TakingAIIM

Beating a Dead Horse into the Ground - Web 2.0 is Coming Back to Reality

Perhaps I have belabored this topic, but I just cannot help myself.  Once again, the world of Web 2.0 is getting a dose of reality.  The second largest social networking site, Facebook, has agreed to implement another round of security mechanisms, this time aimed at better protecting minors and excluding certain adults from participation.    As I have said time and again, the open, free form, low barrier spirit of Web 2.0 (and by implication Enterprise 2.0), is great in theory, but in reality content and forum governance is a necessary addition, not simply to "protect" participants but simply to provide a framework and structure to what otherwise can get out of hand - in the worse case lead to serious criminal implications.

For those who still do not understand and appreciate how and why a little old fashioned governance and security should be a part of any Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 setting, I again direct you to the Market IQ on Content Security, the Market IQ on Enterprise 2.0, and previous posts.  Again, the purpose of such efforts is not to suppress serendipity or collaboration, but to ensure that laws, policies, or just common courtesies are not overlooked or violated, whether attempted deliberately or by accident.

aiimQ&A: Findability Webinar

This is my second and final post answering questions that were posed but  not answered during the AIIM webinar on Findability. (See earlier post for additional Q&A).

(Findability: the quality of being locatable or navigable, includes technologies and concepts such as Search, Taxonomies, Information Architecture, Auto-Classification, Agents, Discovery, Ontologies, and the Semantic Web.)

The webinar is available for download. I have also posted my slides to Slideshare, available below.

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Q: Does Google's product replace the need for a document management product?

A:  Let me answer this question not just as it relates to the Google product,  but any and all findability tools – NO.  Remember these tools provide access to content – any content that is posted online.  These products typically do not make any guarantee regarding the validity or quality of that content.  That is the domain of complementary technologies such as content security, document management and web content management.   (Some solution providers do bundle these technologies together.)

Q:  When searches show lots of dirty results, how should you handle or cleanup metadata?

A:  This is a function of the underlying database in the document management or tagging system being used.  The functionality you are seeking is founded in traditional database processing, namely  field updates in batch mode.

Q:  How does universal search relate to OpenSearch API implemented by some Open Source products?

A:  Universal search, similar to federated search is the ability for a single search tool to search across multiple repositories and provide a single ranked listing of retrieved content.  It eliminates the need to issue individual queries in each repository.  Universal search.  The OpenSearch standard is a collection of simple formats for the sharing of search results. In other words, it is an approach to federate searches. My understanding of Universal Search, (brought up by Google in the webinar, and a term they use often to describe and differentiate their approach to searching across multiple repostories), is that it does not collect or share the search results (thus it would not be using the OpenSearch API), but rather directly accesses and indexes files in multiple repositories.  Universal search uses a connector framework. The connectors, are available under open source licenses but as far as I know, these connectors are not OpenSearch APIs.

Finally - the following comment was not posed during the webinar, but was sent to me shortly thereafter.  It is relevant and interesting enough that I chose to share it here.

Q:  Carl, your comment on the Finding Content webinar this afternoon about “aligning content to business strategy” could have been taken as a reference to Strategy Markup Language (StratML).

I hope Google is factoring the potential of StratML into their own strategy.  Whether each piece of “content” (which I prefer to call a “record”) has been associated with an organization’s strategic objectives or not might be considered to be a pretty important factor as to its relevancy ranking in enterprise search services.  It might also be a pretty good indicator to report to stakeholders with regard to how well an organization is managing itself.

A:  My point was that by designing specific approaches to retrieving and displaying content that are aligned to business goals and objectives, an organization can actually steer behavior or response from users of content. (A simple example of a commercial application is the "people who bought this product also buy these other products" type messages and links that emanate from searches in some online stores. These prompts are add-on features of the search engine that help to drive additional sales.)  The StratML standard is a very literal approach to the point I was making when I said findability could be used to align content to business strategy, i.e. StratML is an XML schema for strategic plans, which includes an approach to directly lining content to any or all facets of a strategy plan.  Its a bit of a different spin then what I had in mind, but I do like the comment made that if an organization was using this standard to tag content, the tags could be used as input to relevancy ranking algorithms.  Clever - food for thought.

aiimQ&A: Findability Webinar

Yesterday I had the privilege to present a webinar on topic of Findability as part of the  AIIM Wednesday webinar series.  (Findability: the quality of being locatable or navigable, includes technologies and concepts such as Search, Taxonomies, Information Architecture, Auto-Classification, Agents, Discovery, Ontologies, and the Semantic Web.)

I say privilege for two reasons.  First, Findability it is one of my most favorite topics (2nd only to knowledge management).  Second, the webinar gave me a chance to share some of the latest results from the survey we are running to support the upcoming AIIM Market IQ on Findability. – (BTW - if you haven't already, you can take the survey.)

The webinar is available for download. I have also posted my slides to Slideshare, available below.

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The webinar was sponsored by Google, Baynote, Attivio and Systemware. As usual, the AIIM webinar attracted a lively crowd.  Approximately  250 attended attended, and also as usual we could not answer all of the questions that were posed during the presentation.  Following tradition, I am addressing the outstanding questions here in my blog.

Q:  I beg to differ that "in the consumer world, findability is not an issue". There are many daily searches I do, outside of Google (and some in) that are incredibly frustrating. I have no question here, but thought you should know...

A: (First let me explain for those who did not attend, this comment was made in reaction to a statement I made in my presentation to the effect that Findability is less of a issue on the commercial web, that most sites on the commercial web have strategically looked at this issue and strategically built findability into the site.) Sorry, my statement may have been misleading.  I was not proposing that all web-based experiences are "effective".  I was drawing attention to some web-sites, mostly those that are commercial in nature (e.g. amazon.com, itunes store, e-bay), that rely heavily on user interfaces to drive their business.  I made this statement to reinforce the survey finding that currently, web-based experiences with findability are driving increased demand for better findability within the enterprise/intranet. Many (not all) commercial website owners have taken time to fine-tune a findabilty strategy because, it many cases, the findability is absolutely vital to their existence.  (Imagine not being able to find the music you want in iTunes – you would abandon the site very quickly, resulting in lost revenue to Apple.)

That said, yes you are right, there are still many commercial web sites that do not provide a good findability experience.   (See earlier post in which I discuss this further).  And, clearly tehre are many internet sites (i.e. non-commercial/consumer-oriented)) whose findability rivals some of the worst  intranet/enterprise sites.  Findability is tricky and demands careful and targeted development of strategy and solution design.  Its an effort that some organizations have not yet appreciated teh value of - they will, in my opinion, especially as we can point to the effectiveness of the state-of-the-art found in some commercial web sites.

Q: Are there any other findability solutions apart from Google?

A:  Oh lord yes.  Google was the only sponsor that paid for a speaking role in the webinar, but there are many other  solution providers that address findability - some can complement a tool such as Google, some directly compete with a tool such as Google.   In fact, three other solution providers, Baynote, Attivio and Systemware also sponsored this webinar.  But the list of solution providers goes far beyond even these companies.  Rather than list them all here, I direct you to an exhaustive list posted on Dan Keldsen's blog, a list we used to vet the list of technology providers we query about in our survey.

Q:  Who typically owns the taxonomy in an organization?

A:  In many organizations, no one, which is part of the challenge in maintaining an information architecture or findability strategy.  According to a study I did nearly 3 years ago, when the taxonomy is an online resource, as part of a findability strategy, the taxonomy is usually (57% of those surveyed) owned by IT.  (The other 43% of responses were scattered across records managers, corporate librarians, LOB managers, end users and management.)  No matter who own it, recommended practice is to have a mix of disciplines involved in the process of developing it. While one might argue that IT should "own" the online taxonomy as a tool, in most cases IT should not be tasked with the definition and development of a taxonomy on business content, as they are likely not SMEs of the business content or its usage by the business community, which is the focus or value statement of a taxonomy within a findability strategy.

Stay tuned, there are three more questions that I will cover in the next post.