Using SharePoint to Streamline Common Business Processes
October 31, 2012
SharePoint is a complex system and it helps to do some outside reading to stay abreast on helpful features and tips to share with your team. Ellen van Aken looks at some ways SharePoint can help save time and effort in an organization in her article, “4 Common Processes that SharePoint Can Streamline.” Aken explains that creating a tailor-made subsite and making a template out of it can allow for creating a ready-to-use team site for every project in no time. This could help make recurring projects more efficient.
She also explains streamlining requests with incomplete data coming from multiple channels:
How often do people send you a request, by plain email, telephone, or Word/Excel document? And how often do you have to contact them again to ask for missing information?
Depending on the complexity, you can use a simple SharePoint list, an Office template in a Document Library, or an InfoPath form in a Forms Library, with mandatory fields. As additional advantage SharePoint stores all your requests in one central place, so you do not have to spend time on filing them…The finished requests can be used to gain insights in your process.
She adds that a filter can be put in place to show which requests still need processing. Another way to streamline information requests with missing data is to provide a search feature that can tap into all company knowledge, whether text or person related. For example, Fabasoft Mindbreeze with the SharePoint connector provides an all-inclusive search without redundancy or loss of data. Additionally, Mindbreeze has the ability to process data and turn it into relevant knowledge for users.
Philip West, October 31, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext.
Finding a Cost Effective Solution for Search Marketing
October 30, 2012
In the Marketing Week post, “The Digital Path to Purchase,” Michael Barnett discusses budgetary considerations companies should keep in mind as mobile and social media trends continue to dominate search strategies and search technology developments. Barnett explains that marketers are continuing to see the importance of understanding the wide variety of journeys that consumers take toward making a purchase. The integration of search and social is discussed:
One marketing manager from a professional services company says in answer to the survey: ‘The continued integration of search and social has to have an effect. Which social networks have the greatest influence remains to be seen. I think it will depend on their willingness to co-operate with each other, or more specifically with Google and Microsoft – but mainly Google.’ At present, content shared on social networks probably does not rank as highly as it naturally would in search results, since some search engines are restricted from crawling certain social sites.
In the same survey, three quarters of respondents claimed their search budgets they work with have increased in the past year. However, only 21 percent say search marketing is very effective. One industry leader in search is Fabasoft Mindbreeze. If you are looking for an integrated social and search solution to boost marketing efforts, consider taking advantage of the no obligation free trial InSite demo to test the enhanced finding experience for your Web site. InSite illuminates all of your information, from documents and emails to social networking channels.
Philip West, October 30, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext.
The Fragmentation of Content Analytics
October 29, 2012
I am in the midst of finalizing a series of Search Wizards Speak interviews with founders or chief technology officers of some interesting analytics vendors. Add to this work the briefings I have attended in the last two weeks. Toss in a conference which presented a fruit bowl of advanced technologies which read, understand, parse, count, track, analyze, and predict who will do what next.
Wow.
From a distance, the analytics vendors look the same. Up close, each is individual and often not identical. Pick up the wrong shard and a cut finger or worse may result.
A happy quack to www.thegreenlivingexpert.com
Who would have thought that virtually every company engaged in indexing would morph into next-generation, Euler crazed, and Gauss loving number crunchers. If the names Euler and Gauss do not resonate with you, you are in for tough sledding in 2013. Math speak is the name of the game.
The are three very good reasons for repackaging Vivisimo as a big data and analytics player. I choose Vivisimo because I have used it as an example of IBM’s public relations mastery. The company developed a deduplication feature which was and is, I assume, pretty darned good. Then Vivisimo became a federated search system, nosing into territory staked out by Deep Web Technologies. Finally, when IBM bought Vivisimo for about $20 million, the reason was big data and similarly bright, sparkling marketing lingo. I wanted to mention Hewlett Packard’s recent touting of Autonomy as an analytics vendor or Oracle’s push to make Endeca a business analytics giant. But IBM gets the nod. Heck, it is a $100 billion a year outfit. It can define an acquisition any way it wishes. I am okay with that.
SharePoint 2013 Goes Social with Community Templates
October 29, 2012
As users continue to drive demand for social networking features and companies look to increase collaboration among employees, technology is aiming to deliver solutions to fit the need. SharePoint 2013 is no exception as they add social features as well as other smaller configuration improvements to give users more power with a friendlier interface. Jennifer Mason summarizes some of the changes in the coming SharePoint release in her CMSWire.com article, “SharePoint 2013: Intranets with a Side of Social.”
Mason discusses new features including the ability to reuse content across multiple sites, new navigation features, improved search Web part, and changes to design tools. She has this to say about SharePoint’s goal to bring people together with the data they need in a social business context:
The community template provides a way for this type of capability within SharePoint 2013. Community templates have been designed in a way that allows anyone within the organization to join a community and to begin discussions on things relevant to the community. These communities are a great way to share information in a collaborative way, at the same time making intellectual property with the organization available to a larger audience.
Community templates may help bring people together and allow for a new kind of collaboration that previous SharePoint versions simply did not support. While new features are exciting, we also know that out-of-the-box SharePoint tends to have gaps. A complete social business experience also relies on a powerful search feature accessible to all users. One third party application worth looking into is Fabasoft Mindbreeze and their Enterprise Search solution. Mindbreeze connects all company data, including documents, notes, e-mails, calendar entries, contracts, intranet or internet, person- or text-related, and more. In addition, their SharePoint connector allows for a seamless install to complement your existing content management investments.
Philip West, October 29, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext.
IntelTrax Summary: October 19 to October 25
October 29, 2012
This week, the IntelTrax advanced intelligence blog published some interesting stories related to big data’s influence over modern enterprises and higher education.
The article “Text Mining Brings Out the Value on Big Data” explains how companies are turning data volumes into increased profits. Many companies are choosing to automate the process through data analytics and text mining software.
The article states:
“Many companies haven’t begun to benefit from valuable enterprise text data,” said Fiona McNeill, Global Product Marketing Manager for SAS Text Analytics. “Most know that information in-house and in social media must be analyzed to bring value. SAS Text Analytics are being used for patient safety in healthcare, digital content performance in the media industry, early-warning systems and citizen intelligence in government and more. Nobody delivers the depth and breadth of technology for analyzing structured and unstructured data that SAS does.”
“Higher Ed for Big Data” reports on new programs meant to reinvigorate the tech work force and bring young talent to the industry.
According to the write-up:
“Colleges and universities are moving swiftly to create advanced degree programs to help meet what’s expected to be rapidly rising demand among employers for specialists who can manage and analyze big data.
The schools are likely aware of a McKinsey report warning of a mega-shortage of analytical experts that could leave as many as 190,000 positions unfilled by 2018. They’re also responding to appeals from big employers like IBM and SAS Institute that have been lobbying college administrators to set up such programs.
Schools have offered analytics training for years, but the emerging advanced degree programs add instruction in the use of analytic and business intelligence tools to produce useful information from petabytes of data collected from social media sites, sensors, transaction records, mobile applications and other sources.”
PepsiCo is another large company that has recently seen the value of data analytics. “PepsiCo Acquires a Taste for Data Analytics” shares an interview with PepsiCo‘s Global Chief Technology Officer and Senior Vice President of Business Information Solutions Caroline Watteeuw.
Watteeuw explains one of the company’s new products:
“We are betting on what we call SMAC. It is Social, Mobile, Advanced and Immersive Analytics, Cloud. There are a couple of things that are not relevant for PepsiCo but interesting. I call them comeback kids. If you go back 15 years when Xerox was at its peak, it was all about very precise ink-jet printers. Right now, people are trying to use ink-jet printer technology and refocus it on creating organs (researchers at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, for instance, are using modified ink-jet technology to build tissue and organ prototypes). It is absolutely phenomenal. Then there are three dimensional maps. You have 3D TV, gaming and printing. 3D maps will allow you to navigate through different layers of geography to do oil and gas exploration in a very different way.”
For those who are interested in getting the most of their big data, there are a variety of companies out there offering cutting edge solutions. We recommend Digital Reasoning for their long standing reputation as a leader in big data analytics that pushes the envelope.
Jasmine Ashton, October 29, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Lexalytics Rolls out Native Phrase Based Sentiment in Spanish
October 28, 2012
I wanted to call attention to Lexalytics push into the Spanish language. In a couple of weeks you will learn about a remarkable technology which does not require “language packs.” I already wrote about the language innovations of Bitext in Madrid, Spain.
The Lexalytics’ approach, according to “Lexalytics Announces Availability of Native Phrase-Based Sentiment in Spanish,” is:
the only company to provide phrase-based sentiment in any language, providing unparalleled opportunities for tuning and customization for any application involving text. All of Lexalytics’ language packs are native to the language, with no translation step, so that all nuances of sentiment are captured directly without confusion from a machine translation step. Lexalytics’ Salience Engine is a market leading text analytics engine, used by industries as varied as social media monitoring, manufacturing, and pharmaceuticals to determine the “who,” “what,” “where,” and “tone” that’s implicit in any piece of text. Salience supports a number of different text analytics functions, including Named Entity Recognition, Sentiment Analysis, Categorization/Classification, Summarization, Theme Extraction and more. In other words, if you have text, Salience can tell you what it means.
For more information about Lexalytics, navigate to www.lexalytics.com.
Stephen E Arnold, October 28, 2012
Is HP Autonomy Pursuing the Analytics Leaders?
October 27, 2012
I don’t want to name the leaders in business analytics. The reason is that I am not exactly sure what “analytics” means. I learned this week that IBM Vivisimo is in the race. Add to this outfits like Oracle, SAP, and almost every other blue-chip technology vendor and I have a tough time figuring out what company does what. You, gentle reader, may be more informed on this matter than I. No problem. I am an old goose in Harrod’s Creek, Kentucky. I find the relabeling of companies not known for their math skills when it comes to meeting sales targets now in the Premier Math League amusing.
I do want to note the write up “Shifting Gears, HP Revs Up Analytics Services,” which appeared in that estimable “real” publication Information Management. The key point of the story for me was not the reference to HP as “struggling.” I hopped right over the suggestion that HP had to “reinvent its enterprise direction.” Right. The big item was the reference to HP’s embrace of Vertica and Autonomy. No odd couple this. Both firms embrace broad swaths of data and information management.
One passage which caught my attention. The source I believe is Danila Meirlaen, HP outsourcing division vice president. Herewith the snippet:
[HP’s] changes are reflected in this new service, with heightened analytics capabilities based on Autonomy’s IDOL platform and expertise, Meirlaen says. However, she says that layoffs have not impacted the analytics outsourcing team that has been tapped to take on this new service venture. In addition, many Business Analytics Service members have “industry specific” specialties in areas like finance, risk management and marketing.
I find the notion of outsourcing interesting. I am okay with the Autonomy platform. I think, however, there may be some effort required to apply Autonomy’s analytics with Vertica’s capabilities. The “vertical” angle reminds me of content processing vendors who deploy solutions which snap in to financial services, health care, and other juicy industry segments.
Here’s the prediction from an azure chip consultant, Mukesh Dialani, IDC:
A stronger focus on business analytics backed by an industry specific approach will reap benefits to their overall outsourcing business and BPO business in particular.
Hundreds of companies big and small are likely to work overtime to prevent HP from making a free for all even more crazy.
Stephen E Arnold, October 27, 2012
Microsoft 2013 Releases Head to Production
October 26, 2012
Microsoft is releasing the 2013 suite of solutions to manufacturing. Updated solutions include Office 2013, Exchange 2013, and SharePoint 2013. More information can be found in the full article, “Office 2013, Exchange 2013, SharePoint 2013 Released Oct. 18.”
Kirk Koenigsbauer, corporate vice president of the Microsoft Office Division, announced the RTM milestone in a blog post. He claimed that the 2013-branded Office represents ‘the most ambitious release of Office we’ve ever done.’
In July, Koenigsbauer and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer showed off touch-friendly Office 2013 apps. These apps will run on the “Desktop” side of the Windows 8 user interface. Microsoft is also building ‘Metro-style’ Office apps, but so far only the OneNote Metro-style app is available for testing. Gartner analyst Steve Kleynhans has described the new Office 2013 apps as very similar to those in Office 2010, but with screen layouts optimized for touch.
Many organizations are excited to implement the newest iteration of SharePoint, but others may be nervous about the transition. The fact is that there is always a steep learning curve when it comes to a new Microsoft product, particularly SharePoint. However, third party solutions can ease that transition. Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise offers more frequent updates that are intuitive, easing use without a steep learning curve. Additionally, Fabasoft Mindbreeze can enhance an existing SharePoint infrastructure, meaning that large disruptive updates may be a thing of the past.
Emily Rae Aldridge, October 26, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext.
Google Updates Algorithm
October 25, 2012
Web site design is not only important for user experience, but also because it may impact search engine page rankings. Google, arguably the most used search engine, recently updated its page layout algorithm. Read the full report in the Search Engine Watch article, “Google Updates Above the Fold Page Layout Algorithm.”
The Page Layout algorithm first launched January 19, 2012. In the official announcement, they explained who might be affected: ‘Rather than scrolling down the page past a slew of ads, users want to see content right away. So sites that don’t have much content above-the-fold can be affected by this change.’
They continued, ‘If you click on a website and the part of the website you see first either doesn’t have a lot of visible content above-the-fold or dedicates a large fraction of the site’s initial screen real estate to ads, that’s not a very good user experience. Such sites may not rank as highly going forward.’
In addition to Web site design, another important element is Web site search. Businesses should be particularly concerned with how quickly users can locate necessary information on their Web page. Nothing will turn a potential customer away faster than a slow and painful online search process. Fabasoft Mindbreeze makes a very effective Web site search solution that automatically crawls your organization’s existing site and smartly indexes the results. Mindbreeze InSite is a smart investment for any organization with a Web presence.
Emily Rae Aldridge, October 25, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext.
Tips for Tweaking a Site for Mobile Search Optimization
October 24, 2012
Smart phones now outsell PCs and 86 percent of adults (and even a higher percentage among business professionals) own a mobile phone, according to recent findings from the Pew Research Center. In light of the mobile-centered trends, Tom Pick discusses how it relates to big data and the B2B world in his article, “Mobile SEO: How to Search Optimize Mobile Websites.” Pick shares some tips for increasing mobile SEO, starting with basic on-page updates:
As with traditional websites, follow basic on-page optimization best practices on mobile sites: use keywords in your mobile site content, headings, keyword links, image alt tags, and of course, page meta titles. But keep meta titles short: absolutely no more than 65 characters (including spaces), and preferably 45 or less (the display limit in the Safari browser).
Social and mobile go together, so include popular social sharing buttons (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and email) on your mobile web pages to make them easy to share.
It may seem obvious, but make sure your corporate website and mobile website link to each other.
Pick also suggests linking your mobile site to popular sites like Google Maps, Yelp, Foursquare, and Facebook Places. One way to boost your site’s mobile experience is to add a powerful search system, like InSite. Mindbreeze’s InSite solution gives a custom searching experience unique to the user with the added benefit of mobile capabilities.
Philip West, October 24, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext.
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