LucidWorks: Mom, Do My Three Cs Add Up to an A?
February 19, 2020
Search firm Lucidworks has put out a white paper explaining their new 3 C’s of enterprise search, we learn from the write-up, “Understanding Intention: Using Content, Context, and the Crowd to Build Better Search Applications” from InsideBigData. Registration is required to download and read the paper, but they have also put out a PDF called more simply, “Understanding Intention” that gives us their perspective.
In the 3 Cs section of that document, they note that enterprise search pretty much has content wrapped up. With tools like Hadoop, Solr, and NoSQL, we can now access unstructured as well as structured data. Context means, in part, understanding how different pieces of content relate to each other. It also means analyzing which pieces of information will be relevant to each searcher—and this is the exciting part for Lucidworks. The document explains:
“When a search app knows more about you, it can create a relevant search experience that helps you get personal, actionable search results on a consistent basis. Search apps have solved that problem with signal processing. A signal is any bit of information that tells the app more about who you are. Signals can include your job title, business unit, location, device, and search history, as well as past actions within the search app like clickstream, purchasing behavior, direct reports, upcoming meetings or events, and more.”
Interesting. As for the crowd portion, it has to do with matching searchers with content found by similar entities that have searched before. We’re told:
“When a search app uses the crowd, it goes beyond documents and data, past your specific user profile and relationship, and examines how other users are interacting with the data and information. A search app knows the behavioral information of thousands — sometimes millions — of other users. By keeping track of every user, search apps can bubble up what you will find important and relevant and what other users like you will want, too. The tech uses its knowledge of your office, role, and demographic to match to the same in other users and make intelligent judgments about what will help you the most.”
But how good is the tech, really, at identifying what information one truly needs, and how would we know? Do three Cs add up to an A in search? Not yet, Willy.
Cynthia Murrell, February 19, 2020s
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