SharePoint User Training Cannot be Overlooked
October 11, 2013
SharePoint is a huge deployment for any organization. Most will just focus on implementation and many make the mistake of overlooking user training. CMS Wire gives many reasons to invest in SharePoint user training in their article, “Don’t Overlook the Importance of Effective SharePoint User Training.”
The article begins:
“While most of the recent stories about SharePoint revolve around the latest buzzwords and hot topics — gamification, cloud, mobile, social, Yammer, etc. — one component of a successful SharePoint rollout that is often overlooked is an effective user training program. Although talking about training seems to be out of fashion at the moment, it’s still very important.”
User training is so important for SharePoint because it is a huge, complicated deployment. User satisfaction is pitifully low for the enterprise search solution, and training can only help improve those numbers. Stephen E. Arnold, a longtime expert in search and the brains behind ArnoldIT.com, is a critic of SharePoint. He recently covered a story that revealed that only 6% of enterprises found their SharePoint deployments to be successful. There is clearly room for improvement.
Emily Rae Aldridge, October 11, 2013
Kapow as a Division of Kofax
October 11, 2013
Now that data outfit Kapow Software is part of Kofax, it is emphasizing its enterprise search chops. The page that introduces its enterprise search solution is titled, “Enhancing Content to Ensure Search Relevancy and Accuracy.” The product description leads with the usual big data introduction, emphasizing that businesses must adapt to the shift from structured to a combination of structured and unstructured data. The blurb states:
“The problem lies in the fact that standard search engines may index content faithfully, but they are unable to gauge the content’s significance to the user without rich metadata. They also do not offer an easy way to enrich the content with metadata applied based on rules that are meaningful to your business and that will ensure the best search results.
“We help you solve that challenge by opening up access to any web based content source, providing a platform that makes it easy to enrich the content with metadata attributes that are meaningful to your intended audience. Using Kapow Synthetic API technology, you can enrich legacy and unstructured content without relying on manual processes, custom scripting or connectors.”
I am reminded of a thoughtful presentation Kapow’s CEO, John Yapaola, gave last spring about the unknowns within the big data; it is evidence that Kofax made a smart choice in bringing the Kapow team aboard. Launched in 2005 and based in Denmark, Kapow Software brings with it a healthy roster of customers from around the globe.
Customer engagement company Kofax makes it a point to begin at the beginning, emphasizing a focus on customer interactions from the start of the relationship (what they call the “First Mile”). Since the company began in 1991, it has gathered more than 20,000 customers around the world in a variety of markets. Though headquartered in Irvine, California, Kofax maintains subsidiaries in 30 countries.
Cynthia Murrell, October 11, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
The Stats behind the Social Networks
October 11, 2013
Who uses what social network? Younger kids say Facebook is old school and have moved onto younger pastures and older folks tend to stick with the social media they become accustomed to. These are just general trends that I hear in passing, but for cold hard facts I turned to a Business Insider article entitled, “A Primer On Social Media Demographics.”
BI Intelligence conducted a report that broke down the various demographics about who uses what social network. The main purpose of the report was to provide companies with data for them to target consumers:
“Being able to identify the demographics of social media audiences at a granular level is the basis for all targeted marketing and messaging. The report also spotlights the opportunities that lie ahead for each social network, how demographics affect usage patterns, and why some platforms are better for brands than others.”
The numbers are quite interesting. Facebook still remains the standard for most users, especially with a surprising 86% outside the US. Instagram and Pinterest are female driven networks, while men prefer LinkedIn and Google+. Twitter remains mostly for the younger folks, as does Tumblr. Then there are these people from Marketing Land: “Who Are The 15 Percent Of Adults Who Do Not Use The Internet?” The numbers dwindle down to 38 million people who do not use the Internet and they are people in the over 65 range with less education and money. The reasons are that many people in this age group claim not to need it or find it difficult to learn. Also they are paranoid about hackers and rely on friends and family to do the surfing for them. Such thoughts are relics of the past and are annoying to marketers. I will say, though, I will not sign up for paperless billing, so maybe I am a relic.
Whitney Grace, October 11, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Changes in the Social Media Monitoring Field
October 11, 2013
A recent move by social media monitoring firm DataSift has Business2Community contemplating “The Stratification of Social Media Listening.” DataSift is now working with Tumblr to distribute that site’s content to subscribers, and writer Mike Moran takes the occasion to discuss ways social media monitoring has changed since he began working in the field five years ago. At that time, he says, it was all about crisis management, and SalesForce’s Radian6 was a central player. Moran writes:
“Salesforce’s purchase of Radian6 is still the biggest deal ever in this business. But the Radian6 purchase was the last gasp of the fully integrated software stacks in social listening. Top to bottom, you bought it all from one vendor. Radian6 crawled the blogs, screen-scraped the message boards, contracted with Twitter for the firehose. Radian6 analyzed the data. Radian6 presented the dashboard of streaming messages and the dashboard that aggregated the metrics.”
Lately though, Moran tells us, media monitoring has been moving away from the centralized to the stratified. Companies now have the option of straying from their Radian6 (or similar) structure to embrace other tools, like Tableau for their analytics dashboard, or Clarabridge or Lexalytics for text analytics. He expounds:
“Which brings us to today’s DataSift-Tumblr announcement. Why should you care? Because this stratification of social media listening is truly allowing the best solutions to be brought together out of component parts. Cloud computing allows us to quickly and cheaply cobble together these pieces into what our clients really need.”
Moran goes on to note that this departure from the integrated stack opens a myriad of possible advantages. Off-the-shelf solutions are no longer enough to stay competitive, he insists; to excel in social media monitoring now calls for a customized approach. That sounds like a lot of work to me. Organizations should not overlook the cost of added hours when considering their options.
Cynthia Murrell, October 11, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Alert Relevance: Off the Rails?
October 10, 2013
I signed up for alerts via the Yahoo.com service. My topic has been “enterprise search.” In the last month or so, I have noticed that the Yahoo alerts are cheerleading for an outfit called TopSEOs.com. Here’s a snap of the alert I received today:
The top hit is not about enterprise search in my traditional context. The “enterprise search” refers to TopSEOs.com’s ability to push content to the top of a results list. On one hand, manipulations that give a company focused on spoofing results pride of place in an alert is evidence that Yahoo and other systems cannot detect methods of manipulation. On the other hand, the ability a marketing manager struggling to “prove” that his/her efforts are of value to a company will want to hire these manipulators as quickly as possible.
What does this type of “alert” manipulation suggest to me?
First, the notion of relevance is completely subverted from objective results germane to a query. That’s too bad for those who don’t know the difference between a relevant result and an off-point result.
Second, the endless discussions about whether the results lists bias one site versus another or boost one concept in relation to another are irrelevant. The systems seems to be more under the control of the spoofers than the folks responsible for the search system. I hope self-driving automobiles work better.
Third, the hype about systems understanding context, semantics, and personalization seems to be either unworkable or too expensive to implement. Enterprise search does not connote SEO or search engine optimization to me. Why am I seeing these results?
Answer: One more example of search becoming less and less reliable and useful. You can set up a Yahoo Alert and judge the utility of the service for yourself at http://alerts.yahoo.com/.
Stephen E Arnold, October 10, 2013
AddOns Secure SharePoint Cloud Data
October 10, 2013
As more and more information moves to the Cloud, questions arise about how to secure that data. CipherPoint has announced a new Cloud data security solution that hopes to help solve the problem. Read more in the EON article, “CipherPoint Announces Cloud Data Security Solution for SharePoint Online and Office365.”
The article begins:
“With CipherPoint Eclipse™ for SharePoint Online and Office365, organizations can now identify, secure and audit access to sensitive and regulated data stored in cloud collaboration platforms. This new solution provides customers with robust encryption, using industry standard encryption algorithms, access control, audit reporting and customer-controlled encryption keys to address real concerns that large enterprises have about cloud security.”
Stephen E. Arnold, a longtime expert in search and founder of Arnold IT, has frequently noted that while SharePoint is the most widely used enterprise solution, it is not necessarily the highest functioning. Key features are still lacking and it might not be much longer before even the biggest enterprises go looking for other solutions, including open source. Enterprises still using SharePoint often have to supplement with additional add-ons, such as the security solution that CipherPoint now offers.
Emily Rae Aldridge, October 10, 2013
Track Website Changes with Diphur
October 10, 2013
We’d like to share this free service we’ve found: diphur tracks website changes via bookmarks. Tech Tips Geek introduces us this helpful tool in, “How to Keep Up with Changes to Favorite Websites.” Writer Charnita Fance begins:
“How do you keep up with changes to your favorite websites? RSS feeds are great for websites that support them, but what about websites that do not support RSS? A great way to keep up with websites that don’t support RSS is by using a free service called diphur. With diphur, you can add websites as bookmarks and then get notified (via email) when there are changes to those websites. Diphur is not just for websites that don’t support RSS though, you can also use it for social media sites and any other website that has textual content.”
If this sounds helpful to you, check out Fance’s detailed instructions. She describes how to start an account, how to add and edit bookmarks, and how to customize the service.
Naturally, diphur inc. has ways to monetize their handiwork, no doubt hoping to hook users with the free taste. Diphur helps businesses set up tailored site monitoring for a fee, and grants volume discounts on such subscriptions. They also offer a version of the service for use on organizations’ private networks. See the company’s About page for more information on these business options. Diphur is headquartered in California.
Cynthia Murrell, October 10, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
AWS Architect Defends AWS Turf
October 10, 2013
Now that the concept of the cloud has caught on, the folks at Amazon Web Services are not taking competition lying down. The Register reports, “Oh Snap—AWS Daddy Disses It’s ‘Old Guard’: You’re so 2000-and-Late.” To unpack that title: The “AWS Daddy” is Andy Jassy, the architect of AWS and a current Amazon VP. The “old guard,” though unnamed by Jassy, must refer to Oracle, HP, Dell, and Microsoft, all of which are now offering cloudy services. And that reference to a Black Eyed Peas lyric? It points to one of Jassy’s swipes at those companies—he insists that their current solutions are at a point AWS reached five years ago. Writer Gavin Clarke dishes:
“AWS and Amazon infrastructure senior vice president Jassy on Tuesday said he reckoned traditional on-premises tech companies were wrong to claim their private clouds offered the same benefits as AWS. Speaking at the AWS Enterprise Summit in London, Jassy did not name names, but referred obliquely to on-premises providers that charge large licenses [and] make fat margins. Running your own cloud does not give you the cost savings of having Amazon’s servers process and store your data and apps or give you access to a stream of new features, he argued.”
Perhaps, though Jassy does not seem to offer any data to support his assertions; see the article for more of his criticisms. I do agree that the pricey, large-license business model prevalent at these more established companies may be growing obsolete. Perhaps, though, their willingness to change by embracing cloud technology signals a more general disposition to adapt. After all, these companies have weathered market shifts before; let’s give them some credit now. Businesses considering their cloud options should do their own research into the choices, not simply accept Jassys’ avowal that his company’s solution is the only competent game in town.
Cynthia Murrell, October 10, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Debunking Big Data Myths
October 10, 2013
Much has been written about big data, and apparently a bit of misinformation is now floating around. ITProPortal aims to set the record straight with, “5 Big Data Myths Businesses Need to Understand.”
The article’s first myth is that big data technology is only about unstructured data, when it is really the ability to work with multiple types of data at once that is important. This one is chalked up to “the imprecise use of the word ‘unstructured’.” Other myths include the idea that big data sets inherently contain data of poor quality (it depends on the company’s quality control); that adopting a big data system requires hiring a big data expert (it doesn’t); and that machine learning can eliminate human bias (certainly not). All important points—see the piece for writer Gil Allouche’s support for each of these.
I do take some issue with his elaboration on myth number two, “Only large companies produce such huge data volumes.” Allouche asserts:
“The inclusion of the word ‘big’ causes many small business owners to assume that big data is purely for large companies with huge amounts of information. Nothing could be further from the truth. Although volume is often discussed as a key attribute of big data, there is no set amount that qualifies. What matters is that everybody’s data is growing in size. In addition, enormous data sets are generally not analysed all at once anyway, so the amount of information you have really isn’t such an important factor when it comes to big data. The size of the organisation shouldn’t matter either, since every business should strive to run based off data-driven insights rather than gut feelings or intuition. In fact, big data may be the key that allows a small business to outpace their larger competitors.”
Maybe. I’m not so quick to dismiss “gut feelings or intuition,” especially in smaller organizations. The annoying truth is that the big data question is not so simple. Businesses must carefully examine their unique situations and decide whether “data-driven insights” will truly serve their needs. Jumping on the bandwagon without doing the research could prove costly in the end.
Cynthia Murrell, October 10, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Xenky Search Vendor Profile: Convera
October 9, 2013
I have begun to put up early drafts of profiles I have written over the years. These are descriptions and commentary about vendors of search, content processing, and analytics systems.
The first profile to go live is one of my early analyses of Convera, a vendor which has largely dropped out of sight and out of mind—the famous Excalibur Technologies which reinvented itself as Convera. Anyone remember ConQuest Software. That was absorbed into Convera and made maintain word lists and controlled vocabularies an interesting task.
You can access the Convera profile at www.xenky.com/vendor-profiles. If you want to argue about one of the comments in this draft profile, use the comments section to this blog post.
The profiles will not be updated or maintained. I am providing the information because some students may find the explanations, diagrams, and comments of interest. The information is provided on an “as is” basis. If you want to use this for commercial purposes, please, contact me at seaky2000 at yahoo dot com.
Remember. I am almost 70 years old and some of the final versions of these profiles commanded hefty fees. Enjoy the tales of search systems that sometimes work okay and sometimes don’t work.
Stephen E Arnold, October 9, 2013
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