Perfect Timing for PolySpot to Deliver Innovative Enterprise Information Solutions
November 6, 2012
There is no doubt that we all have our ears full of information about mobile. However, we could probably say the same for big data. The author of “Joining The ‘Big Data’ Revolution” published on 4Ps Marketing asserts that 2012 has been the year of big data, above anything else.
Big data was highlighted in two notable ways this year, according to the article. At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland the top topic was none other than big data. To further add to it’s significance, a report, “Big Data, Big Impact,” posited that data is a akin to money.
We learned from the article:
More data does not necessarily mean better data, and it certainly does not mean guaranteed marketing strategy performance. Big data has unlocked a lot of potential, but it has also created new marketing and analyst roles. These are the people our industry will need if big data is to make a big difference to marketers. This is especially true for digital strategies, as they already rely so heavily on data.
Recent focus in the arena of big data seems centered around the creation of new roles and finding new talent to fill these gaps formerly unknown as gaps. Luckily, technology is already leap years ahead with what we have seen from companies such as PolySpot. They have already brought innovative enterprise information delivery solutions to the table.
Megan Feil, November 6, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext.
Business Users SharePoint Conference
November 6, 2012
In the world of enterprise search, particularly SharePoint, training and professional development opportunities are a lifeline. Solutions can be complex and often change rapidly. Conferences are a good way to stay abreast of emerging trends and updates. CMS Wire advertises an upcoming opportunity in, “SharePoint Conference for Business Users Amsterdam 2013.”
The conference program is summed up:
Join us at the SharePoint Conference for Business Users in Amsterdam next March to learn how to evaluate, deploy, use, and customize SharePoint to run a more efficient and integrated business. The 3 day event is a jargon-free environment designed for business professionals to hear from like-minded users on how they have moulded SharePoint to suit requirements, how to realise business benefits and make the most of their SharePoint environment. The program features case studies and best practice workshops from leading organizations which would help users and decision makers pick up new techniques and more importantly, avoid costly mistakes.
Some users will find that trainings such as this conference are enough to keep up to speed. However, others will find that a more intuitive solution is needed to avoid costly customization or lengthy in-house training. Fabasoft Mindbreeze offers solutions that bridge the learning gap and improve end user experience. They also offer their own training. The addition of third party solutions cuts down on overall cost and staffing investments to manage the enterprise.
Emily Rae Aldridge, November 6, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext.
Open Source Search: The Me Too Method Is Thriving
November 5, 2012
In the first three editions of The Enterprise Search Report (2003 to 2007), my team and I wrote, we made it clear that the commercial enterprise search vendors were essentially a bunch of me-too services.
The diagrams for the various systems were almost indistinguishable. Some vendors used fancy names for their systems and others stuck with the same nomenclature used in the SMART system. I pointed out that every enterprise search system has to perform certain basic functions: Content acquisition, indexing, query processing, and administration. But once those building blocks were in place, most of the two dozen vendors I profiled added wrappers which created a “marketing differentiator.” Examples ranged from Autonomy’s emphasis on the neuro linguistic processing to Endeca’s metadata for facets to Vivisimo’s building a single results list from federated content.
The rota fortunae of the medieval software licensee. A happy quack to http://www.artlex.com/ArtLex/Ch.html
The reality was that it was very difficult for the engineers and marketers of these commercial vendors to differentiate clearly their system from dozens of look-alikes. With the consolidation of the commercial enterprise search sector in the last 36 months, the proprietary vendors have not changed the plumbing. What is new and interesting is that many of them are now “analytics,” “text mining,” or “business intelligence” vendors.
The High Cost of Re-Engineering
The key to this type of pivot is what I call “wrappers” or “add ins.” The idea is that an enterprise search system is similar to the old Ford and GM assembly lines of the 1970s. The cost for changing those systems was too high. The manufacturers operated them “as is”, hoping that chrome and options would give the automobiles a distinctive quality. Under the paint and slightly modified body panels, the cars were essentially the same old vehicle.
Commercial enterprise search solutions are similar today, and none has been overhauled or re-engineered in a significant way. That is okay. When a company licenses an enterprise search solution from Microsoft or Oracle, the customer is getting the brand and the security which comes from an established enterprise search vendor.
Let’s face it. The RECON or SDC Orbit system is usable without too much hassle by a high school student today. The precision and recall are in the 80 top 85 percent range. The US government has sponsored a text retrieval program for many years. The results of the tests are not widely circulated. However, I have heard that the precision and recall scores mostly stick in the 80 to 85 percent range. Once in a while a system will perform better, but search technology has, in my opinion, hit a glass ceiling. The commercial enterprise search sector is like the airline industry. The old business model is not working. The basic workhorse of the airline industry delivers the same performance as a jet from the 1970s. The big difference is that the costs keep on going up and passenger satisfaction is going down.
Open Source: Moving to Center Stage
But I am not interested in commercial enterprise search systems. The big news is the emergence of open source search options. Until recently, open source search was not mainstream. Today, open source search solutions are mainstream. IBM relies on Lucene/Solr for some of its search functions. IBM also owns Web Fountain, STAIRS, iPhrase, Vivisimo, and the SPSS Clementine technology, among others. IBM is interesting because it has used open source search technology to reduce costs and tap into a source of developer talent. Attivio, a company which just raised $42 million in additional venture funding, relies on open source search. You can bet your bippy that the investors want Attivio to turn a profit. I am not sure the financial types dive into the intricacies of open source search technology. Their focus is on the payoff from the money pumped into Attivio. Many other commercial content processing companies rely on open source search as well.
The interesting development is the emergence of pure play search vendors built entirely on the Lucene/Solr code. Anyone can download these “joined at the hip” software from the Apache Foundation. We have completed an analysis of a dozen of the most interesting open source search vendors for a big time consulting firm. What struck the ArnoldIT research team was:
- The open source search vendors are following the same path as the commercial enterprise search vendors. The systems are pretty much indistinguishable.
- The marketing “battle” is being fought over technical nuances which are of great interest to developers and, in my opinion, almost irrelevant to the financial person who has to pay the bills.
- The significant differentiators among the dozen companies we analyzed boils down to the companies’ financial stability, full time staff, and value-adding proprietary enhancements, customer support, training, and engineering services.
What this means is that the actual functionality of these open source search systems is similar to the enterprise proprietary solutions. In the open source sector, some vendors specialize by providing search for a Big Data environment or for remediating the poor search system in MySQL and its variants. Other companies sell a platform and leave the Lucene/Solr component as a utility service. Others just take the Lucene/Solr and go forward.
The Business View
In a conversation with Paul Doscher, president of LucidWorks, I learned that his organization is working through the Project Management Committee (PMC) Group of the Lucene/Solr project within the Apache Software Foundation to build the next-generation search technology. The effort is to help transform people’s ability to turn data into decision making information.
This next generation search technology is foundational in developing a big data technology stack to enable enterprisers to reap the rewards of the latest wave of innovation.
The key point is that figuring out which open source search system does what is now as confusing and time consuming as figuring out the difference between the proprietary enterprise search systems was 10 years ago.
Will there be a fix for me-too’s in enterprise search. I think that some technology will be similar and probably indistinguishable to non-experts? What is now raising the stakes is that search systems are viewed as utilities. Customers want answers, visualizations, and software which predicts what will happen. In my opinion, this is search with fuzzy dice, 20 inch chrome wheels, and a 200 watt sound system.
The key points of differentiation for me will remain the company’s financial stability, its staff quality, its customer service, its training programs, and its ability to provide engineering services to licensees who require additional services. In short, the differentiators may boil down to making systems pay off for licensees, not marketing assertions.
In the rush to cash in on organizations’ need to cut costs, open source search is now the “new” proprietary search solution. Buyer beware? More than ever. The Wheel of Fortune in search is spinning again. Who will be a winner? Who will be a loser? Place your bets. I am betting on open source search vendors with the service and engineering expertise to deliver.
Stephen E Arnold, November 5, 2012
AvePoint Continues Support for SharePoint
November 5, 2012
Many excellent options exist for third party SharePoint support. AvePoint, with its focus on governance and management solutions, has been supporting SharePoint deployments for eleven years. In the full report, “AvePoint Showcases Tradition of Excellence and Support for Microsoft SharePoint 2013 at SharePoint Conference 2012,” the author discusses how AvePoint will participate in the upcoming SharePoint 2012 conference.
AvePoint, leader in governance and management solutions for Microsoft SharePoint, today announced that it is a Platinum and Keynote Sponsor of Microsoft SharePoint Conference (SPC) 2012, taking place from November 12-15 at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, NV. AvePoint’s Platinum and Keynote sponsorship for the third consecutive SPC highlights the company’s continued commitment to the global SharePoint community, and provides an opportunity to showcase the DocAve Software Platform, its award-winning product line for managing, governing, and scaling enterprise technology platforms with support for Microsoft SharePoint 2013.
Some companies need more than governance, management, and backup support. Some enterprises struggle to implement a SharePoint infrastructure because of staffing, funding, or other shortages. That is where a third party add-on can help bridge the gap. Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise is quick, cost-efficient, and service oriented. Its intuitive interface flattens out a potentially steep learning curve. Furthermore, Mindbreeze works as a standalone solution, or as an addition to an existing infrastructure.
Emily Rae Aldridge, November 5, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext.
IntelTrax Summary: October 26 to November 1
November 5, 2012
The IntelTrax information intelligence blog posted some excellent articles this week discussing the importance of investing in data analysis technology to help improve the efficiency of workplaces.
“Big Data a Big Part of IT Spending” looks at some projections regarding the rate of IT spending growth, most of which went towards social media campaign spending. However, the spending is continuing to branch out as more and more industries are beginning to utilize the technology.
The article states:
“Big data this year will account for US$28 billion of IT spending worldwide, which will increase to US$34 billion in 2013, according to Gartner.
In a report released Wednesday, the market research firm said much of 2012 expenditure will be in adapting traditional tools to address issues related to the big data phenomenon such as machine data, social data, and the large variety and velocity of data. In contrast, only US$4.3 billion will be focused on new big data functionalities.”
As big data analytics becomes more mainstream, we are seeing more interesting ways that it is being utilized. “Big Data Justice League” examines the use of big data analytics to predict the criminal behavior of maritime pirates.
The article states:
“There are almost too many sources of unstructured data to grapple with: interviews with pirates in custody, news stories about piracy incidents, data from mobile phones found during investigations, e-mail traffic, and social media posts from the pirates themselves. And here’s where the story gets really interesting, in my opinion. Most of this data comes from disparate sources that can vex the best investigations. It’s not simply a matter of easily formatted spreadsheets with clean rows and columns. At warp speed, data comes in from the Web, mobile devices, PDF files and other documents — a potential treasure trove of hidden insights.”
Some companies that a new to the big data game take a little bit of time to see the return on their investment. “Data Scientists More Important Than Most Think” gives four major detractors to analytics success:
“1. 35% of the time, it is the missing analytics skills – For analysts – how well are they able to bridge the gap to business, to understand the real question behind the ask before they jump into the data pull? For PM’s and marketing managers – how well do they understand the recipe behind making decisions based on data (BADIR framework), how well familiar they are with the fundamental analytics technique?
2. 10% of the time, it is the missing decision making process – How does budget get allocated? What is the process of laying out product roadmap?
3. 25% of the time, it is the organization’s data maturity – how easy is to get to data, how many version of the truth exist, does data exist in its rawest form for everybody to aggregate as they please?
4. 30% of the time, it the management and leadership – how is the management making decision, how are they establishing roles and responsibility, how are they holding people accountable?”
Regardless of your industry or expertise in the data analysis field, Digital Reasoning can be of great help. It offers one of the best analytics platforms on the market and can get your house in order by using automated understanding for big data.
Jasmine Ashton, November 5, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Optimizing a Web Site and Google Places to Improve User Experience
November 2, 2012
Terry Van Horne has over 17 years of experience in Web development and search engine optimization (SEO) and is founder of SEO Pros and the OSEOP Organization, the first organization for search engine optimization professionals. He shares some tips and tricks for optimizing your site and Google Places landing page in his article, “Google Local Search: Optimization of Your Google Places or +Local Website Landing Page.” Horne has this to share about proving good content on a site:
I strongly recommend using structured data on your contact page and I always include full contact details in the footer of every page. I now recommend this information be marked up in structured data as well. Reviews, events, testimonials and more can be included in the SERP and these ‘Rich Snippets’ always drive more clicks on your listing. The number of testimonials and ratings on your website affects the ranking.
He adds that microdata information and syntax is available at Schema.org and strongly encourages linking your home page to your testimonials page to maximize the link equity to the page and structured data it contains. The power of semantic search in addition to relevant content is a big part of gaining and retaining an audience. One way to boost your site’s experience is to add a powerful search system, like InSite. Mindbreeze’s InSite solution gives a custom searching experience unique to the user with the added benefit of mobile capabilities. Latest content can easily be displayed to Web site visitors to keep your site fresh, and robust reports provide you with the feedback on what and why your visitors are searching.
Philip West, November 2, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext.
Boosting Web Site Impact with Optimized Search
November 1, 2012
Web site search optimization is a way to give your visitors intent to stay on your site and revisit. In addition, a powerful search feature can introduce users to good content on your site they may not have found otherwise. In “Changed Way of Site Optimization,” the author discusses the importance of SEO for Web site design and SEO Brisbane Company as one option. This is given about using SEO to boost traffic using SEO Brisbane:
Regardless to what type of website you are building, implementing SEO Brisbane into your website will result in better search results and high traffic numbers. And whether you plan on hiring a company or doing it yourself, it’s imperative that you know how to properly implement SEO techniques into your website. Some techniques are smaller than others, while other techniques take time. But there are a few SEO Brisbane techniques that you can use to help your website grow undeniably.
The author also points out that navigation tabs should be coded so that search engines can crawl them and to ensure no loss of pages as URLs change. However, techniques are still only vaguely explained and a glance at the SEO Brisbane Web site shows they heavily promise results without being as clear about the technology behind the solution, which makes us worry about the lack of substance in the tool. When you’re weighing options for Web site search solutions, consider Mindbreeze InSite to add a powerful and customized search experience for your Web site visitors. InSite is powered by semantic search and a visit to their site quickly illustrates the benefits of the cloud deployment options, customizable tabs, multiple data sources options, and faceted search features.
Philip West, November 1, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext.
Using SharePoint to Streamline Common Business Processes
October 31, 2012
SharePoint is a complex system and it helps to do some outside reading to stay abreast on helpful features and tips to share with your team. Ellen van Aken looks at some ways SharePoint can help save time and effort in an organization in her article, “4 Common Processes that SharePoint Can Streamline.” Aken explains that creating a tailor-made subsite and making a template out of it can allow for creating a ready-to-use team site for every project in no time. This could help make recurring projects more efficient.
She also explains streamlining requests with incomplete data coming from multiple channels:
How often do people send you a request, by plain email, telephone, or Word/Excel document? And how often do you have to contact them again to ask for missing information?
Depending on the complexity, you can use a simple SharePoint list, an Office template in a Document Library, or an InfoPath form in a Forms Library, with mandatory fields. As additional advantage SharePoint stores all your requests in one central place, so you do not have to spend time on filing them…The finished requests can be used to gain insights in your process.
She adds that a filter can be put in place to show which requests still need processing. Another way to streamline information requests with missing data is to provide a search feature that can tap into all company knowledge, whether text or person related. For example, Fabasoft Mindbreeze with the SharePoint connector provides an all-inclusive search without redundancy or loss of data. Additionally, Mindbreeze has the ability to process data and turn it into relevant knowledge for users.
Philip West, October 31, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext.
Finding a Cost Effective Solution for Search Marketing
October 30, 2012
In the Marketing Week post, “The Digital Path to Purchase,” Michael Barnett discusses budgetary considerations companies should keep in mind as mobile and social media trends continue to dominate search strategies and search technology developments. Barnett explains that marketers are continuing to see the importance of understanding the wide variety of journeys that consumers take toward making a purchase. The integration of search and social is discussed:
One marketing manager from a professional services company says in answer to the survey: ‘The continued integration of search and social has to have an effect. Which social networks have the greatest influence remains to be seen. I think it will depend on their willingness to co-operate with each other, or more specifically with Google and Microsoft – but mainly Google.’ At present, content shared on social networks probably does not rank as highly as it naturally would in search results, since some search engines are restricted from crawling certain social sites.
In the same survey, three quarters of respondents claimed their search budgets they work with have increased in the past year. However, only 21 percent say search marketing is very effective. One industry leader in search is Fabasoft Mindbreeze. If you are looking for an integrated social and search solution to boost marketing efforts, consider taking advantage of the no obligation free trial InSite demo to test the enhanced finding experience for your Web site. InSite illuminates all of your information, from documents and emails to social networking channels.
Philip West, October 30, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext.
SharePoint 2013 Goes Social with Community Templates
October 29, 2012
As users continue to drive demand for social networking features and companies look to increase collaboration among employees, technology is aiming to deliver solutions to fit the need. SharePoint 2013 is no exception as they add social features as well as other smaller configuration improvements to give users more power with a friendlier interface. Jennifer Mason summarizes some of the changes in the coming SharePoint release in her CMSWire.com article, “SharePoint 2013: Intranets with a Side of Social.”
Mason discusses new features including the ability to reuse content across multiple sites, new navigation features, improved search Web part, and changes to design tools. She has this to say about SharePoint’s goal to bring people together with the data they need in a social business context:
The community template provides a way for this type of capability within SharePoint 2013. Community templates have been designed in a way that allows anyone within the organization to join a community and to begin discussions on things relevant to the community. These communities are a great way to share information in a collaborative way, at the same time making intellectual property with the organization available to a larger audience.
Community templates may help bring people together and allow for a new kind of collaboration that previous SharePoint versions simply did not support. While new features are exciting, we also know that out-of-the-box SharePoint tends to have gaps. A complete social business experience also relies on a powerful search feature accessible to all users. One third party application worth looking into is Fabasoft Mindbreeze and their Enterprise Search solution. Mindbreeze connects all company data, including documents, notes, e-mails, calendar entries, contracts, intranet or internet, person- or text-related, and more. In addition, their SharePoint connector allows for a seamless install to complement your existing content management investments.
Philip West, October 29, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext.
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