When a Search Vendor Says Fuzzy
August 9, 2014
Short honk: You may have heard a search or content processing vendor use the word “fuzzy” or “fuzzify” to describe a smart system. If you have, you may want to know what may be behind the jargon curtain. For fuzzy insights (intentional word choice, gentle reader) check out “Binary Fuzzing Strategies: What Works, What Doesn’t.” If you are not sure what “works” means, feel free to contact the saucisson at the IDC-type consulting firms. Illumination is only a payment away. If you choose another route, get your math T shirt on and check out https://code.google.com/p/american-fuzzy-lop/wiki/StatusScreen.
Stephen E Arnold, August 9, 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
The Knowledge Quotient Saucisson Link: Back to Sociology in the 1970s
August 5, 2014
I have mentioned recent “expert analyses” of the enterprise search and content marketing sector. In my view, these reports are little more than gussied up search engine optimization (SEO), content marketing plays. See, for example, this description of the IDC report about “knowledge quotient”. Sounds good, right. So does most content marketing and PR generated by enterprise search vendors trying to create sustainable revenue and sufficient profits to keep the investors on their boats, in their helicopters, and on the golf course. Disappointing revenues are not acceptable to those with money who worry about risk and return, not their mortgage payment.
Some content processing vendors are in need of sales leads. Others are just desperate for revenue. The companies with venture money in their bank account have to deliver a return. Annoyed funding sources may replace company presidents. This type of financial blitzkrieg has struck BA Insight and LucidWorks. Other search vendors are in legal hot water; for example, one Fast Search & Transfer executive and two high profile Autonomy Corp. professionals. Other companies tap dance from buzzword to catchphrase in the hopes of avoiding the fate of Convera, Delphes, or Entopia. The marketing beat goes on, but the revenues for search solutions remains a challenge. How will IBM hit $10 billion in Watson revenues in five or six years? Good question, but I know the answer. Perhaps accounting procedures might deliver what looks like a home run for Watson. Perhaps the Jeopardy winner will have to undergo Beverly Hills-style plastic surgery? Will the new Watson look like today’s Watson? I would suggest that some artificiality could be discerned.
Last week, one of my two or three readers wrote to inform me that the phrase “knowledge quotient” is a registered trademark. One of my researchers told me that when one uses the phrase “knowledge quotient,” one should include the appropriate symbol. Omission can mean many bad things, mostly involving attorneys:
Another one of the goslings picked up the vaporous “knowledge quotient” and poked around for other uses of the word. Remember. I encountered this nearly meaningless quasi academic jargon in the title of an IDC report about content processing, authored by the intrepid expert Dave Schubmehl.
According to one of my semi reliable goslings, the phrase turned up in a Portland State University thesis. The authors were David Clitheroe and Garrett Long.
The trademark was registered in 2004 by Penn State University. Yep, that’s the university which I associate with an unfortunate management “issue.” According to Justia, the person registering the phrase “knowledge quotient” was a Penn State employee named Gene V J Maciol.
So we are considering a chunk of academic jargon cooked up to fulfill a requirement to get an advanced degree in sociology in 1972. That was about 40 years ago. I am not familiar with sociology or the concept knowledge quotient.
I printed out the 111 page document and read it. I do have some observations about the concept and its relationship to search and content processing. Spoiler alert: Zero, none, zip, nada, zilch.
The topic of the sociology paper is helping kids in trouble. I bristled at the assumptions implicit in the write up. Some cities had sufficient resources to help children. Certain types of faculties are just super. I assume neither of the study’s authors were in a reformatory, orphanage, or insane asylum.
Anyway the phrase “knowledge quotient” is toothless. It means, according to page 31:
the group’s awareness and knowledge of the [troubled youth or orphan] home.
And the “quotient” part? Here it is in all its glory:
A knowledge quotient reflects the group’s awareness and knowledge of the home.
The Cloud: Flecked with Scattered Twinkie-Like Information
August 4, 2014
I read “Cloud Revenue Jumps, Led by Old Computing Titans.” If you have a hard copy of the “real” journalism Mt. Parnassus, you can find this story in the August 4, 2014 version delivered to Kentucky. Online, the story carries an August 3, 2014 date and, if you are quick, you may be able to locate it at http://nyti.ms/1xUXLw9.
I found the write up fascinating because the guts of the story pivot on three firms engaged in selling consulting services: Synergy, Gartner, and IDC. The facts of the article appear to come from the financial reports and other public statements of Amazon, IBM, and Microsoft. As real news goes, relying on “experts” and somewhat broad groupings of financial information continues to make the wheels of commerce go round. I like it. The confection is an excellent Twinkie-like approach to a diaphanous, hard to define topic—the cloud.
This cookbook does not explain how to whip up interest in consultant reports, the activities of large companies, or the specifics of some ingredients. An oversight it seems.
There were a couple of passages in the write up that I found thought starters.
Here’s the first item, a quote from a Synergy expert:
It’s not just talk—they are backing it up with a lot of investment.
I presume this is a reference to Amazon’s spending which seems to have put the company in the company of bears, IBM’s bet the farm approach to its tactics to keep the company an investment my grandmother would love, and Microsoft which is fresh from its knock-it-out-of-the-park mobile phone and Windows 8 initiatives.
A second passage begins “The so called magic quadrant…” and ends with the paragraph beginning “Amazon is still the star.” In between this atta boy for Gartner’s work is an interesting grammatical construction:
This year, helped by the [IBM] acquisition of Soft Layer, a cloud start up, and its own internal investment, it [IBM] has moved sharply to the right and higher thought it is not yet in the leaders area—the vision is strong, according to Gartner, but the executive still lags a bit.”
I am not trained in poetry, although I think some of the search analysts are, indeed, English majors. But I find these points remarkable:
- In a report by experts, IBM has moved. Now did IBM move or did an expert move IBM. The suggestion that IBM can move its $100 billion hulk around a “magic quadrant” drew a yellow highlight from me. I suppose I could have written, my yellow highlighted moved from the table to the paper and marked a yellow line, but that leaves out the who doesn’t it?
- I like the idea that an acquisition and internal development trigger the movement of IBM.
- In a moment of hedging, the New York Times’ writer added that Gartner analyzed IBM and found that its execution lagged. Okay, so IBM cannot deliver cloud whatever very well.
Third, I noted the disclaimer paragraph:
Measurements in the cloud marketplace are tricky. Companies define their cloud businesses differently. And the big companies do not report their cloud revenue or profit separately, although they do occasionally make statements.
High fives all around because no one knows much about what “cloud” means and the companies are not particularly generous with facts. The flow of baloney, however, appears to have caught the attention of the “experts” and the real journalists.
Please, read the original because it is a tribute to the public relations folks who labored to create this cloud stuff.
My interest is, as you may know, search. Now search has moved to the cloud, and there are some examples. The problem is that hard data about the ease with which the services can be deployed, the costs of the system over time, and the amount of customization required to deliver an acceptable service are sparse, not available, or made up.
Two observations:
Search from the cloud seems to be small potatoes. Sure, there are search services available from Amazon, and I suppose one can assume that the billion dollar bet on Watson will be cloud friendly someday. Microsoft cloud search is best experienced first hand. Fire up Windows 8.1 and run a query. You can see how the system deals with local, SkyDrive (once OneDrive), and Web content. A money maker for sure I assume.
I like certain time sharing services. However, I do not like Hollywood style naming and I do not like unsubstantiated assertions presented as fact. If you find this type of Twinkie satisfying, gorge yourself on the mid tier consulting firms’ outputs. Let me know how reality matches up to a sector where measurements are tricky and facts are not available.
Stephen E Arnold, August 4, 2014
IDG: Another Unexpected Action
August 4, 2014
I received an email from IDG, owner of the mid tier consulting outfit IDC.
The most remarkable item in this marketing email was the offer for information about “Web Hosting: How to Break Free from Servers.” I clicked on the link and saw this title:
The information is a “white paper” with the title “Hosting Is Dead.” Now if I go to a car dealer with an ad for a car at a special price and the salesman says, “Oh, we don’t have that auto. I can sell you this higher priced auto” I get annoyed. Some folks would call this bait and switch. But the IDG “white paper” is offered for free, presumably by a company keen to get sales leads.
Well, I filled in the information, using one of my special accounts, and this is what I received after accepting the cookie from IDG:
So what’s the white paper after jumping through these hoops?
The white paper is 17 pages in length. The basic idea in the rather colorful white paper is that I should not purchase do it yourself hosting. The choice, the authors argue, is buy Pantheon.
There are “real” numbers backing up this assertion:
Well, sort of real numbers. There is not pricing for the Pantheon solution. I did some poking around and found this Web page on the Pantheon Web site at https://www.getpantheon.com/pricing:
I don’t want to misread this information so check it out yourself. I would point out that these questions flashed through my mind:
- Why not put the prices in the white paper? Why didn’t IDG present some “real” analysis in their email to me? Why did I come away from this clumsy marketing thinking, “Isn’t this a variation on the Schubmehl affair?”
- Isn’t it possible to use a similar service at a far lower price point via SquareSpace?
- What are the benefits of Drupal compared to Hippo CMS or a similar solution?
There is one important take away for me from this reading, clicking, and exploring. The notion that IDG and its units are delivering McKinsey- or Bain-grade information has been put to rest.
IDG is, in my mind, closer to the content marketing outfits trying to outguess Google.
This would be amusing if it were not such a large window into the ways in which IDG and its units are pursuing revenue by presenting sales silliness as high value information.
Oh, not a peep about the search functionality in Pantheon solution. Not surprising because I don’t see the difference among the hosting outfits that are “dead” and the approach suggested by Pantheon.
Stephen E Arnold, August 1, 2014
More Knowledge Quotient Silliness: The Florida Gar of Search Marketing
August 1, 2014
I must be starved for intellectual Florida Gar. Nibble on this fish’s lateral line and get nauseous or dead. Knowledge quotient as a concept applied to search and retrieval is like a largish Florida gar. Maybe a Florida gar left too long in the sun.
Lookin’ yummy. Looks can be deceiving in fish and fishing for information. A happy quack to https://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/Gallery/Descript/FloridaGar/FloridaGar.html
I ran a query on one of the search systems that I profile in my lectures for the police and intelligence community. With a bit of clicking, I unearthed some interesting uses of the phrase “knowledge quotient.”
What surprised me is that the phrase is a favorite of some educators. The use of the term as a synonym for plain old search seems to be one of those marketing moments of magic. A group of “experts” with degrees in home economics, early childhood education, or political science sit around and try to figure out how to sell a technology that is decades old. Sure, the search vendors make “improvements” with ever increasing speed. As costs rise and sales fail to keep pace, the search “experts” gobble a cinnamon latte and innovate.
In Dubai earlier this year, I saw a reference to a company engaged in human resource development. I think this means “body shop,” “lower cost labor,” or “mercenary registry,” but I could be off base. The company is called Knowledge Quotient FZ LLC. If one tries to search for the company, the task becomes onerous. Google is giving some love to the recent IDC study by an “expert” named Dave Schubmehl. As you may know, this is the “professional” who used by information and then sold it on Amazon until July 2014 without paying me for my semi-valuable name. For more on this remarkable approach to professional publishing, see http://wp.me/pf6p2-auy.
Also, in Dubai is a tutoring outfit called Knowledge Quotient which delivers home tutoring to the children of parents with disposable income. The company explains that it operates a place where learning makes sense.
Companies in India seem to be taken with the phrase “knowledge quotient.” Consider Chessy Knowledge Quotient Private Limited. In West Bengal, one can find one’s way to Mukherjee Road and engage the founders with regard to an “effective business solution.” See http://chessygroup.co.in. Please, do not confuse Chessy with KnowledgeQ, the company operating as Knowledge Quotient Education Services India Pvt Ltd. in Bangalore. See http://www.knowledgeq.org.
What’s the relationship between these companies operating as “knowledge quotient” vendors and search? For me, the appropriation of names and applying them to enterprise search contributes to the low esteem in which many search vendors are held.
Why is Autonomy IDOL such a problem for Hewlett Packard? This is a company that bought a mobile operating system and stepped away from. This is a company that brought out a tablet and abandoned it in a few months. This is a company that wrote off billions and then blamed the seller for not explaining how the business worked. In short, Autonomy, which offers a suite of technology that performs as well or better than any other search system, has become a bit of Florida gar in my view. Autonomy is not a fish. Autonomy is a search and content processing system. When properly configured and resourced, it works as well as any other late 1990s search system. I don’t need meaningless descriptions like “knowledge quotient” to understand that the “problem” with IDOL is little more than HP’s expectations exceeding what a decades old technology can deliver.
Why is Fast Search & Transfer an embarrassment to many who work in the search sector. Perhaps the reason has to do with the financial dealings of the company. In addition to fines and jail terms, the Fast Search system drifted from its roots in Web search and drifted into publishing, smart software, and automatic functions. The problem was that when customers did not pay, the company did not suck it up, fix the software, and renew their efforts to deliver effective search. Nah, Fast Search became associated with a quick sale to Microsoft, subsequent investigations by Norwegian law enforcement, and the culminating decision to ban one executive from working in search. Yep, that is a story that few want to analyze. Search marketers promised and the technology did not deliver, could not deliver given Fast Search’s circumstances.
What about Excalibur/Convera? This company managed to sell advanced search and retrieval to Intel and the NBA. In a short time, both of these companies stepped away from Convera. The company then focused on a confection called “vertical search” based on indexing the Internet for customers who wanted narrow applications. Not even the financial stroking of Allen & Co. could save Convera. In an interesting twist, Fast Search purchased some of Convera’s assets in an effort to capture more US government business. Who digs into the story of Excalibur/Convera? Answer: No one.
What passes for analysis in enterprise search, information retrieval, and content processing is the substitution of baloney for fact-centric analysis. What is the reason that so many search vendors need multiple injections of capital to stay in business? My hunch is that companies like Antidot, Attivio, BA Insight, Coveo, Sinequa, and Palantir, among others, are in the business of raising money, spending it in an increasingly intense effort to generate sustainable revenue, and then going once again to capital markets for more money. When the funding sources dry up or just cut off the company, what happens to these firms? They fail. A few are rescued like Autonomy, Exalead, and Vivisimo. Others just vaporize as Delphes, Entopia, and Siderean did.
When I read a report from a mid tier consulting firm, I often react as if I had swallowed a chunk of Florida gar. An example in my search file is basic information about “The Knowledge Quotient: Unlocking the Hidden Value of Information.” You can buy this outstanding example of ahistorical analysis from IDC.com, the employer of Dave Schubmehl. (Yep, the same professional who used my research without bothering to issue me a contract or get permission from me to fish with my identity. My attorney, if I understand his mumbo jumbo, says this action was not identity theft, but Schubmehl’s actions between May 2012 and July 2014 strikes me as untoward.)
Net net: I wonder if any of the companies using the phrase “knowledge quotient” are aware of brand encroachment. Probably not. That may be due to the low profile search enjoys in some geographic regions where business appears to be more healthy than in the US.
Can search marketing be compared to Florida gar? I want to think more about this.
Stephen E Arnold, August 1, 2014
Gartner and Enterprise Search 2014
July 31, 2014
At lunch yesterday, several search aware people discussed a July 2014 Gartner study. One of the folks had a crumpled image of the July 2014 “magic quadrant.” This is, I believe, report number G00260831. Like other mid tier consulting firms, Gartner works hard to find something that will hook customers’ and prospects’ attention. The Gartner approach is focused on companies that purport to have enterprise search systems. From my vantage point, the Gartner approach is miles ahead of the wild and illogical IDC report about knowledge, a “quotient,” and “unlocking” hidden value. See http://bit.ly/1rpQymz. Now I have not fallen in love with Gartner. The situation is more like my finding my content and my name for sale on Amazon. You can see what my attorney complained about via this link, http://bit.ly/1k7HT8k. I think I was “schubmehled,” not outwitted.
I am the really good looking person. Image source: http://bit.ly/1rPWjN3
What the IDC report lacks in comprehensiveness with regard to vendors, Gartner mentions quite a few companies allegedly offering enterprise search solutions. You must chase down your local Garnter sales person for more details. I want to summarize the points that surfaced in our lunch time pizza fest.
First, the Gartner “study” includes 18 or 19 vendors. Recommind is on the Gartner list even though a supremely confident public relations “professional” named Laurent Ionta insisted that Recommind was not in the July 2014 Gartner report. I called her attention to report number G00260831 and urged her to use her “bulldog” motivation to contact her client and Gartner’s experts to get the information from the horse’s mouth as it were. (Her firm is www.lewispr.com and its is supported to be the Digital Agency of the Year and on the Inc 5000 list of the fastest growing companies in America.) I am impressed with the accolades she included in her emails to me. The fact that this person who may work on the Recommind account was unaware that Gartner pegged Recommind as a niche player seemed like a flub of the first rank. When it comes to search, not even those in the search sector may know who’s on first or among the chosen 19.
To continue with my first take away from lunch, there were several companies that those at lunch thought should be included in the Gartner “analysis.” As I recall, the companies to which my motley lunch group wanted Gartner to apply their considerable objective and subjective talents were:
- ElasticSearch. This in my view is the Big Dog in enterprise search at the moment. The sole reason is that ElasticSearch has received an injection of another $70 million to complement the $30 odd million it had previously gather. Oh, ElasticSearch is a developer magnet. Other search vendors should be so popular with the community crowd.
- Oracle. This company owns and seems to offer Endeca solutions along with RightNow/InQuira natural language processing for enterprise customer support, the fading Secure Enterprise Search system, and still popping and snapping Oracle Text. I did not mention to the lunch crowd that Oracle also owns Artificial Linguistics and Triple Hop technology. This information was, in my view, irrelevant to my lunch mates.
- SphinxSearch. This system is still getting love from the MySQL contingent. Imagine no complex structured query language syntax to find information tucked in a cell.
There are some other information retrieval outfits that I thought of mentioning, but again, my free lunch group does not know what it does not know. Like many folks who discuss search with me, learning details about search systems is not even on the menu. Even when the information is free, few want to confuse fantasy with reality.
The second take away is that rational for putting most vendors in the niche category puzzled me. If a company really has an enterprise search solution, how is that solution a niche? The companies identified as those who can see where search is going are, as I heard, labeled “visionaries.” The problem is that I am not sure what a search visionary is; for example, how does a French aerospace and engineering firm qualify as a visionary? Was HP a visionary when it bought Autonomy, wrote off $8 billion, and initiated litigation against former colleagues? How does this Google supplied definition apply to enterprise search:
able to see visions in a dream or trance, or as a supernatural apparition?
The final takeaway for me was the failure to include any search system from China, Germany, or Russia. Interesting. Even my down on their heels lunch group was aware of Yandex and its effort in enterprise search via a Yandex appliance. Well, internationalization only goes so far I suppose.
I recall hearing one of my luncheon guests say that IBM was, according the “experts” at Gartner, a niche player.Gentle reader, I can describe IBM many ways, but I am not sure it is a niche player like Exorbyte (eCommerce mostly) and MarkLogic (XML data management). Nope, IBM’s search embraces winning Jeopardy, creating recipes with tamarind, and curing assorted diseases. And IBM offers plain old search as part of DB2 and its content management products plus some products obtained via acquisition. Cybertap search, anyone? When someone installs, what used to be OmniFind, I thought IBM was providing an enterprise class information retrieval solution. Guess I am wrong again.
Net net: Gartner has prepared the ground for a raft of follow on analyses. I would suggest that you purchase a copy of the July 2014 Gartner search report. You may be able to get your bearings so you can answer these questions:
- What are the functional differences among the enterprise search systems?
- How does the HP Autonomy “solution” compare to the pre-HP Autonomy solution?
- What is the cost of a Google Search Appliance compared to a competing product from Maxxcat or Thunderstone? (Yep, two more vendors not in the Gartner sample.)
- What causes a company to move from being a challenger in search to a niche player?
- What makes both a printer company and a Microsoft-centric solution qualified to match up with Google and HP Autonomy in enterprise search?
- What are the licensing costs, customizing costs, optimizing costs, and scaling costs of each company’s enterprise search solution? (You can find the going rate for the Google Search Appliance at www.gsaadvantage.gov. The other 18? Good luck.)
I will leave you to your enterprise search missions. Remember. Gartner, unlike some other mid-tier consulting firms, makes an effort to try to talk about what its consultants perceive as concrete aspects of information retrieval. Other outfits not so much. That’s why I remain confused about the IDC KQ (knowledge quotient) thing, the meaning of hidden value, and unlocking. Is information like a bike padlock?
Stephen E Arnold, July 31, 2014
Quote to Note: Thomson Reuters Sustainable Growth
July 30, 2014
Good news for Thomson Reuters, one of the bellwether outfits for professional publishing and “real” news. The company continues to struggle with flat line revenue. But profits are up. You can read the good news in the Thomson Reuters’ story about Thomson Reuters in “Thomson Reuters Reports Rise in Revenue, Profit.” Nestled comfortably in the story is a quote to note:
“The actions we are taking are building a platform for sustainable growth,” Smith said, “and we will continue to simplify our organization and position resources behind the most promising growth opportunities.”
I will not ask the question, “Is sustainable growth based on flat top line revenue?” I will not ask, “What cost cutting steps are in store for employees in the next six to nine months?”
Thomson Reuters’ frequently rotated executives have been trimming, squeezing, and cutting back for four, maybe five or more years. Other professional publishing companies have been trodding the same path, now becoming well worn. The easy reductions may be difficult to identify. Whatever is next may be like a person forced to dine on a weight loss clinic in Arizona.
One atta boy for Thomson Reuters: Years ago when I did some low level work for them, then top dog Michael Brown and Gene Gartlan paid the bill and were quite professional. I wish to point out that their behavior stands in sharp contrast to that of IDC, a mid tier consulting firm, who took a different approach toward my work. See my Schubmehl surfing write up at http://bit.ly/1o8XCiF. I am cheering for Thomson Reuters. IDC? Eh, not so much.
Stephen E Arnold, July 30, 2014
Surprising Sponsored Search Report and Content Marketing
July 28, 2014
Content marketing hath embraced the mid tier consulting firms. IDC, an outfit that used my information without my permission from 2012 until July 2014, has published a study about “knowledge.” I was not able to view the entire report, but the executive summary was available for download at http://bit.ly/1l10sGH. (Verified at 11 am, July 25, 2014) If you have some extra money, you may want to pay an IDC scale fee to learned about “the knowledge quotient.”
I am looking forward to the full IDC report, which promises to be as amusing as a recent Gartner report about search. The idea of rigorous, original research and an endorsement from a company like McKinsey or Boston Consulting Group is a Holy Grail of marketing. McKinsey and BCG (what I call blue chip firms), while not perfect, are produce client smiles for most of their engagements.
Consulting, however, does not have an American Bar Association or other certification process to “certify” a professional’s capabilities. In fact, at Booz, Allen I learned that Halliburton NUS, a nuclear consulting and services shop, was in the eyes of Booz, Allen a “grateful C.” Booz, Allen, like Bain and SRI, were grade A firms. I figured if I were hired at Booz, Allen I could pick up some A-level attributes. Consultants not trained by one of the blue chip firms had to work harder, smarter, and more effectively. Slack off and the consulting firms lower on the totem pole were unlikely to claw their way to the top. When a consulting firm has been a grade C for decades, it is highly unlikely that the blue chip outfits will worry too much about these competitors.
This IDC particular report 249643ES is funded by whom? The fact that I was able to download the report from one of the companies listed as a “sponsor” suggests that Smartlogic and nine other companies were underwriting the rigorous research. You can download the report (verified at 2 30 pm, July 25, 2014) at this link. Hasten to do it, please.
In the consulting arena, multi-client studies come in different flavors or variants. At Booz, Allen & Hamilton, the 1976 Study of World Economic Change was paid for by a number of large banks. We did not write about these banks. We delivered previously uncollected information in a Booz, Allen package. The boss was William Simon, former secretary of the US treasury. He brought a certain mindset and credibility to our project.
The authors of the IDC report are Dave Schubmehl and Dan Vesset. Frankly I don’t known enough about these “experts” to compare them to William Simon. My hunch is that Mr. Simon’s credentials might have had a bit more credibility. We supplemented the Booz, Allen team with specialists from Claremont College, where Peter Drucker was grooming some quite bright business analysts. In short, the high caliber Booz, Allen professionals, the Claremont College whiz kids, and William Simon combined to generate a report with a substantive information payload.
Based on my review of the Executive Summary of “The Knowledge Quotient,” direct comparisons with the Booz, Allen report or even reports from some of the mid tier firms’ analyses in my files are difficult to make. I can, however, highlight a handful of issues that warrant further consideration. Let’s look at three areas where the information highway may be melting in the summer heat.
1. A Focus on Knowledge and the Notion of a Quotient
I do a for fee column for Knowledge Management Magazine. I want to be candid. I am not sure that I have a solid understanding of what the heck “knowledge” is. I know that a quotient is the result obtained by dividing one number by another number. I am not able to accept that an intangible like “knowledge” can be converted to a numeric output. Lard on some other abstractions like “value” and the entire premise of the report is difficult to take seriously.
Well, quite a few companies did take the idea seriously, and we need to look at the IDC material to get a feel for the results based on a survey of 2,155 organizations and in depth interviews with 11 organizations “discovered.” The fact that there are 11 sponsors and 11 in depth interviews suggests that the sample is not an objective one as far as the interviews are concerned. But I may be wrong. Is that a signal that this IDC report is a marketing exercise dressed up as an objective report?
2. The Old Chestnut Makes an Appearance
A second clue is the inclusion of a matrix that reminded me of an unimaginative variation on the 1970 Boston Consulting Group’s tool. The BCG approach used market share or similar “hard” data about products and business units. A version of the BCG quadrant appears below:
IDC’s “experts” may be able to apply numbers to nebulous concepts. I would not want to try and pull off this legerdemain. The Schubmehl and Vesset version for IDC strikes me a somewhat spongy; for example, how does one create a quotient for knowledge when parameterizing “socialization” or “culture.” Is the association with New Age and pop culture intentional?
3. The Sponsors: An Eclectic Group United by Sponsoring IDC?
The third tip off to the focus of the report are the sponsors themselves. The 11 companies are an eclectic group, including a giant computer services firm (IBM) a handful of small companies with little or no corporate profile, and an indexing company that delivers training, services, and advice.
4. A Glimpse of the Takeaways
Fourth, the Executive Summary highlights what appear to be important takeaways from the year long research effort. For example, KQ leaders have their expectations exceeded presumably because these KQ savvy outfits have licensed one or more of the study sponsors’ products. The Executive Summary references a number of case studies. As you may know, positive case studies about search and content processing are not readily available. IDC promises a clutch of cases.
And IDC on pages iv and v of the Executive Summary uses a bullet list and some jargon to give a glimpse of high KQ outfits’ best practices. The idea is that if content is indexed and searchable, there are some benefits to the companies.
After 50 years, I assume IDC has this type of work nailed. I would point out that IDC used my information in its for fee reports from August 2012 until July 2014. My attorney was successful in getting IDC to stop connecting my name and that of my researchers with one of IDC’s top billing analysts. I find surfing on my content and name untoward. But again there are substantive differences between blue chip consulting firms and those lower on the for fee services totem pole.
I wonder if the full report will contain positive profiles of the sponsoring organizations. Be prepared to pay a lot for this “knowledge quotient” report. On the other hand, some of the sponsors may provide you with a copy if you have a gnawing curiosity about the buzzwords and jargon the report embraces; for example, analytics,
Some potential reader will have to write a big check. For example, to get one of the IDC reports with my name on it from 2012 to July 2014, the per report price was $3,500. I would not be surprised if the sticker for this KQ report is even higher. Based on the Executive Summary, KQ looks like a content marketing play. The “inclusions” are the profiles of the sponsors.
I will scout around for the Full Monty, and I hope it is fully clothed and buttoned up. Does IDC have a William Simon to ride herd on its “experts”? From my experience, IDC’s rigorousness is quite different. For example, IDC’s Dave Schubmehl used my information and attached himself to my name. Is this the behavior of a blue chip?
Stephen E Arnold, July 28, 2014
Consulting Content Marketing: The Value of a Name
July 20, 2014
One of my readers sent me a link to this IDC report on Amazon. If you cannot read the image, here’s the link verified on July 20, 2014.
Now check out the price of $500. The author is a former IDC expert, Sue Feldman.
Now check out this IDC report on Amazon and note that the price for my work and that of my researchers is $3,500. Notice that Ms. Feldman’s name is on the report. I don’t know if she was employed at IDC when my work was posted on Amazon without my permission. There is one new IDC “expert” name: Dave Schubmehl, a former OpenText and Janya executive. Also, my name is listed almost as an extra.
This is an archived article. IDC removed the report from the Amazon Web site shortly before this update was written.
I wonder if my name and my team’s contribution delivered up to 7X value or was Dave Schubmehl’s contributions the reason for the price boost. What’s clear is that IDC is taking content, using my name, selling reports with my name, and then deleting documents in a stepwise manner.
Fascinating.
In any event, thanks to my reader and a pointed reminder to anyone purchasing consulting firm content marketing, find out who provided the information. I would suggest that my team obviously has some value because the former IDC professional’s work was a comparative bargain at $500.
Contracts for reuse of another’s work? No.
Permission to resell my research on Amazon? No.
Payments, sales reports, follow through? No.
What’s that say about well known consulting firm behavior? Exploiting a 70 year old and his research team is one more example of a lapse in common sense, fair play, and corporate governance. Does this seem like a smaller scale version of the Google X Labs’ Forrest Hayes’ matter? I leave you to consider the question and your answer.
Stephen E Arnold, July 20, 2014
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