Attivio Does Data Dexterity
October 9, 2015
Enterprise search company Attivio has an interesting post in their Data Dexterity Blog titled “3 Questions for the CEO.” We tend to keep a close eye on industry leader Attivio, and for good reason. In this post, the company’s senior director of product marketing Jane Zupan posed a few questions to her CEO, Stephen Baker, about their role in the enterprise search market. Her first question has Baker explaining his vision for the field’s future, “search-based data discovery”; he states:
“With search-based data discovery, you would simply type a question in your natural language like you do when you perform a search in Google and get an answer. This type of search doesn’t require a visualization tool. So, for example, you could ask a question like ‘tell me what type of weather conditions which exist most of the time when I see a reduction in productivity in my oil wells.’ The answer that comes back, such as ‘snow,’ or ‘sleet,’ gives you insights into how weather patterns affect productivity. Right now, search can’t infer what a question means. They match the words in a query, or keywords, with words in a document. But [research firm] Gartner says that there is an increasing importance for an interface in BI tools that extend BI content creation, analysis and data discovery to non-skilled users. You don’t need to be familiar with the data or be a business analyst or data scientist. You can be anyone and simply ask a question in your words and have the search engine deliver the relevant set of documents.”
Yes, many of us are looking forward to that day. Will Attivio be the first to deliver? The interview goes on to discuss the meaning of the company’s slogan, “the data dexterity company.” Part of the answer involves gaining access to “dark data” buried within organizations’ data silos. Finally, Zupan asks what “sets Attivio apart?” Baker’s answers: the ability to quickly access data from more sources; deriving structure from and analyzing unstructured data; and friendliness to “non-technical” users.
Launched in 2008, Attivio is headquartered in Newton, Massachusetts. Their team includes folks with an advantageous combination of backgrounds: in search, database, and business intelligence companies.
Cynthia Murrell, October 9, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Watson Based Tradeoff Analytics Weighs Options
July 13, 2015
IBM’s Watson now lends its considerable intellect to helping users make sound decisions. In “IBM Watson Tradeoff Analytics—General Availability,” the Watson Developer Community announces that the GA release of this new tool can be obtained through the Watson Developer Cloud platform. The release follows an apparently successful Beta run that began last February. The write-up explains that the tool:
“… Allows you to compare and explore many options against multiple criteria at the same time. This ultimately contributes to a more balanced decision with optimal payoff.
“Clients expect to be educated and empowered: ‘don’t just tell me what to do,’ but ‘educate me, and let me choose.’ Tradeoff Analytics achieves this by providing reasoning and insights that enable judgment through assessment of the alternatives and the consequent results of each choice. The tool identifies alternatives that represent interesting tradeoff considerations. In other words: Tradeoff Analytics highlights areas where you may compromise a little to gain a lot. For example, in a scenario where you want to buy a phone, you can learn that if you pay just a little more for one phone, you will gain a better camera and a better battery life, which can give you greater satisfaction than the slightly lower price.”
For those interested in the technical details behind this Watson iteration, the article points you to Tradeoff Analytics’ documentation. Those wishing to glimpse the visualization capabilities can navigate to this demo. The write-up also lists post-beta updates and explains pricing, so check it out for more information.
Cynthia Murrell, July 13, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
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