Medical Publisher Does Rah Rah for MarkLogic
November 20, 2015
Now MarkLogic is a unicorn. The company wants to generate revenues. Okay. No problem.
I found “200-Year-Old Publisher Finds Happiness with NoSQL Database” quite interesting. The write up explains that the New England Journal of Medicine uses MarkLogic’s XML data management system to — well — manage its text and other content.
The write up states:
With features like XQuery, a SQL-like query engine for XML data, MarkLogic promised to retrieve unstructured data at speeds no SQL database could approach.
What did I note? The big thing is that this deal went down when MarkLogic was a “fledgling company.” Hmm. Was this a Dave Kellogg-era deal? I also noted that the write up did not beat the drum for MarkLogic as a business and government intelligence. email management, and analytics Swiss Army knife able to cut into the revenues of Oracle and other Codd database outfits.
MarkLogic’s marketing may be making progress by emphasizing what MarkLogic’s technology was built to deliver: A data management system for publishers. The publication still uses SQL for financial records and dabbles with the open source quasi-doppelgänger MondoDB.
MarkLogic hit a wall at about $60 million. Today the fledgling is a unicorn. Will MarkLogic put wings on its unicorn? Stakeholders sure think is going to happen. For me, I will observe. Will the proprietary MarkLogic prevail or will open source alternatives nibble into this box of Kellogg’s revenue?
Stephen E Arnold, November 20, 2015
US Government Working to Deliver Delightful Contracting Experiences
November 20, 2015
Short honk: I read a number of government-related documents each day. I came across this gem “The Current Future of 18F Marketplaces.” I marvel at the “current future” phrase. A Heisenberg moment.
Here is the passage I highlighted in government green:
Our ability to develop, manage, and scale high-quality marketplaces — and to create delightful contracting experiences — requires proper tooling. Currently, we’re in the process of developing an electronic form for agencies to initiate and execute interagency agreements with 18F so they can work with 18F more efficiently.
I like the “delightful contracting experiences.” Wow. Delightful. The other point is the reference to an “electronic form.” I recall that one agency invested several hundred million and three years of effort to put immigration forms online. I think the system delivered one electronic form with another 60 waiting to get the zap treatment.
I love that “delightful contracting experience.” When I worked at Booz, Allen & Hamilton, the delight came from winning the bid and getting a bonus.
I suppose delight can be delivered in different ways. Contracting was not on my short list.
Stephen E Arnold, November 20, 2015
Life Is Perceived As Faster Says Science
November 20, 2015
I read a spider friendly, link baitable article in a UK newspaper. You love these folks because each page view downloads lots and lots of code, ads, trackers, etc.
The story was “Can’t Believe It’s Almost Christmas? Technology Is Speeding Up Our Perception of Time, Researchers Say.” Heck of a title in my opinion.
The main point is captured in this quote from Wizard McLoughlin:
long monologue from a ‘real’ book.
‘It’s almost as though we’re trying to emulate the technology and be speedier and more efficient. It seems like there’s something about technology itself that primes us to increase that pacemaker inside of us that measures the passing of time.”
The “it” I assume means the way the modern world works.
I think the idea is valid. A good example is the behavior of search and content processing companies. Although many companies evidence the behaviors I want to identity, these quirks are most evident among the search and content processing outfits which have ingested tens of millions in venture funding.
The time pressure comes from the thought process like this statement which I recall from my reading of Samuel Johnson:
Nothing focuses the mind like a hanging.
The search and processing vendors under the most pressure appear to be taking the following actions. These comments apply to Attivio, BA Insight ,Coveo, and Lucidworks-type companies. The craziness of IBM Watson and HP Autonomy in the cloud may have other protein triggers.
Here we go:
- Big data. How can outfits which struggle to update indexes and process new and changed content handle Big Data? It is just trendy to call a company like Vivisimo a Big Data firm than try to explain that key word search has “real” value.
- Customer support. I don’t know about you, but I avoid customer support. Customer support means stupid telephone selections, dorky music, reminders that the call is being monitored for “quality purposes”, and other cost cutting, don’t-bother-us approaches. Where search and content processing fits in has little to do with customer service and everything about cost reduction.
- Analytics. Yep, indexing systems can output a list of the number of times a word appears in a document, a batch, or a time period. These items can be counted and converted to a graph. But I do not think that enterprise search systems are analytics systems. Again. If it helps close a deal, go with it.
- Business intelligence. I like this one. The idea that a person can look for the name of a person, place, or thing provides intelligence is laughable. I also get a kick out selective dissemination functions or standing queries presented as a magical window on real time data. Baloney. Intelligence is not a variation of search and content processing. Search and content processing are utility functions within a larger more comprehensive systems. Check out NetReveal and let me know how close an enterprise search vendor comes to this BAE Systems’ service.
When will enterprise search and content processing vendors alter their marketing?
Not until their stakeholders are able to sell these outfits and move on to less crazy investments.
The craziness will persist because the time available to hit their numbers is dwindling. Fiddling with mobile devices and getting distracted by shiny bits just makes the silliness more likely.
Have you purchased a gift using Watson’s app? Have you added a Watson recipe to your holiday menu? Have you used a metasearch system like Vivisimo to solve your Big Data problems? Have you embraced Solr as a way to make Hadoop data repositories cornucopias of wisdom?
Right. The stuff may not work as one hopes. Time is running out. Quickly in real time and in imagined time.
Stephen E Arnold, November 20, 2015
IBM Launches Informative Blog
November 20, 2015
IBM has created a free Paper.li blog that features information about the company: IBM’s InfoSphere Master Data Management Roundup. Besides the general categories of Headlines and Videos, readers can explore articles under Science, Technology, Business, and two IBM-specific categories, #Bluemix and #IBM. If you love to watch as Big Blue gets smaller, you will find this free newspaper useful in tracking some of the topics upon which IBM is building its future.
Oddly, though, we did not spot any articles from Alliance at IBM on the site. Some employees are unhappy with the way the company has been treating its workers, and have launched that site to publicize their displeasure. Here’s their Statement of Principles:
“Alliance@IBM/CWA Local 1701 is an IBM employee organization that is dedicated to preserving and improving our rights and benefits at IBM. We also strive towards restoring management’s respect for the individual and the value we bring to the company as employees. Our mission is to make our voice heard with IBM management, shareholders, government and the media. While our ultimate goal is collective bargaining rights with IBM, we will build our union now and challenge IBM on the many issues facing employees from off-shoring and job security to working conditions and company policy.”
It looks like IBM has more to worry about than sliding profits. Could the two issues be related?
Cynthia Murrell, November 20, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
ACA Application Process Still Vulnerable to Fraudulent Documents
November 20, 2015
The post on Slashdot titled Affordable Care Act Exchanges Fail to Detect Counterfeit Documentation relates the ongoing issue of document verification within the Affordable Care Act (ACA) process. The Government Accountability Office) GAO submitted fake applications to test the controls at the state and federal level for application and enrollment in the ACA. The article states,
“Ten fictitious applicants were created to test whether verification steps including validating an applicant’s Social Security number, verifying citizenship, and verifying household income were completed properly. In order to test these controls, GAO’s test applications provided fraudulent documentation: “For each of the 10 undercover applications where we obtained qualified health-plan coverage, the respective marketplace directed that our applicants submit supplementary documentation we provided counterfeit follow-up documentation, such as fictitious Social Security cards with impossible Social Security numbers, for all 10…”
The GAO report itself mentions that eight of the ten fakes were failed at first, but later accepted. It shows that among the various ways that the fake applications were fraudulent included not only “impossible” Social Security Numbers, but also duplicate enrollments, and lack of employer-sponsored coverage. Ultimately, the report concludes that the ACA is still “vulnerable.” Granted, this is why the GOA conducted the audit of the system, to catch issues. The article provides no details on what new controls and fixes are being implemented.
Chelsea Kerwin, November 20, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Microsoft and Business Intelligence That Sells
November 19, 2015
I read “Microsoft’s Graph Wants to Turn User Data into Business Intelligence It Can Sell.” The write up is interesting because Microsoft has been laboring in the information access vineyards for decades. The products produced are somewhat different from the products of other data vintners in my opinion. The other point is that Microsoft, if the article is accurate, wants to sell information, not software and cloud services, subscriptions to Office, and mobile phones. Wait. Maybe not mobile phones. What will Microsoft be selling?
I learned:
What it [Microsoft] would like to do is to take your user information and use it in much the same way that Google reads your email to understand when your flight is going to leave, or Microsoft’s Cortana tracks packages. What Google doesn’t have access to, though, is all that information you’ve tucked away into Office: not just email, but documents, OneNote notes, and the like. As the original Office Graph names suggests, Microsoft sees the Graph first as a business tool. Entire companies have already been built around the sort of business intelligence that Microsoft hopes to provide, whether it be customer-relationship management, logistics, or sales analysis tools. Microsoft hopes to take its Office contextual data and provide it as a service to third parties. Eventually it could take data from a company like Salesforce, integrate it with the Office data, and provide a richer mix of data back to its customers. Currently, its partners include Do.com, SkyHigh Networks, Smartsheet, and OfficeAtWork.
Microsoft has some interesting ideas. Does the future of Microsoft include search and SharePoint. Sketching plans for the future are interesting and often enjoyable. Delivering is a different exercise. The monitoring functions of Windows 10 hint at some of the questions Microsoft will have to address. Reality and the future are often difficult to reconcile with Alphabet-Google’s and other firms’ efforts.
Stephen E Arnold, November 19, 2015
Predictions for a Big Data Future
November 19, 2015
Want to know what the future will look like? Navigate to “7 Reasons Why the Algorithmic Business Will Change Society.” The changes come via Datafloq via a mid tier consulting firm. I find the predictions oddly out of step with the milieu in which I live. That’s okay but this list of seven changes raises a number of questions and seems to sidestep some of the social consequences of the world foreshadowed in the predictions. Finding information is, let me say at the outset, not part of the Big Data future.
Here are the seven predictions:
- By 2018, 20% of all business content will be authorized by machines, which means a hiring freeze on copywriters in favor of robowriting algorithms;
- By 2020, autonomous software agents, or algorithms, outside human control, will participate in 5% off all economic transactions, thanks to, among others, blockchain. On the other hand, we will need pattern-matching algorithms to detect robot thieves.
- By 2018, more than 3 million workers globally will be supervised by a “roboboss”. These algorithms will determine what work you would need to do.
- By 2018, 50% of the fastest growing companies will have fewer employees than smart machines. Companies will become smaller due to expanding presence of algorithms.
- By 2018, customer digital assistants will recognize individuals by face and voice across channels and partners. Although this will benefit the customer, organizations should prevent the creepiness-factor.
- By 2018, 2 millions employees will be required to wear health and fitness tracking devices. The data generated from these devices, will be monitored by algorithms, which will inform management on any actions to be taken.
- By 2020, smart agents will facilitate 40% of mobile transactions, and the post-app era will begin to dominate, where algorithms in the cloud guide us through our daily tasks without the need for individual apps.
Fascinating. Who will work? What will people do in a Big Data world? What about social issues? How will one find information? What happens if one or more algorithms drift and deliver flawed outputs?
No answers of course, but that’s the great advantage of talking about a digital future three or more years down the road. I assume folks will have time to plan their Big Data strategy for this predicted world. I suppose one could ask Google, Watson, or one’s roboboss.
Stephen E Arnold, November 19, 2015
Lucidworks: Another $21 Million in Funding
November 19, 2015
Lucidworks (a eight year old “start up” founded in 2007) has raised an additional $21 million in funding. According to Crunchbase, the total funds injected into the open source centric company is now $53 million.
The news release “Lucidworks Announces $21 Million in Series D Funding” states:
Lucidworks, the chosen search solution for leading brands and organizations around the world, today announced $21 million in new financing. Allegis Capital led the round with participation from existing investors Shasta Ventures and Granite Ventures. Lucidworks will use the funds to accelerate its product-focused mission enabling companies to translate massive amounts of data into actionable business intelligence.
The statement included this observation attributed to Spencer Tail, Allegis Capital:
Lucidworks has proven itself, not only by providing the software and solutions that businesses need to benefit from Lucene/Solr search, but also by expanding its vision with new products like Fusion that give companies the ability to fully harness search technology suiting their particular customers. We fully support Lucidworks, not only for what it has achieved to date — disruptive search solutions that offer real, immediate benefits to businesses — but for the promising future of its product technology.
Lucidworks, formerly Lucid Imagination, competes with Elastic. Companies from IBM to OpenSearchServer offer solutions which compete in the same market sector. Elastic’s funding is in the $104 million range.
The horses are away from the starting gate. And the winner will be a steed with the best jockey? Stay tuned because the track is muddy.
Stephen E Arnold, November 19, 2015
How to Speak to Executives
November 19, 2015
If you need help communicating with the higher-ups, see “Sales Pitch: How to Sell Your IT Strategy to the Board” at SmartDataCollective. Writer Simon Mitchell points out that, when trying to convince the higher-ups to loosen the purse strings, IT pros are unlikely to succeed if their audience doesn’t understand what they’re talking about. He advises:
“Step out of your technological mindset. Long presentations on subjects outside your audience’s core competence are a waste of everyone’s time. Don’t bore the board with too much detail about how the technology actually works. Focus on the business case for your strategy.”
The write-up goes on to recommend a three-point framework for such presentations: focus on the problem (or opportunity), deliver the strategy, and present costs and benefits. See the post for more on each of these points. It is also smart have the technical details on hand, in case anyone asks. We’re left with four take-aways:
“*Before you present your next big IT initiative to the board, put yourself in their shoes. What do they need to hear?
*Review how you can make tech talk accessible and appealing to non-technical colleagues.
*Keep your presentations short and sweet.
*Focus on the business case for your IT strategy.”
Mitchell also wisely recommends The Economist’s Style Guide for more pointers. But, what if the board does not put you on the agenda or, when you make your pitch, no one cares? Well, that’s a different problem.
Cynthia Murrell, November 19, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Facebook Acts in Its Own Best Interest
November 19, 2015
The article titled Petition: Facebook Betrayed Us By Secretly Lobbying for Surveillance Bill on BoingBoing complains that Facebook has been somewhat two-faced regarding privacy laws and cyber surveillance. The article claims that Facebook publicly opposed the Cybersercurity Information Sharing Act (CISA) while secretly lobbying to push it through. The article explains,
“Facebook has come under public fire for its permissive use of user data and pioneering privacy-invasive experiments in the past. They have also supported previous versions of the cybersecurity info-sharing bills, and their chief Senate lobbyist, Myriah Jordan, worked as General Counsel for CISA’s sponsor, Senator Richard Burr, immediately before moving to Facebook. Facebook has declined to take a public position on CISA, but in recent days sources have confirmed that in fact Facebook is quietly lobbying the Senate to pass it.”
This quotation does beg the question of why anyone would believe that Facebook opposes CISA, given its history. It is, after all, a public company that will earn money in any acceptable way it can. The petition to make Facebook be more transparent about its position on CISA seems more like a request for an apology from a company for being a company than anything else.
Chelsea Kerwin, November 19, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
