert any math club member into this type of dancer, right?
Well, today math club members can rejoice along with members of the physics club, the chess club, and the chemistry club.
Google Glass, the glasshole, home breaking, shrink sparking headset solves the problem.
According to the write up:
Google was awarded a patent today for a system that could determine what music is playing and display appropriate dance moves to go along with the music on a heads-up display like Google Glass. It would be like a combination of Shazam and Dance Dance Revolution. The patent also outlines methods for a wearable to see others dancing, figure out the moves, and show them to the user so they can follow along.
At last. The only problem as I recall, I am not confident that if I were in high school today and in the math club, I don’t think I would do the dance thing. I don’t care. In fact, I don’t have much interest in a head mounted computer display. I understand it but I like my desktop and my laptop.
Now about that argument for showing the problem solving steps. My view is that I liked showing the important steps. No headset or training wheels required. Google wants to fulfill certain fantasies like predicting what I want before I run a query and showing folks who may not know how to dance exactly what is necessary to be cool. I think the term is “glasshole.”
Stephen E Arnold, April 4, 2015
I have read a number of articles about search engine optimization (SEO) and Web search. From my point of view, the SEO sector wants to do more than destroy relevance. SEO seeks to undermine the meaning of discourse. For some marketers, the destruction of meaning is a good thing. A Web site and its content will be disconnected from what the information the user seeks. The user, particularly a recent high school grad, is probably ill equipped to differentiate among reformation of information, disinformation, and misinformation. Instead of identifying Jacques Ellul’s touch points, the person will ask, “Is he Taylor Swift’s hair stylist.” As I said, erosion of meaning is a good think when a client’s Web page appears in a list of Google search results or is predicatively presented as what the user wants, needs, and desires.
Examples of these SEO learned analyses include:
Sigh.
The basic idea is that concepts and topics rise above mere words. In this blog, when I use the phrase “azure chip consultant,” Bing, Google, or Yandex will know that I really am talking about consulting companies that are not in the top tier of expertise centric consulting firms. There is a difference between an IDC- or Gartner-type firm and outfits like Booz, Allen, Boston Consulting Group, and McKinsey type firms. The notion is that via appropriate content processing and value-added metadata enrichment, the connection will be established between my terminology and the consulting firms which are second or third class.
The reason I use this terminology is to provide my readers with a nudge to their funny bone. Bing, Google, et al do not make these type of connections without help. The help ranges from explicitly links to the functions of various numerical recipes.
In my experience, marketers describe concept magic but usually deliver a puff of stage fog like that used by rock and roll bands. Fog hides age and other surface defects.
Does anyone (marketer, user, vendor) care about the loss of relevance? Sure. Each of these sectors will define relevance in their of their phenomenological position. The marketer wants to close a sale or keep a client. The user wants a pizza or a parking place. The vendor wants to be found, get leads, and sell.
When meaning is disconnected from relevance and precision, those filtering information are in control. If a company wants traffic, buy ads. Unfortunately for the SEO crowd, mumbo jumbo is its most recent reaction to the challenge of controlling what a Bing, Google, or Yandex displays.
I am not confident the search engines are able to present that they want to display. Search is broken. In my experience it is more difficult today to get on point information than at any other point in my professional life.
Here’s a simple example. Run a query on Bing or Google for Dark Web index. The result is zero relevant information. What the query should display is TOR domain. Hmm. Wonder why? Now how does one find that information? Good question.
Now look for Lady Gaga. There you go. Now try “low airfares.” Interesting indeed.
Stephen E Arnold, April 4, 2015
Written by Stephen E. Arnold · Filed Under News, Semantic, SEO | Comments Off on Search Engine Optimization: Chasing Semantic Search
I read “The SEC Charges Venture Capitalist with Insider Trading.”
Here’s the passage I noted:
An Oak spokesman was just learning about the SEC charges when contacted by Fortune, and did not yet have any comment. Among the open questions not only are if Ahmed will be a partner on the future fund, but also if he’ll remain a board member with existing Oak portfolio companies like Attivio Inc., Circle Financial Kenet LLC and Nomorereack.com.
I have mentioned that firms requiring repeated injections of venture funding are under considerable pressure to produce returns. I find it interesting that Attivio, founded by former executives at Fast Search & Transfer, had a board member who allegedly requires investigation. I wish to note that Fast Search was investigated by Norwegian authorities, and John Lervik, the founder, was saddled with formal punishment.
Attivio is a variant of Fast Search’s aspirations to deliver an enterprise wide unified information access platform. Dr. Lervik and his team had the ability to see what enterprise customers wanted. The technology fell short of the mark and some fancy financial dancing ensured. Attivio’s founders left Fast Search before the investigation spooled to high RPMs.
Search remains a difficult sector in which to produce the types of returns venture firms and angels expect the investments to generate. Is the SEC investigation an indication that extra ordinary measures are required to make some of the these investments pay off?
My view is that it is desirable to offer a product that customers want to buy, grow by making sales, and avoiding the lure of geysers of venture capitalist money. Others have a different view. That makes horse races. Who would try to fiddle with a horse race? Good question in Kentucky.
I wonder if any of the Fast Search team are on the Attivio Board of Directors.
Stephen E Arnold, April 3, 2015
You have been waiting for more markup. I know I have, and that is why I read “Attensity Semantic Annotation: NLP-Analyse für Unternehmensapplikationen.”
So your wait and mine—over.
Attensity, a leading in figuring out what human discourse means, has rolled out a software development kit so you can do a better job with customer engagement and business intelligence. Attensity offers Dynamic Data Discovery. Unlike traditional analysis tools, Attensity does not focus on keywords. You know, what humans actually use to communicate.
Attensity uses natural language processing in order to identify concepts and issues in plain language. I must admit that I have heard this claim from a number of vendors, including long forgotten systems like DR LINK, among others.
The idea is that the SDK makes it easier to filter data to evaluate textual information and identify issues. Furthermore the SDK performs fast content fusion. The result is, as other vendors have asserted, insight. There was a vendor called Inxight which asserted quite similar functions in 1997. At one time, Attensity had a senior manager from Inxight, but I assume the attribution of functions is one of Attensity’s innovations. (Forgive me for mentioning vendors with which some 20 somethings know quite well.)
If you are dependent upon Java, Attensity is an easy fit. I assume that if you are one of the 150 million plus Microsoft SharePoint outfits, Attensity integration may require a small amount of integration work.
According the Attensity, the benefits of Attensity’s markup approach is that the installation is on site and therefore secure. I am not sure about this because security is person dependent, so cloud or on site, security remains an “issue” different from the one’s Attensity’s system identifies.
Attensity, like Oracle, provides a knowledge base for specific industries. Oracle made term lists available for a number of years. Maybe since its acquisition of Artificial Linguistics in the mid 1990s?
Attensity supports five languages. For these five languages, Attensity can determine the “tone” of the words used in a document. Presumably a company like Bitext can provide additional language support if Attensity does not have these ready to install.
Vendors continue to recycle jargon and buzzwords to describe certain core functions available from many different vendors. If your metatagging outfit is not delivering, you may want to check out Attensity’s solution.
Stephen E Arnold, April 3, 2015
Apache Spark is an open source cluster computing framework that rivals MapReduce. Venture Beat says that people did not pay that much attention to Apache Spark when it was first invented at University of California’s AMPLAB in 2011. The article, “How An Early Bet On Apache Spark Paid Off Big” reports the big data open source supporters are adopting Apache Spark, because of its superior capabilities.
People with big data plans want systems that process real-time information at a fast pace and they want a whole lot of it done at once. MapReduce can do this, but it was not designed for it. It is all right for batch processing, but it is slow and much to complex to be a viable solution.
“When we saw Spark in action at the AMPLab, it was architecturally everything we hoped it would be: distributed, in-memory data processing speed at scale. We recognized we’d have to fill in holes and make it commercially viable for mainstream analytics use cases that demand fast time-to-insight on hordes of data. By partnering with AMPLab, we dug in, prototyped the solution, and added the second pillar needed for next-generation data analytics, a simple to use front-end application.”
ClearStory Data was built using Apache Spark to access data quickly, deliver key insights, and making the UI very user friendly. People who use Apache Spark want information immediately to be utilized for profit from a variety of multiple sources. Apache Spark might ignite the fire for the next wave of data analytics for big data.
Whitney Grace, April 3, 2015
Stephen E Arnold, Publisher of CyberOSINT at www.xenky.com
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