Yellowfin: Emulating i2 and Palantir?
March 22, 2016
I read “New BI Platform Focuses on Collaboration, Analytics.” What struck me about this explanation of a new version of YellowFin is that the company is adding the type of features long considered standard in law enforcement and intelligence. The idea is that visualizations and collaboration are components of a commercial business intelligence solution.
I noted this paragraph:
Other BI vendors have tried to push data preparation and analysis responsibilities onto business users “because it’s easier to adapt what they have to fulfill that goal.” But Yellowfin “isn’t a BI tool attempting to make the business user a techie. It is about presenting data to users in an attractive visual representation, backed-up with some of the most sophisticated collaboration tools embedded into a BI platform on the market.”
The reason for analyst involvement in the loading of data is a way to eliminate the issue of content ownership, indexing, and knowledge of what is in the system’s repository. I am not confident that any system which allows the user to whack away at whatever data have been processed by the system is ready for prime time. Sure, Google can win at Go, but the self driving auto ran into a bus.
The write up, which strikes me as New Age public relations, seems to want me to remember what’s new with YellowFin with this mnemonic example: Curated. Baffled? Here’s what curated means:
- Consistent: Governed, centralized and managed
- Usable: by any business to consume analytics
- Relevant: connected to all the data users need to do their jobs well
- Accurate: data quality is paramount
- Timely: Provide real time data and agile content development
- Engaging: Offer a social or collaborative component
- Deployed: widely across the organization.
Business intelligence is the new “enterprise search.” I am not sure the use of notions like curated and adding useful functions delivers the impact that some marketers promise. Remember that self driving car. Pesky humans.
Stephen E Arnold, March 23, 2016
More Amazing Factoids: US Government Web Sites Best Amazon and Google in User Satisfaction
March 22, 2016
I read “Government Websites Best Amazon, Google in User Satisfaction.” From the write up generated by “real” journalist at a “real” media outfit, I learned:
By one measure, a well-established gauge of user satisfaction, the government actually beats out many of the top business sites on the Web, including perennial consumer favorites Amazon, Expedia and Google.
Where doth the datum originate? Well, the hardly annoying pop up survey outfit ForeSee. According to the write up:
ForeSee evaluates websites on a 100-point customer-satisfaction scale, looking at a variety of factors like search, functionality and ease of navigation. The firm also focuses on outcomes, such as the likelihood that users would return to the site or recommend it to others.
Now for the data:
… 36 percent of the 101 websites ForeSee evaluated in the fourth quarter of 2015 notched scores of 80 or above, what the firm deems as the threshold where websites are “meeting or exceeding the standards of excellence for highly satisfied visitors.” That mark was up from 30 percent in the first quarter of the year. Leading the pack were four websites maintained by the Social Security Administration. Two SSA sites scored 90 on ForeSee’s satisfaction index, and two others scored 89. For comparison, Amazon netted an 86 on the same index. Vanguard.com came in at 80, followed by Google (78), Pinterest (78), Expedia (77) and NYTimes.com (76).
I have added some bold face to make it easier to see the slam dunk the US government Web sites are putting in the face of Team Traffic.
Wow, up from 30% in a matter of months. The Social Security Administration must be doing something right. A couple of questions:
- Does the SSA site support remembering certain passwords for users or do some must have functions lose the state of certain users?
- Has foot traffic at Social Security offices declined because the SSA Web sites are satisfying such a large percentage of users?
- Are the SSA Web sites integrated, or are disparate systems, including mainframes, still generating content for internal reports and public Web queries?
Well, the write up focuses on the lousy job some consumer centric sites are doing with user satisfaction. Are we comparing apples and oranges, or is this just a convenient way to reward some good government clients and remind the most used Web sites that some folks don’t like the modern Web?
No answers, but I am sure some of the university-inspired wizards at ForeSee will have logical, but glib, answers.
By the way, what’s the traffic at the four best Web sites doing in the same time period? My information suggests that traffic to US government Web sites is not booming because the US government Web sites have not made the transitions required to deal with the growing base of users with mobile devices.
Stephen E Arnold, March 22, 2016
Hot Data Startups to Notice
March 22, 2016
An outfit called UBM, which looks a lot like the old IDC I knew and loved, published “9 Hot Big Data and Analyt5ics Startups to Watch.” The article is a series of separate pages. Apparently the lust for clicks is greater than the MBAs’ interest in making information easy to access. Progress in online publishing is zipping right along the information highway it seems.
What are the companies the article and UBM as describing as “hot.” I interpret the word to mean “having a high degree of heat or a high temperature” or “(of food) containing or consisting of pungent spices or peppers that produce a burning sensation when tasted.” I have a hunch the use of the word in this write up is intended to suggest big revenue producers which you must license in order to get or keep a job. Just a guess, mind you.
The companies are:
AtScale, founded in 2013
Algorithmia, founded in 2013
Bedrock Data, founded in 2012
BlueTalon, founded in 2013
Cazena, founded in 2014
Confluent, founded in 2014
H2O.ai, founded in 2011
RJMetrics, founded in 2008
Wavefront, founded in 2013
The list is US centric. I assume none of the Big Data and analytics outfits in other countries are “hot.” I think the reason is that the research process looked at Boston, Seattle, and the Sillycon Valley pool and thought, “Close enough for horseshoes.” Just a guess, mind you.
If you are looking for the next big thing founded within the last two to eight years, the list is just what you need to make your company or organization great again. Sorry, some catchphrases are tough to purge from my addled goose brain. Enjoy the listicle. On high latency systems, the slides don’t render. Again. Do MBAs worry about this stuff? A final comment: I like the name “BlueTalon.”
Stephen E Arnold, March 22, 2016
Allegedly Secretive Palantir Technologies Getting Chatty?
March 22, 2016
Many of the articles I read about Palantir Technologies describe the company as secretive. I am not sure that is 100 percent accurate. The company has videos on YouTube for goodness sake.
I noted “How Palantir Uses Big Data to Find Missing Kids.” This article came hard on the heels of “Is Morgan Stanley Wrong about Big Palantir Valuation Markdown?”
The missing kids story emphasizes Palantir’s social “good” work. I noted this passage:
Lucky for Palantir, big data challenges are just as common in the nonprofit world as in the for-profit sector. Recently, the company, which started out partnering with the U.S. intelligence and defense communities in antiterrorism efforts, has turned its attention to one of the biggest current problems: The Syrian civil war and subsequent refugee crisis, via a collaboration with The Carter Center. “We’re a company that focuses on the world’s hardest problems,” says Karin Knox, head of Palantir’s philanthropy engineering team. “Right now we probably have a hand in all of them.”
Lucky.
Stephen E Arnold, March 22, 2016
Change Is Hard, Especially in the User Interface
March 22, 2016
One of the most annoying things in life is when you go to the grocery store and notice they have rearranged the entire place since your last visit. I always ask myself the question, “Why grocery store people did you do this to me?” Part of the reason is to improve the shopping experience and product exposure, while the other half is to screw with customers (I cannot confirm the latter). According to the Fuzzy Notepad with its Pokémon Evee mascot the post titled “We Have Always Been At War With UI” explains that programmers and users have always been at war with each other when it comes to the user interface.
Face it, Web sites (and other areas of life) need to change to maintain their relevancy. The biggest problem related to UI changes is the roll out of said changes. The post points out that users get confused and spend hours trying to understand the change. Sometimes the change is announced, other times it is only applied to a certain number of users.
The post lists several changes to UI and how they were handled, describing how they were handled and also the programming. One constant thread runs through the post is that users simply hate change, but the inevitable question of, “Why?” pops up.
“Ah, but why? I think too many developers trot this line out as an excuse to ignore all criticism of a change, which is very unhealthy. Complaints will always taper off over time, but that doesn’t mean people are happy, just that they’ve gone hoarse. Or, worse, they’ve quietly left, and your graphs won’t tell you why. People aren’t like computers and may not react instantly to change; they may stew for a while and drift away, or they may join a mass exodus when a suitable replacement comes along.”
Big data can measure anything and everything, but the data can be interpreted for or against the changes. Even worse is that the analysts may not know what exactly they need to measure. What can be done to avoid total confusion about changes is to have a plan, let users know in advance, and even create tutorial about how to use the changes. Worse comes to worse, it can be changed back and then we move on.
Whitney Grace, March 22, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Infonomics and the Big Data Market Publishers Need to Consider
March 22, 2016
The article on Beyond the Book titled Data Not Content Is Now Publishers’ Product floats a new buzzword in its discussion of the future of information: infonomics, or the study of creation and consumption of information. The article compares information to petroleum as the resource that will cause quite a stir in this century. Grace Hong, Vice-President of Strategic Markets & Development for Wolters Kluwer’s Tax & Accounting, weighs in,
“When it comes to big data – and especially when we think about organizations like traditional publishing organizations – data in and of itself is not valuable. It’s really about the insights and the problems that you’re able to solve,” Hong tells CCC’s Chris Kenneally. “From a product standpoint and from a customer standpoint, it’s about asking the right questions and then really deeply understanding how this information can provide value to the customer, not only just mining the data that currently exists.”
Hong points out that the data itself is useless unless it has been produced correctly. That means asking the right questions and using the best technology available to find meaning in the massive collections of information possible to collect. Hong suggests that it is time for publishers to seize on the market created by Big Data.
Chelsea Kerwin, March 22, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Cost Common Sense: Why Your Search System Just Keeps Getting More and More Expensive
March 21, 2016
I read “4 Unseen Expenses with In-House IT Departments.” The information in the write up is helpful. Too bad more specialists keep the lid on cost data. In the write up, there are four “unseen expenses” which almost guarantee that enterprise search systems will, like the Entergizer bunny, keep going and going. What are the costs? Here are the four from the write up:
- Staffing costs
- Downtime costs
- Ineffective IT support costs
- Cost of replacement.
I would mention several others, but I don’t want to exhaust my list of the costs associated with an enterprise search system. (Mine are split into planning or pre acquisition costs, procurement costs, initial installation costs, first year costs, and subsequent year costs. Four, as you may conclude, gentle reader, only spot the iceberg of money that looms through the fog of disbelief.
The Energizer bunny of cost overruns, enterprise search.
My additions:
- The costs of operating legacy systems. As I have pointed out in previous books and articles, Fortune 1000 firms have a minimum of five or more enterprise search systems in operation
- The costs of legal fees related to adjudications with the vendor or vendors for services related to the enterprise search system
- The costs of infrastructure surprises; for example, why is this system so slow to add new and changed content? Answer: We need more hardware, bandwidth, storage, memory, etc.
Enterprise search, after 50 years, is a chief financial officer’s bane in many organizations.
Stephen E Arnold, March 21, 2015
Need a Classification Algorithm or 17?
March 21, 2016
I gave a lecture a couple of years ago about the similarity among major content processing systems. In that talk, I focused on 10 numerical recipes which our research identified in the commercial products from a number of well known intelligence platform vendors. The point of the lecture was to underscore the baked in weaknesses of platforms which use procedures taught in many universities. Outputs often vary because of the goofy decisions humans make or because the underlying data pumped into the numerical recipes is flawed.
I want to call your attention to “Implementation of 17 Classification Algorithms in R.” If you want to see the differences classification algorithms output, just fire up your system, implement these 17 methods, and check out the results. Our research reiterated to my goslings that one can select a classification algorithm to produce the type of output desired by the system engineer. Yep, put your hands on the steering wheel and drive that output pretty much where you want it to go. Do users of content processing systems know about these baked in pre-loaded destinations? Nah.
Stephen E Arnold, March 21, 2016
Google in Russia: First No Space Ship Ride, Now No Anti Monopoly Win
March 21, 2016
In 2008, I learned that Sergey Brin would take a ride on the first private Soyuz flight to the International Space Station. The cost? $5 million, according to “Google Co-Founder Slated as Next Space Tourist.” The dream was still alive in 2014 according to “After Sarah Brightman, Will Sergey Brin Fly to the International Space Station?” The ride seems to be moving at a snail’s pace even though Russia seems to be dragging its feet. In 12009, NBC News reported “Russia: No More Space Tourists after 2009.”
Despite the slow down for Mr. Brin’s ride, the Russia courts are zipping right along. I learned that “Google Loses Anti Monopoly Appeal in Russia over Obligatory Pre Installation of Android Apps.” According to the article:
The Moscow Arbitration court has upheld a previous ruling from the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) that found Google had abused its dominant market position and broken anti-competition legislation. The crux of the complaint was that Google hindered the ability to create competing services on Android by forcing manufacturers to bundle some Google apps, including Gmail, Google Search, and Google Play, on the phones.
Google appears to be encountering friction in a number of nation states. Some officials are not reacting in a positive manner to Google’s business initiatives. Space ride slow, court decisions fast. An interesting inversion.
Stephen E Arnold, March 21, 2016
For Sale: Your Bank Information
March 21, 2016
One of the common commodities for sale on the Dark Web is bank, credit card, social security numbers, and other personal information. This information can sell for a few bucks to hundreds of dollars depending on the quality and quantity of the information. In order to buy personal information, usually the interested parties must journey to the Dark Web, but the International Business Times tells us that “Confidential Bank Details Available For Sale On Easily Found Web Site” is for sale on the general Web and the information is being sold for as little as a couple pounds (or dollars for the US folks). The Web site had a pretty simple set up, interested parties register, and then they have access to the stolen information for sale.
Keith Vaz, chairman of the home affairs select committee, wants the National Crime Agency (NCA) to use its power and fulfill its purpose to shut the Web site down.
“A statement from the NCA said: “We do not routinely confirm or deny investigations nor comment on individual sites. The NCA, alongside UK and international law enforcement partners and the private sector, are working to identify and as appropriate disrupt websites selling compromised card data. We will work closely with partners of the newly established Home Office Joint Fraud Task Force to strengthen the response.”
Online scams are getting worse and more powerful in stealing people’s information. Overall, British citizens lost a total of 670 million pounds (or $972 million). The government, however, believes the total losses are more in the range of 27 billion pounds (or $39.17 billion).
Scams are getting worse, because the criminals behind them are getting smarter and know how to get around security defenses. Users need to wise up and learn about the Dark Web, take better steps to protect their information, and educate themselves on how to recognize scams.
Whitney Grace, March 21, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
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