Sinequa Gets a CEO
January 25, 2015
Short honk: One of the French information access companies is following in the footsteps of Lucid Works (Really?) and Attivio. New blood is, according to the MBA hypothesis, will make a company young again. Fabrice de Salaberry is the CEO of Sinequa. As the Parisians say “DG” (short hand for directeur général) and delightfully active and purposeful. Details are here. Like Antidot and Exalead, French information access companies have lower profiles in North America than in Europe. Quantitative easing in the European Community may provide a much needed economic lift to some information and content processing companies.
Stephen E Arnold, January 25, 2015
Dataiku: Former Exalead Wizard Strikes Big Data Fire
January 24, 2015
I read “Big Data : Le Français Dataiku Lève 3 millions d’Euros.” The recipient of the cash infusion is Dataiku. Founded by former Exalead wizard Florian Douetteau, Dataiku offers:
a software platform that aggregates all the steps and big data tools necessary to get from raw data to production ready applications. It shortens the load-prepare-test-deploy cycles required to create data driven applications.
The company’s approach is to reduce the complexity of Big Data app construction. The company’s algorithms support predictive analytics. A community edition download is available at http://www.dataiku.com/dss/editions/.
Dataiku plans to open an office in the US in 2015.
Information about Dataiku is at http://www.dataiku.com.
Stephen E Arnold, January 24, 2015
Unicorns and Search Satyrs
January 23, 2015
I read with considerable amusement “The Age of Unicorns.” The notion that in the last 12 months or so, we have entered an “age” is pretty darned silly. Toss in the unicorn, and we have the makings of a slam bam, Manhattan analytic levitation.
The premise of the story is that $1 billion valuations are everywhere. I assume that the mythical $1 billion, backed by very real bucks from rich folks and wild eyed VCs, are the unicorns.
A “real” unicorn and a female venture capitalist. Image source: http://wallpapersinhq.com/79414-white_unicorn/
The Time Warner wizards report:
Today the technology industry is crowded with billion-dollar startups. When Cowboy Ventures founder Aileen Lee coined the term unicorn as a label for such corporate creatures in a November 2013 TechCrunch blog post, just 39 of the past decade’s VC-backed U.S. software startups had topped the $1 billion valuation mark.
The list of the identified unicorns is located at this link. (Relax before browsing this Fortune list. The presentation is designed to boost dwell time and make the user experience similar to visiting a Time Warner cable storefront. I assume the list has 63 companies. If there were more, I couldn’t figure out how to coax the Time Warner/Fortune to display more items. Wow, this was like waiting for the Time Warner cable guy to arrive.)
I identified a handful of search satyrs. In my mind, these are not true unicorns. The search satyr is a breed apart, smaller than the average unicorn, and probably more promiscuous because with each marketing opportunity, the search satyrs behave like chameleons munching peyote buttons.
Search satyrs closing deals for customer support, data management, Big Data (whatever that is), search, content processing, etc. Promiscuous solutions?
My short list includes:
Palantir, which is described as a member of the sector “Big Data”
- Actifio, also pegged as “Big Data”
- MongoDB, which is a member of the sector “database software”
- Sogou, which isthe only occupant of the “search engine” category
What I found interesting is that each of these companies handles big data (whatever that actually means). Each of the companies rely on a database. And each of the companies includes findability tools with their “solution,” “framework,” “product,” or “service.”
In short, these are search satyrs, ready to have a go at any information challenge that has cash and is impressionable to PowerPoints, generalizations, and assorted stories about return on investment, improving an organization’s operation, and solving problems that other firms have found intractable.
In short, these companies are quite a bit alike, but each is positioned in a way that appears to set them apart from their competitors.
- Actifio, for example, manages data. Dassault, a company that owns Exalead, relies of Actifio. With Actifio, Dassault becomes a single data platform. I thought that Exalead provided this type of functionality when I learned about the use of Exalead to manage a global logistics company disparate apps and data. Oh, well.
- MongoDB, which is an open source project, is a repackager and services play. The idea is to become the RedHat of information management. You can watch a video about the text search function included in the data management system here.
- Sogou is Chinese for search dog, not search satyr, but I prefer my translation. The idea is that Sogou is supposed to be a Google killer, presumably more robust than Jike.com which went dark not long ago. Sogue is leaner and meaner than Baidu, the present champ for Web search and assorted oddities included in the index. Will Google rebuild a bridge to China? If the answer is no, maybe Sogou will be a Bigger Dog.
Several observations:
Which of these outfits is likely to generate a payback to their investors? My hunch is that none unless there is some exogenous factor that arrives from an orbit near Jupiter’s.
Which of these outfits will generate a sustainable revenue flow that obviates the need for additional infusions of capital over the next 12 to 18 months? My view is that none of these outfits will pull this off. Again a Drucker discontinuity might save the day, but that strikes me as tough to bet on.
Which of these outfits will displace one of the major players now dominating their business sector? From the hollow here in rural Kentucky, I would edge toward this answer, I would assert, “I am not sure.” Excellence and big money are not locked like protein pairs.
Why, then, are information access systems getting these billion dollar valuations? The short answer is verbal hypnotism, spreadsheet fever, and MBA magic that whips up billions in fantasy revenue before breakfast.
Does my somewhat cautious view jibe with the panting of the Fortune hunters?
Nah. Modern high tech magic is tossing around fairy dust the way TV talking heads output viewpoints.
Stephen E Arnold, January 24, 2015
Guide to Getting the Most Out of Your Unstructured Data
January 23, 2015
The article on Datamation titled Big Data: 9 Steps to Extract Insight Unstructured Data explores the process of analyzing all of the data organizations collect from phone calls, emails and social media. The article stipulates that this data does contain insights into patterns and connections important to the company. The suggested starting point is deciding what data needs to be analyzed, based on relevance. At this point, the reason for the analysis and what will be done with the information should be clear. After planning on the technology stack the information should be kept in a data lake. The article explains,
“Traditionally, an organization obtained or generated information, sanitized it and stored it away… Anything useful that was discarded in the initial data load was lost as a result… However, with the advent of Big Data, it has come into common practice to do the opposite. With a data lake, information is stored in its native format until it is actually deemed useful and needed for a specific purpose, preserving metadata or anything else that might assist in the analysis.”
The article continues with steps 5-9, which include preparing the data for storage, saving useful information, ontology evaluation, statistical modeling and finally, gaining insights from the analysis. While an interesting breakdown of the process, the number of steps in the article might seem overwhelming for companies in a hurry and not technically robust.
Chelsea Kerwin, January 23, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Google X Labs Just Buys a Better Idea
January 23, 2015
Short honk: X Labs was to be part of the Google innovation push. The idea was “moon shots.” Well, Google came up with balloons, self driving cars, and a linguistic innovation, Glassholes.
Now Google and by extension gets a better idea. I read “Google Wants Life on Mars in $1bn SpaceX Investment.” Fueled by ad revenue, Google is into satellites and rocket ships.
The article said:
Google is racing to spread internet access as it looks for new ways to boost its user base and sell more digital advertising. By teaming up with SpaceX, Google would be seeking to gain an edge over rivals such as Facebook, which is working on projects to deliver Internet service to underserved regions by building drones, satellites and lasers. WorldVu Satellites, backed by Qualcomm and Virgin Group, has begun a similar effort. “Google needs to find additional sources of revenue,” said Greg Sterling, vice-president of strategy and insights for Local Search Association, whose members operate in the location-based advertising market. “If they can expand into new markets, obviously they can expand their revenue and keep investors happy.”
The issue for me is innovation. After 2006, Google began to flag in the innovation department. Amazon did the cloud thing. Facebook did the relationship thing. AirBnB and Uber did the sharing thing.
Google continued to keep its infrastructure chugging along in order to sell ads.
Don’t get me wrong. Google is a giant outfit. I find it interesting that Google X Labs came up with balloons and Elon Musk came up with a better idea. To get that innovation, Google has to write a check, not rely on its 50,000 plus really smart folks.
Interesting. Loon balloons trumped by satellites and rockets. What’s that line about soaring like an eagle?
Stephen E Arnold, January 21, 2015
Are You Pedantic Enough to Work for Google?
January 23, 2015
A joke quiz on Clickhole titled Are You Smart Enough to Work For Google poses a series of questions that range from the philosophical to the absurd. Google has become famous for its approach to work space, and its hiring process is certainly going to be unusual as well. The Clickhole quiz pokes fun at the search giant’s attempts to be hip and creative in all aspects of their work. For example, if you were a tiny man fighting ants in helmets, what would you do? Answers include, “Oh my God! This is so neat!” and “Ants can’t wear hats. That is an amazing questions, though.” Interestingly, a sample of questions from an actual Google Labs aptitude test, while more mathematical in nature, are similar in tone to the joke questions. For example,
“ ‘Tis known in refine company, that choosing K things out N can be done in ways as many as choosing N minus K from N: I pick K, you the remaining. Find though a cooler bijection, where you show a knack uncanny, of making your choices contain all K of mine. Oh, for pedantry: let K be no more than half N.”
We get it, Google. You are cooler than other companies. You are weirder than other companies. You are more creative than other companies.
Chelsea Kerwin, January 22, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Enterprise Search: A Problem of Relevance to the Users
January 23, 2015
I enjoy email from those who read my for fee columns. I received an interesting comment from Australia about desktop search.
In a nutshell, the writer read one of my analyses of software intended for a single user looking for information on his local hard drives. The bigger the hard drives, the greater the likelihood, the user will operate in squirrel mode. The idea is that it is easier to save everything because “you never know.” Right, one doesn’t.
Here’s the passage I found interesting:
My concern is that with the very volatile environment where I saw my last mini OpenVMS environment now virtually consigned to the near-legacy basket and many other viable engines disappearing from Desktop search that there is another look required at the current computing environment.
I referred this person to Gaviri Search, which I use to examine email, and Effective File Search, which is useful for looking in specific directories. These suggestions sidestepped the larger issue:
There is no fast, easy to use, stable, and helpful way to look for information on a couple of terabytes of local storage. The files are a mixed bag: Excels, PowerPoints, image and text embedded PDFs, proprietary file formats like Framemaker, images, music, etc.
Such this problem was in the old days and such this problem is today. I don’t have a quick and easy fix. But these are single user problems, not an enterprise scale problem.
An hour after I read the email about my column, I received one of those frequent LinkedIn updates. The title of the thread to which LinkedIn wished to call my attention was/is: “What would you guess is behind a drop in query activity?”
I was enticed by the word “guess.” Most assume that the specialist discussion threads on LinkedIn attract the birds with the brightest plumage, not the YouTube commenter crowd.
I navigated to the provided link which may require that you become a member of LinkedIn and then appeal for admission to the colorful feather discussion for “Enterprise Search Professionals.”
The situation is that a company’s enterprise search engine is not being used by its authorized users. There was a shopping list of ideas for generating traffic to the search system. The reason is that the company spent money, invested human resources, and assumed that a new search system would deliver a benefit that the accountants could quantify.
What was fascinating was the response of the LinkedIn enterprise search professionals. The suggestions for improving the enterprise search engine included:
- Asking for more information about usage? (Interesting but the operative fact is that traffic is low and evident to the expert initiating the thread.)
- A thought that the user interface and “global navigation” might be an issue.
- The idea that an “external factor” was the cause of the traffic drop. (Intriguing because I would include the search for a personal search system described in the email about my desktop search column as an “external factor.” The employee looking for a personal search solution was making lone wolf noises to me.)
- An former English major’s insight that traffic drops when quality declines. I was hoping for a quote from a guy like Aristotle who said, “Quality is not an act, it is a habit.” The expert referenced “social software.”
- My tongue in cheek suggestion that the search system required search engine optimization. The question sparked sturm und drang about enterprise search as something different from the crass Web site marketing hoopla.
- A comment about the need for users to understand the vocabulary required to get information from an index of content and “search friendly” pages. (I am not sure what a search friendly page is, however? Is it what an employee creates, an interface, or a canned, training wheels “report”?)
Let’s step back. The email about desktop search and this collection of statements about lack of usage strike me as different sides of the same information access coin.
Enterprise Search Lags Behind: Actionable Interfaces, Not Lists, Needed
January 22, 2015
I was reviewing the France24.com item “Paris Attacks: Tracing Shadowy Terrorist Links.” I came across this graphic:
Several information-access thoughts crossed my mind.
First, France24 presented information that looks like a simplification of the outputs generated by a system like IBM’s i2. (Note: I was an advisor to i2 before its sale to IBM.) i2 is an NGIA or next generation information access system which dates from the 1990s. The notion that crossed my mind is that this relationship diagram presents information in a more useful way than a list of links. After 30 years, I wondered, “Why haven’t traditional enterprise search systems shifted from lists to more useful information access interfaces?” Many vendors have and the enterprise search vendors that stick to the stone club approach are missing what seems to be a quite obvious approach to information access.
A Google results list with one ad, two Wikipedia item, pictures, and redundant dictionary links. Try this query “IBM Mainframe.” Not too helpful unless one is looking for information to use in a high school research paper.
Second, the use of this i2-type diagram, now widely emulated from Fast Search centric outfits like Attivio to high flying venture backed outfits like Palantir permits one click access to relevant information. The idea is that a click on a hot spot—a plus in the diagram—presents additional information. I suppose one could suggest that the approach is just a form of faceting or “Guided Navigation”, which is Endeca’s very own phrase. I think the differences are more substantive. (I discuss these in my new monograph CyberOSINT.)
Third, no time is required to figure out what’s important. i2 and some other NGIA systems present what’s important, identifies key data points, and explains what is known and what is fuzzy. Who wants to scan, click, read, copy, paste, and figure out what is relevant and what is not? I don’t for many of my information needs. The issue of “time spent searching” is an artifact of the era when Boolean reigned supreme. NGIA systems automatically generate indexes that permit alternatives to a high school term paper’s approach to research.
Little wonder why the participants in enterprise search discussion groups gnaw bones that have been chewed for more than 50 years. There is no easy solution to the hurdles that search boxes and lists of results present to many users of online systems.
France24 gets it. When will the search vendors dressed in animal skins and carrying stone tools figure out that the world has changed. Demographics, access devices, and information have moved on.
Most enterprise search vendors deliver systems that could be exhibited in the Smithsonian next to the Daystrom 046 Little Gypsy mainframe and the IBM punch card machine.
Stephen E Arnold, January 22, 2015
IBM: Why Did Watson Fail to Generate Billions?
January 22, 2015
I read a number of IBM earnings-related articles. None of the ones I examined addressed the question in my mind:
Why didn’t Watson, the smart search system, generate billions in new revenue?
A mainstream statement about IBM’s financial results appears in “IBM’s Mixed Earnings Results Show Troubled Year.”
Investors are watching for moves to put Big Blue back on an upward track. And Schroeter said that “strategic imperatives” like cloud computing, analytics, mobile uses, social media and security offerings will make IBM “the go-to platform for the enterprise.”
No Watson.
IBM has been doing financial engineering, not closing deals that generate revenue from content processing, text analytics, and next generation information access systems.
Why not? No answers jumped out at me.
My view is that IBM is better at Watson public relations than closing deals with customers and prospects with significant information access problems.
The reality is that IBM faces many challenges in content processing ranging from open source alternatives to new vendors with more compelling solutions.
I have tallied Watson’s proposed home runs in health care, recipes, and financial services. So far, from my vantage point in a hollow in rural Kentucky, IBM is struggling to get singles.
IBM’s Watson disappearance is one more indication of the difficulties that companies planning for huge multi billion cash intakes from content processing may face some challenges.
The companies with unrealistic expectations are likely to wish they could win a TV game show and touch up glitches in post production.
Is this what investors and stakeholders paid money to witness?
Stephen E Arnold, January 22, 2015
How to Sustain a Book Habit without Going Broke
January 22, 2015
The article on Lifehacker titled The Best Places to Find Books at a Bargain (or For Free) offers tips for bookworms to get their hands on hard copy and ebooks alike. The first stop, perhaps surprisingly, is the library! Are there young people out in the world unaware that the library is free? Probably yes. The article also suggests shopping at thrift stores, particularly in upscale neighborhoods, to find good books on the cheap. For e-book readers, the article offers these websites,
“There are a ton of free ebooks available on Project Gutenberg. You could also use UPenn’s search engine for classics in ebook format. If you have an ebook reader (like a Kindle, or a rooted Nook), we’d previously looked at some ways you can get ebooks for free. Even if you don’t have a Kindle, you can download the Kindle reading software for your device and use some of the tips in that post.”
Beware though, e-book readers! Retention may not be as good as with a hard copy of a book. There are swapping sites like BookMooch if you are willing to part with a book when you finish it. The article also mentions what is calls “the Netflix of books and audiobooks” Booksfree.com which costs $8.99/month. Depending how fast a reader you are, that might be a golden ticket.
Chelsea Kerwin, January 22, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
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