Blue Chip Consultant Makes Big, Wild Prediction
December 24, 2011
At Beyond Search we love crazy unsubstantiated numbers — Here is a keeper. The Economic Times of India reported this week on the projected value of worldwide financial assets in the article Global Financial Assets, Including India’s to be Worth $31y Trillion by 2020: McKinsey.
According to the article, a report prepared by the McKinsey Global Institute, the projected worth of financial assets in 2020 would be nearly double the value of the $198 trillion witnessed last year. Emerging economies made up 21 percent of the global financial assets in 2010 and grew four times the rate of mature economies, 16.6 percent annually over the last decade.
The report stated:
Depending on economic scenarios, we project that emerging market financial assets will grow to between 30 and 36 per cent of the global total in 2020, or $114 to $ 141trillion.. China’s financial assets could be as much as $ 65 trillion by then, and India’s could reach $8.6 trillion.
Yep, global and trillions. Why estimate just the size of the enterprise search market when you can size the world? I call this spreadsheet fever.
Jasmine Ashton, December 24, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Booz Allen Buzzword Blizzard
December 22, 2011
Yep, I used to work there. Booz, Allen & Hamilton, not the chopped up outfits that exist today. To get a feel for the buzzword blizzard, point your browser thing at “InnoCentive and Booz Allen Hamilton Form Strategic Alliance.” Now here’s a Frosty brain freeze buzzword style:
Available now, the integrated Booz Allen Hamilton-InnoCentive alliance provides commercial and government organizations with:
- The Open Innovation Diagnostic Program that includes vision and objectives definition, benchmarking, readiness, gap analysis, and strategic recommendations
- Leadership best practices and organization-wide training
- Challenge identification, prioritization, formulation, and execution
- Multi-channel Challenge program design and roadmap development
- Community (i.e. problem solver) development and engagement strategies
- Measurement and continuous improvement
- Supporting enabling technologies, platforms, and tools
Not much I can say. The pain is right behind my eyes and below my now numbed brain. This is azure chip consultant lingo. Too bad.
Stephen E Arnold, December 22, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Desperate Times for Search and Selling Consulting
December 22, 2011
I saw a news story about the uptick in the housing market. Perhaps you read “Get Started ‘On’ Dec. 21: Housing Shows Recovery Signs, Lobbyists Warn against Tax Cut Expiration.” You may have seen the recent story “Home Foreclosures Jump in Third Quarter-Report.” Contradictions are one indicator which tells me that no clear signal is emerging. I wrote last night (December 20, 2011) about the Oracle financial softening and how search acquisitions will not do much, if anything, to firm up Oracle’s revenues. Since the economic meltdown became evident in the spring of 2008 with the collapse of BearStearns, we have entered a new financial territory. The maps are still being created and exploration is underway.
Most organizations are struggling to find a way to accomplish two difficult goals simultaneously. Personally I cannot multi-task, but the financial pressure is so great that many executives assume that more effort will pull the marshmallows out of the bonfire. I am not so sure.
One goal for many organizations with which I am familiar is to keep existing revenues from eroding more quickly. Since I focus on software and content, the challenge of generating new revenue from old products is a big one. Most of the executives whom I know are hard working, optimistic people. But the issues is preventing revenue from existing and reasonably well understood products and services from tanking.
The “big idea” will touch you, imparting “wisdom” and more.
The other goal is for organizations to find new revenue. The MBA types have fancy diagrams to explain strategies and tactics. I have worked out a few basic options which have worked for me when I had a “real” job (not as an azure chip consulting, journalist, or middle school teacher). Here are my non MBA options:
- Buy a company and pretend that its products and services are “new”
- Take an existing product and service, reposition or repackage it, and target a “new” market with this “new” product. Nothing material is done, but the marketing copy changes.
- Identify an existing product or service and graft something “novel” like making a search system into an iPad app or some equivalent maneuver. The “new” product is then pitched as “revolutionary” or whatever claim common sense and one’s attorney permits.
- Make a bet on something outside of one’s core competency. Believe me, this happens frequently. Examples include some of Google’s products to a local catering service’s attempt to set up a full service restaurant.
In this context of financial pressure, the need for r3evenues, and the options available to executives, I pondered “The End of the Web? Don’t Bet on It. Here’s Why” by Mark Suster, a member of the Dark Side; that is, venture capital world. The foundation of his write up was a presentation by the azurist George Colony, the CEO of Forrester Research.
I don’t have much to say about the specifics of either the Forrester notion that certain digital resources increase over time; specifically, storage, processing cycles, and network capacity. I don’t have much to say about the Dark Side analysis of the Forrester presentation.
Here’s what interests me:
First, I think these big, well publicized “thought pieces” are essentially devoid of substantive analysis. The “big idea” becomes a foundation upon which assertions, arguments, and counter arguments rest. The goal is to associated Forrester with a topic and generate buzz, visibility, or what is called a “conversation” about the “big idea”. I don’t have the energy to explain why the three “resources” are essentially one “thing.” Believe the assertion if you wish
Forrester Predicts the End of Social Networking
December 19, 2011
Yep, ever hungry for clicks and buzz, another azure chip firm cooks up a prediction that may surprise Facebook.
Oh, no, another big trend is in trouble! Or so Forrester CEO George Colony would have us believe. “Social networking’s salad days are ending, Forrester says,” reports Stephen Shankland at Cnet News. Colony insists that the market for social networking is saturated, and people don’t have time for it anyway. The article asserts:
’We are in a bubble for social startups,’ [Colony] said. When it bursts, ‘this is going to sweep away some of the nonsense, like FourSquare. We are going to move to a post-social world that’s a little like the Web in the year 2000. A lot of companies launched, but they did not survive.’
Humph.
Though Shankland says Forrester based its conclusions on consumer research, we’re more than a little skeptical. These assertions come from an azure chip consultant looking for angles. Data? Not so much. Insight? Not so much.
Interesting? As long it generates business, the azure chip crowd has done its job. Does this mean that Google’s play for social search is a loser? Forrester will elucidate sure am I.
Cynthia Murrell, December 19, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Azure Chip Gartner Quadrantizes Archiving
December 17, 2011
Records management has been shown some love this month by information technology research and advisory company Gartner, Inc.
According to the Dec 8, Marketwire news release “Sonian Positioned in 2011 Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Information Archiving,” Sonian, a cloud powered archiving and search solutions company, announced that it has been positioned in the December 2011 Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Information Archiving.
Over 8,000 customers currently utilize Sonian’s cloud-powered information archiving platform which can be deployed in minutes. It enables organizations to address eDiscovery needs, achieve regulatory compliance, and reduce IT costs.
The Magic Quadrant report, which positions vendors based on their ability to execute and completeness of vision, noted:
The challenges organizations are facing with respect to the management of email data are increasingly being seen with file system data. Archiving products that can address both email and files generally provide efficiencies across these content types, versus taking a siloed approach to management. While cloud archiving can be very cost-effective, the prevailing sentiment to simply give the problem of managing this data to someone else seems to be one of the most common reasons organizations cite for selecting cloud or SaaS archiving.
The fact that Gartner is cheerleading information archiving is an excellent sign. With just a few more Corzine and Madoff incidents and archiving will be a hot topic in corporate boardrooms.
Jasmine Ashton, December 17, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Guess Your Way to Search Competence
December 1, 2011
Let’s assume a person was a middle school teacher, hated it, and started working as a writer at a content management blog. Another hypothetical is a young professional who wanted to make a killing quickly. The first job was commission sales at a software company. The company was acquired and the young professional was assigned to search software sales. After a so-so six months, the person was fired. A small consulting firm needed a person who could talk the talk, make a sale, and go along to get along. Bingo. Search wizard.
Regardless of scenario, certain technical fields seem so darned easy to master. Learn a few words, make some friends who have better than average technical now how, and give a talk or two at a conference. What could be easier than helping clueless companies index their content? How tough could it be?
Well, Time Magazine wants to make this type of faux expertise even easier to master. Point your monitored, filtered browser thing at “Why Guessing Is Undervalued” and get a snoot full of the latest powered baloney from a “real” news magazine. Here’s the key passage in my opinion:
Estimation, this research shows, is not an act of wild speculation but a highly sophisticated and valuable skill that, some experts say, is often given short shrift in the curriculum. “Too much mathematical rigor teaches rigor mortis,” says Sanjoy Mahajan, an associate professor of applied science and engineering at Olin College. Many math textbooks, he notes, “teach how to solve exactly stated problems exactly, whereas life often hands us partly defined problems needing only moderately accurate solutions.”
Hey,guessing is really good. Brain surgery, engineering analysis for air craft engines, and automobile brakes—yep, just guess. Why worry about search technology and retrieval technology or flawed outputs from big data systems? Just guess. Works great.
Stephen E Arnold, December 1, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Recommind Wins Raves from Consultant
November 22, 2011
After being highlighted in IDC’s “MarketScape: The Worldwide Standalone Early Case Assessment Applications Report” in September, Recommind, the leader in predictive information management software, is hitting early case assessment hard by working to make eDiscovery more speedy and cost effective.
Recommind has created a new eDiscovery document review solution called Axcelerate Review & Analysis . Axcelerate Review & Analysis uses predictive analytics to pinpoint key documents quickly while automatically assessing document responsiveness, privilege and issue relation before the review process begins.
The Above The Law blog post “Recommind: The Leader In Fast, Accurate Early Case Assessment” states:
Axcelerate ECA & Collection is the first half of Recommind’s fully integrated, end-to-end Axcelerate eDiscovery platform. The patented search-and-categorization platform can identify and analyze data faster and more accurately than any appliance or point solution. And since Axcelerate ECA & Collection works seamlessly with Recommind’s review product, it’s a natural choice for enterprises that want control over eDiscovery costs.
We wonder if this new solution represents the company going back to its roots or if it’s simply complementing its enterprise search initiative. We have noticed a number of white papers, “objective reports”, and analyses running under the banner of some consulting firms. Interesting.
Jasmine Ashton, November 21, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Want to Be a Search Expert?
November 18, 2011
I saw a story at CBS News’ Web site. The write up “25 College Majors with the Highest Unemployment Rates” was as troubling as it was amusing. I learned yesterday that at some of the top engineering, science, and mathematics recruiting events, US companies were in the minority. In the good old days before Booz, Allen & Hamilton became an azure chip consultant and McKinsey executives donned orange jump suits—college recruitment was a hunting ground for big name US outfits. The idea was to snag the people who were the “right package” for the plum jobs at top line consulting firms, investment banks, and Fortune 50 companies. I did a couple of recruiting swings in the mid 1970s for Halliburton NUS and later for the pre-Daedalus Booz, Allen & Hamilton. I find the brain drain which sucks talent from the US to hot spots like Brazil, China, and South Korea fascinating.
The CBS story reminded me that self appointed experts will probably come to search, content processing, “big data”, and other fields of mass confusion from these disciplines. What will tomorrow’s “experts” bring to the table in terms of subject matter expertise? Here’s the top 10college majors with the alleged highest unemployment rate:
- Clinical psychology 19.5%
- Miscellaneous fine arts 16.2%
- United States history 15.1%
- Library science 15.0% (tie)
- Military technologies; educational psychology 10.9%
- Architecture 10.6%
- Industrial & organizational psychology 10.4%
- Miscellaneous psychology 10.3%
- Linguistics & comparative literature 10.2%
- (tie) Visual & performing arts; engineering & industrial management 9.2%
You will want to digest the entire list at the link provided.
A couple of comments. I got a hearty laugh when I mentioned that my focus in college was medieval religious sermons in Latin. No one laughed when I mentioned that I wasn’t reading the documents. I was indexing them using punched cards. But notice that “miscellaneous fine arts” does leave about 83 percent of those with that training unemployed. The top stop, which surprised me, was clinical psychology. I will not forget my early consulting project for T George Harris, then the publisher of Psychology Today. I recall his describing those with degrees in psychology as “crazy” and then divided psychologists into two broad categories. One category involved psychologists who watched interactions among male and female rats and others who did math.
Notice that unemployment rates for visual and performing arts graduates and engineering and industrial management graduates is “only” 9.2 percent. Presumably some of the most talented engineering people with jobs will be working outside the United States.
What about the azure chip consulting firms and the self appointed experts? My thought is that the work product of these outfits will reflect the talent applying themselves to these disciplines. Ever wonder why so many firms are in financial trouble? Ever ask, “Which management consultancy was helping these folks?”
Ever ask, “Why did that enterprise search project fail?” Ever ask, “Which search or content processing consultant advised that outfit?”
Good questions to ask.
Stephen E Arnold, November 18, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Beyond Search About Page Update
November 9, 2011
After the carpet bombing by AtomicPR, I updated my About page. I wanted to make clearer than ever my policies. You can find the About page at this link.
The main point is that I did not design Beyond Search to be a news publication. If news turns up in the blog content stream, that’s an error. We rely on open source content and use it as a spring board for our commentary.
Beyond Search exists for three reasons:
First, I capture factoids, quotes, and thoughts in a chronological manner, seven days a week, three to seven stories a day. We have more than 6,700 content objects in the archive. I use this material for my for fee columns, reports, and personal research. If someone reads a blog post and thinks I am doing news, get out of here. The blog was designed for me by me. I have two or three readers, but the only reader who counts is I.
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Test question: Which one bills for time and which one donates to better the world? Give up. Mother Theresa is on the right. The billing machine is on the left with the mustache. PR and marketing professionals, are you processing the time=money statement?
Second, if someone wants us to cover a particular technology topic, we will do it if the item is interesting to us. If we write something up, we charge for our time. We also sell ads at the top and side of the splash page content window. The reason? I pay humans to work on my research with me, and I put some, not all, just some of the information I process in the blog. I am not Mother Theresa, don’t have much interest in helping injured dogs or starving artists. Therefore, in my world my time invokes money. Don’t like it? Don’t ask me to do something for you, your client, your mom’s recent investment, or a friend of a friend.
Third, the Beyond Search content links to high value, original information like the Search Wizards Speak series. Anyone in an academic or educational role can use my content without asking. If you are a failed home economics teacher now working as a search expert or an azure chip consultant pretending you know something about content analytics, you will have to get my permission to rip off, recycle, republish, or otherwise make what’s mine yours. I have been reasonable in allowing reuse of my content. There’s one person in Slovenia who actually translates my blog content into a language with many consonants. No problem. Just ask. Don’t ask? Well, I can get frisky.
Now That Is a Blue Chip Consultant
November 4, 2011
Every once in a while I am asked what I mean when I use the phrase “azure chip consultant.” One way to explain is to give an example of what an azure chip consultant can only aspire to achieve. Navigate to Bloomberg BusinessWeek’s “Ex-McKinsey Consultant Banki Wins Release From Prison.” The idea is to be so darned good it is a crime. Here’s the passage I noted:
U.S. District Judge John F. Keenan signed papers ordering Banki’s immediate release after U.S. prosecutors in New York agreed in a hearing today that he may be released on his own recognizance while they seek to reverse the Oct. 24 appeals court decision that overturned convictions for violating the Iran trade embargo and running an unlicensed money-transfer business.
English majors don’t have a chance against McKinsey professionals. Back to billing in a nonce.
Stephen E Arnold, November 4, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
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