Organizing Content is a Manual or Automated Pain
January 16, 2015
Organizing uploaded content is a pain in the rear. In order to catalog the content, users either have to add tags manually or use an automated system that requires several tedious fields to be filled out. CMS Wire explains the difficulties with document organization in “Stop Pulling Teeth: A Better Way To Classify Documents.” Manual tagging is the longer of the two processes and if no one created a set of tagging standards, tags will be raining down from the cloud in a content mess. Automated fields are not that bad to work with if you have one or two documents to upload, but if you have a lot of files to fill out you are more prone to fill out the wrong information to finish the job.
Apparently there is a happy medium:
“Encourage users to work with documents the way they normally do and use a third party tool such as an auto classification tool to extract text based content, products, subjects and terms out of the document. This will create good, standardized metadata to use for search refinement. It can even be used to flag sensitive information or report content detected with code names, personally identifiable information such as credit card numbers, social security numbers or phone numbers.”
While the suggestion is sound, we thought that auto-classification tools were normally built in collaborative content platform like SharePoint. Apparently not. Third party software to improve enterprise platforms once more saves the day for the digital paper pusher.
Whitney Grace, January 16, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Private Investor Buys Metalogix
November 13, 2014
SharePoint support and add-ons are big business, and there is news this week of a major shakeup in the market. Permira Funds just announced their purchase of Metalogix. Read more in the CMS Wire article, “SharePoint Shakeup: Private Investor Acquires Metalogix.”
The article says:
“Metalogix spent the latter half of 2013 buying out some SharePoint technology to boost its content infrastructure software suite. Permira Funds is spending time a year later buying Metalogix. The Menlo Park, Calif. international private equity firm announced today it acquired Metalogix, known for its suite of Microsoft management platforms that include SharePoint, Exchange and Office 365 . . . Metalogix, based in Washington, DC, fattened its SharePoint suite last year, making it an attractive acquisition target.”
The news may affect some customers more than others, in terms of day-to-day operations, but many are waiting to see how the move affects the overall market. Keep an eye on enterprise specific resources like ArnoldIT.com from Stephen E. Arnold, a longtime leader in search. His SharePoint feed is a great way to stay in tune with the latest news, tips, and tricks.
Emily Rae Aldridge, November 13, 2014
Beyond Intranet Search
October 28, 2014
Apparently, there is a difference between search and knowledge management; I guess you learn something new every day. CMS Wire asks, “Intranet Search: Where Documents Go to Die or KM Enabler?” Writer Jed Cawthorne uses Coveo’s platform to illustrate ways a company can go beyond the “baked in” search functionality in an intranet content management system. He writes:
“You don’t need to stick with the ‘built in solution’ if search is important to your KM / Enterprise Information Management strategies. There are alternatives beyond the ever more standard SharePoint (even though building FAST technology into core SharePoint 2013 has improved it) or the really big (and expensive) heavy hitters like HP’s IDOL platform.
“With the growing rate at which our mountains of internal content grow ever bigger, search capabilities are a fundamental element of an intranet, and of the broader digital workplace. If you want to apply long tail principles to mountains of social content, such as discussion forums, news feeds and updates, a search engine with concept search capabilities would be a good idea, unless you have a work force which is truly at one with tagging absolutely everything with appropriate and valuable metadata … (what, you work in the Library of the Jedi Temple? Cool!).”
Cawthorne spoke to Coveo’s Diane Berry about her company’s knowledge management options. She emphasizes broad content-source connectivity, metadata enrichment through text analytics (for companies lacking Jedi librarians), and building taxonomies through entity extraction. A user-interface based on users’ needs is also key, she notes, and mobile interfaces are a part of that. So is making it easy to adjust search and analysis parameters. See the write-up for more details and some screenshots that illustrate these points.
Cynthia Murrell, October 28, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
BA Insight on the Resurrection Trail
September 10, 2014
I read “Artificial Intelligence Is Resurrecting Enterprise Search.” The unstated foundation of this write up is that enterprise search is dead. I am not sure I buy into that assumption. Last time I checked ElasticSearch was thriving with its open source approach. In fact, one “expert” pointed out that the decline in the fortunes of certain Brand Name search systems coincided with the rise in ElasticSearch’s fortunes. Connection? I don’t know, but enterprise search is thriving.
What needs resurrection (either the Phoenix variety or the Henry James’s varieties of mystical experience type) is search vendors whose software does not deliver for licensees. In this category are outfits that have just gone out of business; for example, Convera, Delphes, Entopia, Kartoo, Perfect Search, Siderean Software, and others).
Then there are the vendors with aging technology that have sold out to outfits that pack information retrieval into umbrella applications in order to put hurdles for competitors to scale. If lock in won’t work, then find a way to build a barricade. Outfits with this approach include Dassault, OpenText, Oracle, TeraText (now Leidos), among others.
Also, there are search vendors up to their ears in hock to venture funding firms. With stakeholders wanting some glimmer of a payout, the pressure is mounting. Companies in this leaky canoe include Attivio, BA Insight, Coveo, and Lucid Imagination, among others.
Another group of vendors are what I call long shots. These range from the quirky French search vendors like Antidot to Sinequa. There are some academic spin outs like Funnelback, which is now a commercial operation with its own unique challenges. And there are some other cats and dogs that live from deal to deal.
Finally, there are the giant companies looking for a way to make as much money as possible from the general ennui associated with proprietary search solutions. IBM is pitching Watson and using open source to get the basic findability function up and running. Microsoft is snagging technology from Jabber and bundling in various bits and pieces to deliver on the SharePoint vision of access to information in an organization. This Delve stuff is sort of smart, but until the product ships and provides access to a range of content types, I think Microsoft has a work in progress, not an enterprise solution upon which one can rely. The giant IHS is leveraging acquired technology into a search business, at least in the planners’ spreadsheets. Google offers its Search Appliance, which is one of the most expensive appliance solutions I have encountered. There is one witless mid tier consulting firm that believes a GSA is economical. Okay. And there is the name surfing Schubmehl from IDC who uses other people’s work to build a reputation.
To sum up, ElasticSearch is doing fine. Lots of other vendors are surviving or selling science fiction.
So what?
The “Artificial Intelligence Is Resurrecting Enterprise Search” is a write up from one of the outfits eager to generate big dollars to keep the venture capitalists happy. Hey, don’t take the money, if the recipients can’t generate big bucks.
Anyway, the premise of the write up is that enterprise search is dead and Microsoft’s Delve will give the software sector new life. The only folks who will get new life are the Microsoft savvy developers who can figure out how to set up, customize, optimize, and keep operational a grab back of software.
Microsoft wants to provide a corporate SharePoint user with a single interface to the content needed to perform work. This is a pretty tough problem. SageMaker, now long gone, failed at this effort. Google asserted that its Search Appliance could pull off this trick. Google failed. Dozens of vendors talk about federated search and generally deliver results that are of the “close but no cigar” variety.
Now what’s artificial intelligence got to do with Delve? Well, the system uses personalization and cues to figure out what a business SharePoint user wants and needs. We know how well this works with the predictive services available from Apple, Google, and—Microsoft Phone. Each time I use these services, I remember that they don’t work too well. Yep, Google really knows what I want about one out of a 1,000 queries. The other 999 Google generates laughable outputs.
Microsoft will be in the same rubber raft.
The write up does disagree with my viewpoint. Well, that’s okay because the BA Insight professional who tackles artificial intelligence is going to need more than inputs from Dave Schubmehl who recycles my information without my permission. If this write up is any indication, something has gone wrong somewhere along the line with regard to artificial intelligence, which is, I believe, an oxymoron.
Delve is, according the the write up, now “turning search on its head.” What? I need to find information about a specific topic. How will a SharePoint centric solution know I need that information? Well, that is not a viable scenario. Delve only knows what I have previously done. That’s the beauty of smart personalization. The problem is that my queries bounce from Ebola to silencers for tactical shotguns, from meth lab dispersion in Kentucky to the Muslim Brotherhood connections to certain political figures. Yep, Delve is going to be a really big help, right?
The write up asserts:
Companies need to get smarter about how they structure their information by addressing core foundational data layers. Pay attention to corporate taxonomies and introduce automated processes that add additional metadata where it’s left out from unstructured data sets. Doing this homework will make enterprise search results more relevant and will allow better results when interacting with enterprise data — whether it’s through text, voice or based on social distance. Access to enterprise data through intelligent interfaces is only getting better.
My reaction? My goodness. What the heck does this collection of buzzwords have to do with advanced software methods for information retrieval? Not much. That’s what the write is conveying to me.
Hopefully the investors in BA Insight find more to embrace than I do. If I were an investor, I would demand that my money be spent for more impactful essays, not reminders that Microsoft like IBM thrives on services, certification, and customers who may not know how to determine if software is smart.
Stephen E Arnold, September 10, 2014
Does Anything Matter Other Than the Interface?
August 7, 2014
I read what I thought was a remarkable public relations story. You will want to check the write up out for two reasons. First, it demonstrates how content marketing converts an assertion into what a company believes will generate business. And, second, it exemplifies how a fix can address complex issues in information access. You may, like Archimedes, exclaim, “I have found it.”
The title and subtitle of the “news” are:
My reaction was, “What?”
The guts of the NewLane “search discovery platform” is explained this way:
Eureka! was developed from the ground up as a platform to capture all the commonalities of what a search app is and allows for the easy customization of what a company’s search app specifically needs.
I am confused. I navigated to the company’s Web site and learned:
Eureka! empowers key users to configure and automatically generate business applications for fast answers to new question that they face every day. http://bit.ly/V0E8pI
The Web site explains:
Need a solution that provides a unified view of available information housed in multiple locations and formats? Finding it hard to sort among documents, intranet and wiki pages, and available reporting data? Create a tailored view of available information that can be grouped by source, information type or other factors. Now in a unified, organized view you can search for a project name and see results for related documents from multiple libraries, wiki pages from collaboration sites, and the profiles of project team members from your company’s people directory or social platform.
“Unified information access” is a buzzword used by Attivio and PolySpot, among other search vendors. The Eureka! approach seems to be an interface tool for “key users.”
Here’s the Eureka technology block diagram:
Notice that Eureka! has connectors to access the indexes in Solr, the Google Search Appliance, Google Site Search, and a relational database. The content that these indexing and search systems can access include Documentum, Microsoft SharePoint, OpenText LiveLink, IBM FileNet, files shares, databases (presumably NoSQL and XML data management systems as well), and content in “the cloud.”
For me the diagram makes clear that NewLane’s Eureka is an interface tool. A “key user” can create an interface to access content of interest to him or her. I think there are quite a few people who do not care where data come from or what academic nit picking went on to present information. The focus is on something a harried professional like an MBA who has to make a decision “now” needs some information.
Archimedes allegedly jumped from his bath, ran into the street, and shouted “Eureka.” He reacted, I learned from a lousy math teacher, that he had a mathematical insight about displacement. The teacher did not tell me that Archimedes was killed because he was working on a math problem and ignored a Roman soldier’s command to quit calculating. Image source: http://blocs.xtec.cat/sucdecocu/category/va-de-cientifics/
I find interfaces a bit like my wife’s questions about the color of paint to use for walls. She shows me antique ivory and then parchment. For me, both are white. But for her, the distinctions are really important. She knows nothing about paint chemistry, paint cost, and application time. She is into the superficial impact the color has for her. To me, the colors colors are indistinguishable. I want to know about durability, how many preparation steps the painter must go through between brands, and the cost of getting the room painted off white.
Interfaces for “key users” work like this in my experience. The integrity of the underlying data, the freshness of the indexes, the numerical recipes used to prioritize the information in a report are niggling details of zero interest to many system users. An answer—any answer—may be good enough.
Eureka! makes it easier to create interfaces. My view is that a layer on top of connectors, on top of indexing and content processing systems, on top of wildly diverse content is interesting. However, I see the interfaces as a type of paint. The walls look good but the underlying structure may be deeply flawed. The interface my wife uses for her walls does not address the fact that the wallboard has to be replaced BEFORE she paints again. When I explain this to her when she wants to repaint the garage walls, she says, “Why can’t we just paint it again?” I don’t know about you, but I usually roll over, particularly if it is a rental property.
Now what does the content marketing-like “news” story tell me about Eureka!
I found this statement yellow highlight worthy:
Seth Earley, CEO of Earley and Associates, describes the current global search environment this way, “What many executives don’t realize is that search tools and technologies have advanced but need to be adapted to the specific information needed by the enterprise and by different types of employees accomplishing their tasks. The key is context. Doing this across the enterprise quickly and efficiently is the Holy Grail. Developing new classes of cloud-based search applications are an essential component for achieving outstanding results.”
Yep, context is important. My hunch is that the context of the underlying information is more important. Mr. Earley, who sponsored an IDC study by an “expert” named Dave Schubmehl on what I call information saucisson, is an expert on the quasi academic “knowledge quotient” jargon. He, in this quote, seems to be talking about a person in shipping or a business development professional being able to use Eureka! to get the interface that puts needed information front and center. I think that shipping departments use dedicated systems who data typically does not find their way into enterprise information access systems. I also think that business development people use Google, whatever is close at hand, and enterprise tools if there is time. When time is short, concise reports can be helpful. But what if the data on which the reports are based are incorrect, stale, incomplete, or just wrong? Well, that is not a question germane to a person focused on the “Holy Grail.”
I also noted this statement from Paul Carney, president and founder of NewLane:
The full functionality of Eureka! enables understaffed and overworked IT departments to address the immediate search requirements as their companies navigate the choppy waters of lessening their dependence on enterprise and proprietary software installations while moving critical business applications to the Cloud. Our ability to work within all their existing systems and transparently find content that is being migrated to the Cloud is saving time, reducing costs and delivering immediate business value.
The point is similar to what Google has used to sell licenses for its Google Search Appliance. Traditional information technology departments can be disintermediated.
If you want to know more about FastLane, navigate to www.fastlane.com. Keep a bathrobe handy if you review the Web site relaxing in a pool or hot tube. Like Archimedes, you may have an insight and jump from the water and run through the streets to tell others about your insight.
Stephen E Arnold, August 7, 2014
Box Moves into the Enterprise
July 24, 2014
The once maligned category of document sharing solutions is now being embraced and adopted by the enterprise. Solutions such as Box and Dropbox are now seen as a necessity because employees simply demand them. The latest success of Box is covered by CiteWorld in their article, “How Box Took Off at Toyota, Where SharePoint is Already Used.”
The article begins:
“Yesterday, file collaboration company Box shared some good news, announcing Toyota North America as a customer. The company has actually been using Box for a couple years now, says IS technology manager Dave Statham, who drove the Box deployment. In 2012, a group of Toyota execs wanted to use their new iPads to share product plans and other information, instead of the three-inch binders they usually carried . . . But hang on a second — about two years ago, Microsoft made a lot of noise when Toyota signed a contract for Office 365.”
So aren’t the collaboration solutions included with Office 365 adequate? Well, no. And while collaboration software might be included into the latest version of Office and SharePoint, it is not intuitive, leaving many organizations to look for an easier option – one that employees with use. Stephen E. Arnold has found the same things as he works and reports on SharePoint on his Web site, ArnoldIT.com. Stay tuned for the latest news on third party solutions that might help your organization bridge the gap left by SharePoint.
Emily Rae Aldridge, July 24, 2014
Microsoft Deepens Yammer Assimilation
June 12, 2014
With its purchase of Yammer two years ago, Microsoft made a public statement that they were increasing social integration within its SharePoint platform. Now, two years into the process, integration has deepened through SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business. Read all about it in the CRN article, “Microsoft Deepens Yammer Integration With SharePoint Online, OneDrive For Business.”
The article begins:
“Microsoft, which bundled Yammer with Office 365 last November, has taken another big step toward integrating the social networking technology with SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business. Microsoft Tuesday unveiled a new feature called Document Conversations, which adds Yammer conversations to more than 30 different file types, including Office documents, images and videos.”
Stephen E. Arnold has covered SharePoint for many years on his information service, ArnoldIT.com. He found that many users wanted better social integration before the release of SharePoint 2013, so with the announcement of Yammer’s purchase, users were looking forward to seeing the social aspect of SharePoint move forward. Arnold provides good coverage on his SharePoint feed and SharePoint users and managers can look there for the latest news, tips, and tricks.
Emily Rae Aldridge, June 12, 2014
Microsoft Office Graph for Oslo Limits Bothersome Data
April 11, 2014
Just what we need—another way to shield folks from information they’d rather not see. Microsoft helps move us in that direction, this time within the enterprise. We learn about the hidden data-narrowing technology in “Social Enterprise, Machine Learning Meet in Microsoft’s Office Graph, Oslo” at eWeek. Oslo is a mobile app created to give users “an at-a-glance view of collaborative Office documents and activities.” The role of Office Graph is to narrow the data stream. Writer Pedro Hernandez tells us:
“Office Graph, while tucked ‘under the hood and never exposed to the user,’ helps users avoid information overload and focus on the task at hand by delivering ‘really personalized and relevant views of their world,’ according to Julia White, general manager of Microsoft Office. This ‘intelligence layer,’ which integrates with SharePoint, Exchange, Lync, Yammer and Office, is the basis of the company’s upcoming Oslo app. Oslo is a mobile-optimized app that ‘cuts through the noise by showing you what you need to know today, and even what’s likely to be important in the near future,’ stated Ashok Kuppusamy, a Microsoft FAST group program manager, in a blog post.”
The app should be available to users of Office 365 within the year. Some of Oslo’s features do sound helpful. For example, since many of us are better at remembering people’s names than project titles or keywords, users can search by colleague name. One can also see what content has been shared, liked, viewed, or modified. But I wonder—do people really need algorithms deciding what to include in “relevant views of their world”?
Cynthia Murrell, April 11, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Fast Redefined: The 2008 Search Acquisition Does a 365
March 9, 2014
Figure skating, anyone? You can do a Salchow jump. The skater has some options. Falling is not one of them. The idea is to leap from one foot to another. The Axel jump tosses is some spinning; for example, a triple Axel is 3.5 revolutions. Want creativity? The skater can flip, bunny hop, and Mazurka.
But the ice has to be right. Skating requires a Zamboni. Search requires information retrieval that works.
One should not confuse a Zamboni with an ageing ice skater.
Fast Search & Transfer has just come back from an extended training period and is ready to perform. The founder may be retired after an unfavorable court decision. The Fast Search Linux and Unix customers have been blown off. But, according to Fortune CNN, Microsoft has made enterprise search better. Give the skater a three for that jump called Office 365.
Navigate to “Can Microsoft Make Enterprise Search Better?” The subtitle is ripe with promise: “Updates to its Office 365 suite show benefits from a 2008 acquisition.” There you go. Technology from the late 1990s, a withdrawal from Web search, a run at unseating Autonomy as the leading provider of enterprise content processing, and allegations of financial wrongdoing and you have a heck of base from which to “make enterprise search better.”
At one time, Fast Search offered an alternative to Google’s Web search system. The senior management of Fast Search decided to cede Web search to Google and pursue dominance in the enterprise search market. Well, how did that work out? The shift from the Web to the enterprise worked for a while, but the costs of customer support, sales, and implementation put the company in a bind. The result was a crash to the ice.
Microsoft bought the sliding Fast Search operation and embarked on a journey to make content in SharePoint findable. The effort was a boom to second tier search vendors who offered SharePoint licensees a search and retrieval system. Most of these vendors are all but unknown outside of the 150 million SharePoint license base. Others have added new jumps to their search routines and have skated to customer support and business intelligence.
Better Team Project Coordination in the New Year
January 6, 2014
Lots of good things happened in the enterprise in 2013, and users are looking toward an even more productive 2014. TechRepublic is sharing their best solutions for SharePoint and other collaboration platforms in 2014 in their article, “Eight Resolutions for Better Project Team Collaboration.”
After giving several helpful suggestions, the article turns to social collaboration:
“In 2013, the integration between enterprise social networks and collaboration platforms took off. For instance, Office 365 took a few steps closer to integration with Yammer, and Huddle launched integration with tibbr. When you bring your collaboration platform together with enterprise social technologies, it can also be a subtle tool to move your organization or project team away from email inboxes.”
Stephen E. Arnold, a longtime leader in search and enterprise, often covers SharePoint through his Web service, ArnoldIT. Followers of his will notice how much attention is paid to the social aspect of SharePoint, which indicates a greater industry trend. And while SharePoint is not yet a fully functioning social platform, it is improving.
Emily Rae Aldridge, January 6, 2014
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