Search Only Goes So Far
January 30, 2012
Infocentric Research surveyor Stephan Schillerwein, who presented his findings at the Online Information Conference, released some alarming statistics about enterprise search in his report “The Digital Workplace.” Among the points which jumped out at me were 40 percent of employees use the wrong information when conducting enterprise searches and 63 percent “make critical decisions without being informed,” which results in a 25 percent work information productivity loss.
According to the Pandia Search Engine News Article “Huge Problems for Search In the Enterprise” Schillerwein believes there are a few reasons why enterprise search is problematic. Users don’t account for the fact that enterprise search is different from Web Search, they have unrealistic expectations and there is a clear problem of lack of content. The Pandia article asserted: Schillerwein suggests a solution based on several elements, such as consistent coverage of information flows for processes, bringing together the worlds of structured and unstructured information, and adding context. I would agree as this ability to combine structured and unstructured data while maintaining context is key in our approach. However, when you combine the crowded jumble of tweets, social media and other data that crowd employees’ smart devices the problems with enterprise search could continue to take a downward spiral and “finding a needle in a haystack” could be easier than doing an enterprise search.
These observations triggered several questions and observations.
First, there are a number of companies offering enterprise information solutions. Many are focused on the older approach of key word queries. There are business intelligence systems which provide “find-ability” tools along with a range of useful analytic features. Although search is not the focal point of these solutions, they do provide useful visualizations and statistics on content. The problem is that most organizations are confused about what is needed and what must be done to maximize the value of systems which go beyond key word retrieval. This confusion is likely to play a far larger role in enterprise search challenges than many market analysts want to acknowledge. Instead, many solutions today seem to be making information access more confusing and problematic, not clearer and more trouble free.
Second, the challenge may be more directly related to figuring out what specific business process needs which information. Without a clear understanding of the user’s requirements, it may be difficult to deploy a system that delivers higher user satisfaction. If this hypothesis is correct, perhaps more vendors should adopt the approach we have taken at Digital Reasoning. We make an extra effort to understand what the user requires and then invest time and resources in hooking appropriate information and data into the system. No solution can deliver the right fact-based answers if the required information is not within the data store and available to the algorithms which make sense of what is otherwise noise? We think that many problems with user acceptance originate with a misunderstanding or sidestepping of user requirements and the fundamental task of getting the necessary information for the system.
Third, the terminology used to describe information retrieval and access is becoming devalued. At Digital Reasoning, we work to explain succinctly and without jargon how our next-generation system can facilitate better decision making for financial, health, intelligence, and other professional markets. We have complex numerical recipes and sophisticated systems and methods. Our focus, however, is on what the system does for a user. We have been fortunate to receive support from a range of clients from government and industry as well as the investment community for our next-generation approach. We think our strength is our focus on the customer’s need and not only our unique predictive algorithms and cloud-based solution.
To learn more about Digital Reasoning and our products, navigate to www.digitalreasoning.com .
Dave Danielson, Digital Reasoning, January 30, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Temis, Spammy PR, and Quite Silly Assertions
January 11, 2012
I am working on a project related to semantics. The idea is, according to that almost always reliable Wikipedia resource is:
the study of meaning. It focuses on the relation between signifiers, such as words, phrases, signs and symbols, and what they stand for, their denotata.
Years ago I studied at Duquesne University, a fascinating blend of Jesuit obsession, basketball, and phenomenological existentialism. If you are not familiar with this darned exciting branch of philosophy, you can dig into Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint by Franz Brentano or grind through Carl Stumpf’s The Psychological Origins of Space Perception, or just grab the Classic Comic Book from your local baseball card dealer. (My hunch is that many public relations professionals feel more comfortable with the Classic approach, not the primary texts of philosophers who focus on how ephemera and baloney affect one’s perception of reality one’s actions create.)
But my personal touchstone is Edmund Husserl’s body of work. To get the scoop on Lebenswelt (a universe of what is self-evident), you will want to skip the early work and go directly to The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology. For sure, PR spam is what I would call self evident because it exists, was created by a human (possibly unaware that actions define reality), to achieve an outcome which is hooked to the individual’s identify.
Why mention the crisis of European thought? Well, I received “American Society for Microbiology Teams Up With TEMIS to Strengthen Access to Content” in this morning’s email (January 10, 2012). I noted that the document was attributed to an individual identified as Martine Fallon. I asked to be removed from the spam email list that dumps silly news releases about Temis into my system. I considered that Martine Fallon may be a ruse like Betty Crocker. Real or fictional, I am certain she or one of her colleagues, probably schooled in an esoteric discipline such as modern dance, agronomy, and public relations are familiar with the philosophical musings of Jean Genet.
You can get a copy of Born to Lose at this link.
I recall M. Genet’s observation:
I recognize in thieves, traitors and murderers, in the ruthless and the cunning, a deep beauty – a sunken beauty.
Temis, a European company in the dicey semantic game, surely appreciates the delicious irony of explaining a license deal as a “team”. The notion of strengthening access to content is another semantic bon mot. The problem is that the argument does not satisfy my existential quest for factual information; for example, look at the words and bound phrases in bold:
Temis, the leading provider of Semantic Content Enrichment solutions for the Enterprise, today announced it has signed a license and services agreement with the American Society for Microbiology (ASM), the oldest and largest life science membership organization in the world.
Do tell. Leading? Semantic content enrichment. What’s that?
The “leading” word is interesting but it lacks the substance of verifiable fact. Well, there’s more to the news story and the Temis pitch. Temis speaks for its client, asserting:
To serve its 40,000 members better, ASM is completely revamping its online content offering, and aggregating at a new site all of its authoritative content, including ASM’s journal titles dating back to 1916, a rapidly expanding image library, 240 book titles, its news magazine Microbe, and eventually abstracts of meetings and educational publications.
I navigated to the ASM Web site, did some poking around, and learned that ASM is rolling in dough. You can verify the outfit’s financial status at this page. But the numbers and charts allowed me to see that ASM has increasing assets, which is good. However, this chart suggests that since 2008, revenue has been heading south.
Source: http://www.faqs.org/tax-exempt/DC/American-Society-For-Microbiology.html
In my limited experience in rural Kentucky, not-for-profits embrace technology for one of three reasons. Let me list them and see if we can figure out what causes the estimable American Society for Microbiology.
Watson Fights Cancer: Talented Search System That
January 4, 2012
As if to continue trying to prove that it can do anything, “IBM’s Watson to Help Doctors Diagnose, Treat Cancer,” reports eWeek. The AI supercomputer will be working with the Cedars-Sinai cancer center and insurance company WellPoint to evaluate cancer treatment options. Writer Brian T. Horowitz explains:
Using its data analytics and NLP [Natural Language Processing] capabilities, Watson would integrate data such as medical literature, patient histories, clinical trials, side effects and outcomes data to help doctors decide on courses of treatment. . . . Watson would also look at the characteristics of a patient’s cancer and make recommendations on cost-effective treatment that would lead to the best outcome.
Of course, this advice would not replace that of a doctor, but it could become a valuable tool. Other health care organizations have been turning to technology for solutions. For example, Dell just donated an entire cloud infrastructure to the Translational Genomics Research Institute for storing medical trial data on pediatric cancer.
Good to see technology being used for the good of humanity, right? We would like to see IBM put Watson up on a test corpus for the public to use. Wishful thinking I suppose.
Cynthia Murrell, January 4, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Sentiment Analysis Explained
December 1, 2011
Sentiment and text mining analytics company Lexalytics has created the first easy to use semantic classifier by compiling over 1.1 million words and phrases from Wikipedia. Sentiment analysis, or opinion mining, refers to the application of natural language processing, computational linguistics, and text analytics to identify and extract subjective information in source materials.
I read a recent Click Centive post called “OEM Text Analytics from Lexalytics” that breaks down the concept of sentiment analysis and scoring and provides a series of posts related to Lexalytics software.
The post states:
Sentiment scoring allows a computer to consistently rate the positive or negative assertions that are associated with a document or entity. The scoring of sentiment (sometimes referred to as tone) from a document is a problem that was originally raised in the context of marketing and business intelligence, where being able to measure the public’s reaction to a new marketing campaign (or a corporate scandal) can have a measurable financial impact on your business.
This is an informative post, but I’m more interested to see specific information regarding the “easy to user semantic classifier” that Lexalytics has created, rather than generalities on sentiment scoring.
Jasmine Ashton, December 1, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Information Volume Can Exceed Capacity to Cope
November 28, 2011
There has been much written about SharePoint 2010’s widespread and rapid adoption, but few people are shedding light on an organization’s ability to cope. Ed Kelty, CIO of Rio Salado College in Arizona, talks about his college’s journey with SharePoint in “SharePoint adopted faster than any other application I’ve ever seen!”
While Kelty highlights many of the benefits gleaned from their SharePoint installation, he admits there have been struggles and weaknesses in the implementation.
“It’s not so much a weakness, but one of the issues we had with SharePoint is that we didn’t realize the level of flexibility and the power it had to develop different things … and we didn’t initially have a process in place to help govern what went where. And so our SharePoint sites, especially on our Employee Portal went crazy . . . In the last few years, we’ve been more organized about things – navigation and database storage and that sort of thing, but in the beginning, we didn’t have a clue how to best configure the system.”
There are other solutions that work independent of SharePoint, or alongside SharePoint, that might prevent the sort of out-of-control information explosion. Fabasoft Mindbreeze is one third party solution that we like, especially for the kind of website customization that Kelty mentions above through its Fabasoft Mindbreeze InSite.
“Fabasoft Mindbreeze InSite recognizes correlations and links through semantic and dynamic search processes. This delivers pinpoint accurate and precise ‘finding experiences.’ And this with no installation, configuration or maintenance required. Fabasoft Mindbreeze InSite is the website search that your company needs.”
You can prevent not only the out-of-control growth that Kelty mentions, but also save valuable configuration time, simply by choosing an option that handles this customization for you. Explore solutions like Fabasoft Mindbreeze to ensure that your organization has an agile answer to its information needs.
Emily Rae Aldridge, November 28, 2011
Sponsored by: Pandia.com
Bing and the Plus Sign
November 16, 2011
Google’s decision to name its social product Google+ was interesting. Non text characters are difficult to search. Many systems use ubiquitous characters like a dot or a minus sign as an “operator”. An operator in this sense tells the system to perform a function such as performing a Boolean NOT operation. Google dropped support for its Boolean AND operator which was the plus sign.
We learned from Boolean Black Belt that Microsoft Bing is Boolean AND friendly. And, the operator is the + sign. “Bing’s Semantic Search, Phonetics and Undocumented Operator” revealed this factoid on November 14, 2011.
The write up added this comment: “the +/Plus sign was serving to remove Bing’s attempt at semantic search and only return results with the exact terms I searched for.” The author then noted:
Now that I am on the lookout for Bing’s semantic search, I’ve noticed that sometimes Bing will slip in semantic search results without giving you the “Including results for ____ / Do you want results for _____” heads-up that lets you know Bing has included results with terms you didn’t actually search for that Bing thinks is related and relevant.
The article contains a number of annotated screen shots. The take away is that Bing has some useful search features. We agree.
Stephen E Arnold, November 16, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Mindbreeze Named Trendsetting Product
November 11, 2011
KM World lists Fabasoft Mindbreeze as one of its “Trend-Setting Products of 2011.” Microsoft SharePoint’s main claim is that it makes it easier for people to work together. However, we argue that a uniform platform does not guarantee ease, not unless the solution is customized to the organization and the situation. Fabasoft Mindbreeze boasts a highly customized enterprise solution allowing for not only efficient searching, but also “finding” across an organization’s entire system.
“Mindbreeze understands, relates and combines information from all sources and presents intelligent search results. Information can be grouped and is classified. Users can scan the different categories and spot a particular document without having to click through a list of links themselves. The information’s semantic relationship is recognized and depicted, navigation elements and facets are provided as well as a preview of any result in the browser. With Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise you get a 360 degree view of your business, customers, competitors and more.”
Any discuss of an entity’s entire platform would be incomplete without some attention to mobile devices. Fabasoft Mindbreeze not only supports search and retrieval from mobile devices, but also ensures that access rights are continually maintained and updated on these devices as well.
“Fabasoft Mindbreeze Mobile supports your enterprise to profit from new opportunities to e-mail, collaborate and work with documents from any location. With Fabasoft Mindbreeze Mobile you can deliver any information to your mobile device’s interface and enhance it with context and classification features. Again, approved security procedures ensure that users can only see information for which they have rights.”
Since search is often carried out under time constraints, an easy and intuitive interface is essential. Explore the features of Fabasoft Mindbreeze to learn how this trend-setting solution can work for you.
Emily Rae Aldridge, November 11, 2011
Mindbreeze Delivers More Convenience More Relevance
November 10, 2011
Our previous stories have highlighted the rapid and broad adoption of SharePoint following the release of its 2010 version. However, SharePoint adoption by an organization does not always equal greater efficiency or productivity. Enterprise solutions, such as Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise are built with the user in mind, greatly increasing the user’s perception of convenience and relevance. “Stadium of More: The 2011 Summer Release,” details the many ways that Mindbreeze improves the enterprise experience from the viewpoint of the user.
A highlight is the Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Connector:
“Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise now supports Microsoft SharePoint 2010 out-of-the-box with its standard product functionality. All standard types of Microsoft SharePoint 2010 are indexed and line of business applications are supported as well.”
This tutorial briefly explains how Mindbreeze’s composite application allows the user to search and access all items to which they have access while remaining within the application. Streamlining search and retrieval into the same platform saves time and aggravation. Mindbreeze constantly verifies and updates access rights, insuring that each user is only retrieving results that they have permission to view.
Continuing the company’s theme of “Not searching, but finding,” this tutorial highlights additional ways that Fabasoft Mindbreeze brings convenience and relevance to the forefront. Search restrictions are available via intuitive tabs. Mindbreeze thinks semantically, allowing a search for “records” to retrieve actual records and not simply files names containing the word “record.” More examples can be found on the brief tutorial.
Don’t make the mistake of assuming that “searching” via Microsoft SharePoint is enough. Choose Fabasoft Mindbreeze and discover how “finding” can be the key to efficiency and user satisfaction for your enterprise needs.
Emily Rae Aldridge, November 10, 2011
Facebook and Semantic Search
October 27, 2011
Stories about Facebook search surface then disappear. For years we have wondered why Twitter resists indexing the urls posted by Facebook members. Our view is that for the Facebook crowd, this curated subset of Web pages would be a useful reference resource. With Facebook metadata, the collection could become quite interesting in a number of dimensions.
Not yet, but the ongoing social media war between Web giants Facebook and Google doesn’t seem to be stopping at social media.
Facebook was last spring beavering away to create a semantic search engine using meta data, based on the company’s Open Graph system and by using collected data on every user. Few companies have the ability to build a semantic search engine, but with Facebook’s scale of users (over 400 million users), the company has the ability to create something huge. We learn more on AllFacebook’s article, “Facebook Seeks To Build the Semantic Search Engine”:
There are a number of standards that have been created in the past as some developers have pointed out, microformats being the most widely accepted version, however the reduction of friction for implementation means that Facebook has a better shot at more quickly collecting the data. The race is on for building the semantic web and now that developers and website owners have the tools to implement this immediately.
The source document appeared in April 2011 and here we are in the run up to Turkey Day and no semantic search system. Now we are wondering if Facebook has concluded that search is yesterday’s business or is the company struggling with implementation of semantic technology in a social space?
We will keep watching.
Andrea Hayden, October 27, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Hewlett Packard and Semantic Search
October 26, 2011
Semantic search is important trend but we did not automatically link Autonomy with semantic search. Hewlett-Packard owns Autonomy, and it sees more deeply into the Bayesian technology than we do, of course.
HP seems to see Autonomy as a semantic tool which can extract information from unstructured data. HP paid $10.3 billion for Autonomy and is rallying around the notion that unstructured information is a big money-maker.
We learn more about the trend in a MediaPost Blogs’ post, “Semantic Search and Raw Data On Rise”. The article stated:
“Search engines are also looking more toward semantic search. Colin Jeavons, Vertical Search Works president and CEO, said the company will launch mobile voice search for the iPhone and phones running Android operating system next week to support the company’s semantic search engine technology for computers and tablets…
Jeavons said publishers will have an option to support voice-activated mobile Web search. ‘We share the revenue with content producers, so they get paid for carrying it,’ he said. ‘Users also get a faster search experience when using a mobile device.’”
It isn’t just HP. The other search giants are into semantics as well. Google, Bing, and Yahoo. Lots of talk does not make the complex content processing systems semantic. Our opinion? Semantics are best kept under the covers and out of the hands of marketers. Semantic methods are a complement, not the final solution to search woes.
Andrea Hayden, October 26, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
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