American Style Management and Search
April 22, 2010
At lunch today (April 13, 2010), there was a brief discussion about the article “Will France Outlaw American-Style Macho-Management?” The main idea is that a French executive implemented some “American style” management tactics. The result was employee dissatisfaction and alleged suicides as a result of work pressure. The Europeans with whom I spoke were uniformly critical of American MBAs and their management styles. I have worked with managers from different countries. Some of these individuals were American trained executives and others were graduates of the school of hard knocks.
After lunch, I did some thinking about the search companies’ management styles. In general, I find that the most hard charging professionals are in the sales and marketing departments. The staff at these companies is usually lean with much of the work outsourced. My exchanges with senior managers has been pretty much in line with my dealings with senior executives in government agencies in the US and elsewhere and in non profit and charity organizations. Most of these professionals have a deep concern for the customer and staff. Knowledge of products and their underlying technologies may be a bit of a challenge for some senior managers, particularly those who must chase funds and sales. Keeping the lights on takes precedence over the nitty gritty details. When I hear the phrase “lost in the weeds”, my radar registers an intruder.
Most of the potholes that I identify as weaknesses in search come not from top management but from the methods of implementing certain technical functions. I also find that outsourcing causes a fair share of disruption as well. Toss in the excitement needed to make sales, squirt marketing juice into the gears, and upselling services, and I find a volatile mix. There is also quite a bit of confusion generated by consultants who describe many different vendors in glowing terms because these happy words sell reports and consulting work but not necessarily search or content processing systems.
Search management survival. Source: http://www.hhmi.org/images/bulletin/feb2009/survival_image.jpg
Several observations:
- The pressure to generate revenue leads to some of the issues that I encounter. One small company did not get its funding and the pressure on the executives is palpable. There are quite a few vendors competing for search contracts, and I think that the advantage will remain with the companies that have a high profile and benefits that make sense to the client. I don’t think it is possible to advertise, Twitter, and blog oneself into the big time in search. Clients don’t have the time to verify that a newcomer’s system works. Most deals go to companies that have a track record. Companies that don’t need to generate revenue from a search license may have an advantage because “price” drops out of the procurement equation in some cases.
- The PR firms handling search have a great pitch, but most of these outfits crash and burn in their approach to the subject of search. Examples range from copy that literally sounds like other vendors’ promotional material to muddling Intranet search, Web site search, and Web search. I receive email begging me to view a demo and to interview a CEO. I am not a journalist. If I took time to participate in each of these demos, I would have no time to write my Google monographs and support my handful of clients. I think I have made two PR people cry and earned the wrath of dozens of others because I tell them no, leave me alone, or do your homework. Sadly the appeals to me are increasing.
- The potential licensees of a search system are increasingly confused. When I wrote the first edition of the Enterprise Search Report in 2003, I had a tough time explaining the differences between a couple of dozen vendors. If I were to tackle that type of project in 2010, I am not sure I could do the job as effectively as I did six or seven years ago. The reason is that some of the major vendors are increasingly alike. This gravitation to a common set of functions is partly the result of some leading firms buying other companies and partly because traditional search is becoming a commodity. The specialized systems steer clear of enterprise search and sell directly to the executive who needs this function. Examples range from a customer support system to a warranty analysis system to an eDiscovery system. In each case, a specific unit of an organization has a content problem to solve. Search is part of a broader solution.
- The new frontier in my opinion merges finding information, using it in a business process, and making specialized functions available to users. Examples include business intelligence, report generation, email alerts and notifications, and other features that may not look like search at first glance.
Facebook May Be the Next Google
April 22, 2010
Short honk: I read a number of posts about Facebook’s new services. Impressive. The key item for me was the tie up between Facebook and Microsoft’s cloud services. The Facebooker can use Microsoft Docs for social networking. You can find lots of write ups. I liked “Microsoft Beats Google at Social Networking with Docs for Facebook.” Lots of gems in the article but I noted this passage:
Talk about turnaround: Google Docs is aimed at business users; Docs for Facebook at consumers. This isn’t the first time that Microsoft has beat Google at social networking. The Outlook Social Connector does a very solid job of integrating Outlook with social networks, as I detail in my review for Computerworld. And it is far superior to Google Buzz, Google’s attempt to integrate social networking with Gmail. As I write in a blog post, Microsoft Outlook Social Connector beats Google Buzz, hands down.
Will Google get its act together and deal with Facebook? Will Facebook keep on charging forward? Fascinating shift may be taking place.
Stephen E Arnold, April 22, 2010
No one paid me to write this.
Cuil Founder Lands Another Google Invention
April 22, 2010
I have been reluctant to beat up on the alleged weaknesses of the Cuil.com system for one good reason. Dr. Anna Patterson is a very sharp computer scientist. She developed a quite ingenious system called Xift which she sold to the AltaVista.com crowd. After more engineering and family work, she joined Google and invented some fascinating technology which I discuss in Google Version 2.0. Even though she and her equally smart companion founded Cuil.com, the Patterson impact on Google continues. One example is the April 20, 2010 patent granted for her invention “Information Retrieval System for Archiving Multiple Document Versions.” You can read in my studies The Google Legacy and Google Version 2.0 about the importance of this technique to some Google “time” centric processes. A moment’s reflection will reveal that this ability to traverse deltas has some interesting applications. There are other benefits as well, but the invention is meritorious in my opinion and worth reading in US 7,702,618. Here’s the fine Google/lawyer explanation in the patent’s abstract:
An information retrieval system uses phrases to index, retrieve, organize and describe documents. Phrases are identified that predict the presence of other phrases in documents. Documents are the indexed according to their included phrases. Index data for multiple versions or instances of documents is also maintained. Each document instance is associated with a date range and relevance data derived from the document for the date range.
Dr. Patterson has tallied more than a half dozen inventions for the Google. I pay attention to her work and I discount much of the criticism aimed at her most recent activities. In my experience, the systems reveal significant insights into the trajectory of search. Care to disagree? Just bring some facts and your list of inventions and your record of innovation in search. Dr. Patterson may find the dust up amusing. I will.
Stephen E Arnold, April 22, 2010
Unsponsored post. Dr. Patterson let me pet one of her dogs once. Does that count as a payoff?
Endeca Moves toward Video Search
April 22, 2010
I am putting the finishing touches on Google Beyond Text and came across a news release from Endeca with the catchy title “Endeca Extend Partner Program Adds Leading Video Search Software Vendors”. I was intrigued and partly because I could not figure out the “extend” and “video search” notions. The idea seems to be a good one. With interest in non text content drifting upwards, Endeca is taking steps to allow its McKinley search platform to process video objects. According to the release:
Inaugural Endeca Extend partners in the video search category include 3Play Media, Brightcove and Nexidia. The majority of video and audio files do not have highly attributed meta-data surrounding them. However, through the Endeca Extend program, Endeca and its partners allow customers to use extracted meta-data and high quality, time-synchronized transcripts to increase search recall for audio and video content, and provide new facets for Guided Navigation, cluster related topics, offer landing pages, and improve search relevancy. Endeca customers can easily run their data through an Endeca Extend partner solution, extract additional meta-data elements or transcripts from the most common audio and video file formats and append that information to the original content. Through the partner solutions, search and navigation results will also offer segment-specific playback capabilities for audio and video content. This lowers the integration costs and adds significant structure to the content to enhance the overall user experience. The pre-built integrations allow joint customers the ability to implement best-of-breed technologies without sacrificing ease of integration.
Will Endeca gain traction in the fiercely competitive video search sector? Many organizations put their videos on YouTube and link to them. The pointers and description of the video are text descriptions of the videos. The SEO crowd is chattering about the usefulness of videos and descriptions of them in a Google PageRank effort. We are not too sure about the SEO angle, but we know video is hot for the under 25 crowd.
In our experience, talking about integration of video content and implementing video search can be one of those management tasks where slips between cup and lip can occur. More information is available directly from Endeca at www.endeca.com.
Stephen E Arnold, April 22, 2010
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Translating a Business Intelligence Warning
April 21, 2010
An azure chip consultant, according to the prolific Intelligent Enterprise publication, has issued a business intelligence warning. The write up “Gartner’s BI Summit Warning: Buyer Beware” is one you will want to read to make sure I am translating the message correction. The idea is folded within a number of buzzwords and hot sounding terms; for example, megavendor, stack centricity, BI, and similar code words.
The idea is that an azure chip consulting firm has alerted its customers to avoid the big outfits in the business intelligence sector. I think of Business Objects (now part of the challenged SAP), IBM’s bevy of business intelligence companies, SAS, and, if I am broad minded, Oracle. The consulting firm suggests that big outfits sell companies too much so money is wasted. In short, buy what you need. Save money. Live long. Prosper.
Okay.
First, I think that the consulting firm may be revealing unintentionally that some big outfits are not ponying up significant consulting contracts. The consulting firm’s advice is preparing the ground for smaller vendors to take buy some of the consulting firm’s expertise.
Second, I think that business intelligence like military intelligence are often oxymoronic. In my opinion, companies need timely, operational information; that is, facts directly related to making a sale, solving a problem, or figuring out whether to zig or zag. This more prosaic view of information is too much steak and not enough sizzle, so we get glittering generalities. The need for some words that make sales is increasing. Rhetoric is in. Basics are out perhaps?
Third, notion that a fuzzy concept like business intelligence presented as a cure all is a very popular and facile marketing method. I know a West Coast consultant who overpromises and tries to over deliver. The clients are usually disappointed in my experience. The client remembers the hyperbole and forgets the difficulty of providing solid information in a fluid, unpredictable business environment.
My hunch is that the general advice of “buyer beware” is like one of those Chinese proverbs. Those proverbs sound so darned meaningful. How many situations exist where the buyer does not know enough to be aware? How many buying situations are rubber stamp deals where the old vendor gets the new job auto-magically?
In short, cautions in today financial climate are, in my opinion, not really needed. Example range from Enron to Lehman Bros. My take is that silver bullets whether shot from azure chip consultants’ laptops or vendors’ PowerPoints have one goal: generate cash.
Caveat emptor! Absolutely. And the advice applies to consultants, vendors, and information disseminators as well.
Stephen E Arnold, April 21, 2010
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SharePoint Taxonomy Fairy Dust
April 21, 2010
First, navigate to “SharePoint 2010: Using Taxonomy & Controlled Vocabulary for Content Enrichment”. Second, read the article. Now ask yourself these questions:
- Who sets up the SharePoint taxonomy magic?
- From where does the taxonomy come?
- Who maintains the taxonomy?
- How are inappropriate terms removed from the index and the correct terms applied?
Got your answers. Here are mine:
- A specialist in controlled term lists is needed to figure out the list and then an industrial strength system like the one available from Access Innovations is needed. Once the system is up and running and the term list generated you are ready to tackle SharePoint.
- The taxonomy comes from a method that involves figuring out the lingo of the organization, available term lists, and then knowledge value work. In short, a taxonomy has to be in touch with the organization and the domain of knowledge to which it is applied. Sound like work? It is and most taxonomy problems originate with slap dash methods.
- The taxonomy must be – note the imperative – by a combination of a human and software. New terms come and old terms go. The indexes and the tagged objects must be kept in sync. Humans with software tools perform this work. A taxonomy left to the devices of automated systems, left unchanged, or tweaked by azure chip experts is essentially useless after a period of time.
- Inappropriate terms are removed from the system via a human and software intermediated system. Once the term list is updated, then the process of retagging and reindexing takes places. Muff this bunny and no one can find anything.
Now read the article again. Quite a bit is left out or simply not deemed relevant. My suggestion is to do some thinking about the nature of the user, the specific information retrieval needs, and the expertise required to do the job to avoid wasting time and money.
Like most tasks in search, it is more fun to simplify than to deal from the top of the deck. SharePoint is one of the more interesting systems with which to work. Once the short cuts and half baked approach goes south, you will be ready to do the job correctly. I wonder if the CFO knows what questions to ask to figure out why content processing costs have gone through the roof because of rework, fiddling, and bungee jumping without a cord.
Stephen E Arnold, April 21, 2010
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The Seven Forms of Mass Media
April 21, 2010
Last evening on a pleasant boat ride on the Adriatic, a number of young computer scientists to be were asking about my Google lecture. A few challenged me, but most seemed to agree with my assertion that Google has a large number of balls in the air. A talented juggler, of course, can deal with five or six balls. The average juggler may struggle to keep two or three in sync.
One of the students shifted the subject to search and “findability.” As you know, I floated the idea that search and content processing is morphing into operational intelligence, preferably real-time operational intelligence, not the somewhat stuffy method of banging two or three words into a search box and taking the most likely hit as the answer.
The question put to me was, “Search has not kept up with printed text, which has been around since the 1500s, maybe earlier. What are we going to do about mobile media?”
The idea is that we still have a difficult time locating the precise segment of text or datum. With mobile devices placing restraints on interface, fostering new types of content like short text messages, and producing an increasing flow of pictures and video, finding is harder not easier.
I remembered reading “Cell Phones: The Seventh Mass Media” and had a copy of this document on my laptop. I did not give the assertion that mobile derives were a mass medium, but I thought the insight had relevance. Mobile information comes with some interesting characteristics. These include:
- The potential for metadata derived from the user’s mobile number, location, call history, etc
- The index terms in content, if the system can parse information objects or unwrap text in an image or video such as converting an image to ASCII and then indexing the name of a restaurant or other message in an object
- Contextual information, if available, related to content, identified entities, recipients of messages, etc.
- Log file processing for any other cues about the user, recipient(s), and information objects.
What this line of thinking indicates is that a shift to mobile devices has the potential for increasing the amount of metadata about information objects. A “tweet”, for instance, may be brief but one could given the right processing system impart considerable richness to the information object in the form of metadata of one sort or another.
The previous six forms of media—[I] print (books, magazines, and newspapers), [II] recordings; [III] cinema; [IV] radio; [V] television; and [VI] Internet—fit neatly under the umbrella of [VII] mobile. The idea is mobile embraces the other six. This type of reasoning is quite useful because it gathers some disparate items and adds some handles and knobs to the otherwise unwieldy assortment in the collection.
In the write up referenced above, I found this passage interesting: “Mobile is as different from the Internet as TV is from the radio.”
The challenge that is kicked to the side of the information highway is, “How does one find needed information in this seventh mass media?” Not very well in my experience. In fact, finding and accessing information is clumsy for textual information. After 500 years, the basic approach of hunting, Easter egg style, has been facilitated by information retrieval systems. But I think most people who look for information can point out some obvious deficiencies. For example, most retrieval systems ignore content in various languages. Real time information is more of a marketing ploy than a useful means of figuring out the pulse count for a particular concept. A comprehensive search remains a job for a specialist who would be recognized by an archivist who worked in Ephesus’ library 2500 years ago.
Are you able to locate this video on Ustream or any other video search system? I could not, but I know the video exists. Here is a screen capture. Finding mobile content can be next to impossible in my opinion.
When I toss in the radio and other rich media content, finding and accessing pose enormous challenges to a researcher and a casual user alike. In my keynote speech on April 15, 2010, I referenced some Google patent documents. The clutch of disclosures provide some evidence that Google wants to apply smart software to the editorial job of creating personalized rich media program guides. The approach strikes me as an extension of other personalization approaches, and I am not convinced that explicit personalization is a method that will crack the problem of finding information in the seventh medium or any other for that matter.
Here’s my reasoning:
- Search and retrieval methods for text don’t solve problems. The more information processed means longer results lists and an increase in the work required to figure out where the answer is.
- Smart systems like Google’s or the Cuil Cpedia project are in their infancy. An expert may find fault with smart software that is actually quite stupid from the informed user’s point of view.
- Making use of context is a challenging problem for research scientists but asking one’s “friends” may be the simplest, most economical, and widely used method. Facebook’s utility as a finding system or Twitter’s vibrating mesh may be the killer app for finding content from mobile devices.
- As impressive as Google’s achievements have been in the last 11 years, the approach remains largely a modernization of search systems from the 1970s. A new direction may be needed.
The bright young PhDs have the job of figuring out if mobile is indeed the seventh medium. The group with which I was talking or similar engineers elsewhere have the job of cracking the findability problem for the seventh medium. My hope is that on the road to solving the problem of the new seventh medium’s search challenge, a solution to finding information in the other six is discovered as well.
The interest in my use of the phrase “operational intelligence” tells me one thing. Search is a devalued and somewhat tired bit of jargon. Unfortunately substituting operational intelligence for the word search does not address the problem of delivering the right information when it is needed in a form that the user can easily apprehend and use.
There’s work to be done. A lot of work in my opinion.
Stephen E Arnold, April 20, 2010
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Google Shifts to Mobile
April 21, 2010
I read “Global CIO: Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s Top 10 Reasons Why Mobile Is #1”. My immediate reaction was that David Letterman’s top 10 list had a new challenger. Then I realized that these 10 items are no spoof. Taken as a group, Google is making it clear that the “old Web” is not where the future will be for Google. Is this a big change? No. Google has long had an interest in mobile with some interesting patent applications from a decade ago as tiny markers bobbing in the Google’s technical river.
What I find interesting is that the article identifies 10 reasons. I discerned one—money, but you can read the article and make your own decision.
Two of the points in the article struck me as notable.
First, put your best people on mobile. Sergey Brin’s name appears on a couple of patent documents related to mobile; for example, voice search. That’s a good person. I think that Google has applied quite a few of its best people to infrastructure and supporting technologies as well. Instead of looking at this top 10 item as unique, I think Google is applying resources to mobile and to other, related technical areas. The approach makes Google particularly noteworthy because it is more than a product company. Google is more diverse and mobile is one application of Google’s capabilities.
Second, the “everything now” idea. Google has been an everything now company, but it has been quite patient. Google’s management has rolled out puzzle pieces at different times. The result has been to make it hard for some analysts to see the big Google picture. I think mobile is another puzzle piece. As impressive as the company’s push into mobile has been, I think there is more to come. Mobile is not the end game. The everything now demographics will demand more connectivity, convenience, speed, and services. Google is going to make a run at providing that array. Devices can be implanted, embedded, and sewn into people, places, and things. Is this everything now and everywhere?
To wrap up, this article is one of the first that has been able to identify 10 points made by a Google top gun since I have been tracking the company. I still see one point—money. But that’s my narrow perspective.
Stephen E Arnold, April 21, 2010
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Search Marketing Losing Effectiveness
April 21, 2010
My feedreader yielded an article called “Atlanta Marketing Research Company Reports Marketing Metrics Show Declining Success.” Lousy economy. Inflated specious claims. Meaningless glory words. Yep, marketing at its finest. The write up (if it is still online by the time you read this post) documents some of the dull edges of today’s marketing methods. The source is an outfit called Polaris Marketing Research and the write up provides some interesting factoids, largely out of context, I wish to note. Nevertheless, several are suggestive and triggered my thinking about the reliance on newer forms of marketing.
Here are the three factoids that caught my attention:
- “The Marketing Science Institute (msi.org) reports that a 100% increase in advertising expenditures yields a 1% increase in sales.”
- “The University of Michigan (umich.edu) has discovered that customer satisfaction has fallen below 77%”
- “The MMA (mmaglobal.org/favicon.ico) finds that $54 are returned for every $100 invested in advertising. Further, taking Consumer Package Goods (CPG) advertising expenditures out of the measurement yields a return of $87 for an investment of $100 in all other types of advertising.”
Assume these factoids are reasonably accurate. My thoughts about search and content processing ran along this path:
First, the hyperbole and freneticism that I perceive may be an example of vendors’ inability to find prospects and make sales. If the problem persists, then the noise in the search and content processing sector will go up. I find that some of the search vendors see salvation in more public relations, more spending for azure chip consultants, and more churning of their sales managers. If the factoids from Polaris are accurate, results will be difficult to deliver.
Second, the notion of spending more on marketing may be incorrect. The choking off of technical investment and the elimination of old fashioned interest in a customer will accelerate problems in sales and marketing. Jumping off a roller coaster is tough, but the present marketing thrill ride is a closed loop and may become less enjoyable with each cycle.
Third, spending more on marketing may not increase sales. More marketing means more costs which may increase the financial pressure on search and content processing companies.
In the last few weeks, I have gathered some interesting information about the problems some search and content processing companies are experiencing. The issues range from somewhat wild and crazy “mergers” to investing in trade show exhibits, hoping that conference organizers can deliver qualified buyers with checkbooks.
My view is that the economic challenges that roil certain markets may be abating in some niches. However, search and content processing is beginning to run into headwinds caused by larger firms treating search and content processing as an add in or a utility. Examples include Microsoft’s forceful approach with the Fast ESP system and SAS’s stepped up push in text analytics.
What can most of the 300 vendors of search and content processing systems do? I have some ideas, but I don’t have answers. The upside is that the Polaris factoids are wrong and my preliminary thinking is skewed into the rain shower, not the sunny day. Marketing has not lost its effectiveness and pays off for those who have mastered the art. The downside is that the Polaris factoids are correct. Maybe the future belongs to those who come at search and content processing in a fresh, imaginative way?
An even larger thunderstorm may be building for text content. In a world in which audio and video seem to be outpacing text, what’s the role of key word search and online marketing tied to words? Incumbents in key word search advertising may face a shrinking or at least more reluctant market.
Stephen E Arnold, April 20, 2010
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Apple Google Marketing Battle
April 20, 2010
Short honk: I read “Steve Jobs Reiterates: “Folks Who Want Porn Can Buy an Android Phone”. My reaction, “Now, that’s a marketing chess move.” Google now has to find a way to avoid the “Have you stopped beating your wife?” problem. Marketing may have the advantage over the math club with this ploy. Your move, Mr. Google.
Stephen E Arnold, April 20, 2010
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