BizTechTalk

LinkedIn Groups Update - more usable, but still nothing to see here...

Well, quite a bit of confirming feedback (17 comments) from other people in their LinkedIn frustrations... and LinkedIn has actually improved the usability of group subscribing/unsubscribing since my previous post - Failures of Process (and Thinking) in Social Networking.

If you expand the screenshot above, you can see that they've added a counter to the number of groups you are subscribed to (recall that I'd been told I was subscribed to 154 groups, and needed to get that down to 50... or they'd do it for me) - a simple counter is a wondrous thing. See, usability doesn't have to be painful!

Sadly, there is still no business logic in place that recognized their own self-imposed 50 group limit, so the system didn't pro-actively notify me that I was still over the limit. (sigh)

Still, one problem partly solved - thanks LinkedIn!

Secondly, they did make it easier to unsubscribe or leave a group - refer back to my previous post, but the short story is that it was a multi-page, multi-click operation. Now, it's a single click from the group listing, and a simple confirmation that you want to leave/stay right on the same page (see below).

Upon confirming, they changed another previous user experience snafu, in that they used to send you back to the home page of LinkedIn rather than back to the groups listing. Now, assuming that you were in a LinkedIn group mindset, they put you back to the listing, to cull the list more, manage a group, see the list of group members, etc..

So, that's all great news!

Unfortunately, the bad news is that you still can't do much of anything with the people in your groups.

Well, we'll have to see what they've been hiding over the years, when they finally unleash whatever top-secret, never-seen-before functionality they've been brewing.

May I humbly suggest a tagline for LinkedIn - "So slow, we make Microsoft look agile" or perhaps "Social networking - connect and you're done. No seriously, there's nothing else you can do." Frustration, thy name is LinkedIn! And Twitter... but that's another story for another day.

Any other lingering oddities that you, dear reader, are seeing with LinkedIn or other similar services? Pipe up!

Failures of Process (and Thinking) in Social Networking

Oy vey - this is going to be a long post, as the more I dove into it, the more insanity I found...

I've been on LinkedIn essentially forever. It's my favorite professional networking site, and I have easily spent hundreds to thousands of hours on LinkedIn finding interesting people to connect to, or responding to inbound requests. I've slowly built up to around 1500 connections on LinkedIn, and have had some great success with the help of the LinkedIn platform.

All that said, they are by far the slowest moving/innovating platform for social networking, and to make matters worse, the time they spend planning for new features, apparently doesn't allow time to really think things through.

Witness - LinkedIn groups... it's new! and improved! or it will be! maybe...

I received an advance-warning message this week, from LinkedIn:

Dear Dan,

As an active member of LinkedIn Groups, we wanted to let you know about some changes we're putting in place in the coming weeks.

We are in the process of adding new functionality to enhance the experience of Groups, including the recent release of a searchable directory. We are also working with our development teams to bring new tools and widgets to this collaborative space throughout the rest of 2008.

We are also at this time making some changes to the user-created groups we host. These changes include adding a limit to the number of user-created groups any LinkedIn member may be part of at one time. Currently we are setting that limit at membership in 50 (fifty) user-created groups.

You are currently a member of 154 groups. Please take the time before this limit goes into place on August 14, 2008, to choose which groups you would like to maintain. To remove yourself from a group, go to the My Groups page and click the word "Settings" next to the group you wish to leave. At the bottom of the settings page click the text "Leave this group."

We would appreciate it if you would please take this action within the next 10 days. If you would prefer, after 30 days we will automatically keep the first 50 groups that you joined and remove the rest.

If you would like assistance removing yourself from groups, or if you have any other questions, please contact us at http://linkedin.custhelp.com or groups@linkedin.com.

We apologize for the inconvenience this may cause you, but we hope you will continue to find value in LinkedIn and especially enjoy the new functionality of LinkedIn Groups that is coming soon.

Regards,
The LinkedIn team

Keys to call out from the message:

1. New Groups functionality coming this year (they finally added the ability to search for groups - took somewhere around 3 years to add that)
2. They're going to limit people to joining 50 groups maximum.
3. I'm a member of 154 groups, so I'm 104 over the limit.
4. I have 10-30 days to chop down to 50, or they'll chop for me.

My take on this is that they want to scale back the number of groups that people are subscribed to so that when they actually provide the ability to discuss/share (i.e., do anything USEFUL with groups) sometime this year, they don't get killed entirely by scalability problems. Makes sense, although they don't explain it that way. Transparency anyone?

However, look at their recent blog post of July 8th:

We are thrilled to announce the launch of LinkedIn’s Groups Directory on Friday, July 11! With over 90,000 groups on LinkedIn, it was about time to make the complete list easily accessible by our members. The goal with this feature is to make it easier for people to find groups to join, and we think the directory goes a long way toward achieving that goal...

They over over 90,000 groups - which might seem like a lot, but keep in mind that it was nearly impossible to find groups until they added search - it was like stumbling around in the dark and sheer magic coincidence to find a group you might be interested in. And the point of introducing search is? That's right to encourage you to JOIN MORE GROUPS!

Interesting that a month later they're encouraging people to SHED the number of groups that they've joined. Schizophrenia?

Being curious, I take a look at the FAQs for groups, and find that the FAQ still states:

(Text says: You can join as many groups as you belong to. We anticipate that the average user of LinkedIn probably belongs to at least 3 to 4 groups that are meaningful to their professional life.)

That's right folks, belong to as many groups as you like, except that we mean 50 is the limit now, or will be...

And it gets worse...

What's the process like to start bailing out of groups? Certainly not user friendly.

Step 1:
Look at your existing groups - I'd show a screenshot of the 154 groups I belong to, but that would be silly. Here's just the top of the page.

Note that there is no facility to bulk unsubscribe. So it's one at a time.

Step 2:
Jump into a group to start the process of leaving the group.

Step 3:
Ok, find that tiny link in the bottom right, and leave the group.

Step 4:
Log in to your account first

Step 5:
Confirm you want to leave (where is AJAX when you need it?)...

Step 6:
Congratulations, you're done! And where do they put you? Back at the home page, where you are another click and pageload away from getting back to your list of groups again.

I'm no math whiz, but they're expecting me to do this 104 times, and it's 5-6 steps per unsubscribe (if I'm not forced to login every time, it's one less screen and click). So I'm looking at 500+ pages to accomplish what they're asking for. Let's say it's an average of 5 seconds to load each page and click the link or login to get to the next step. That's 2500 seconds, or 41+ minutes of my life if I go non-stop.

Attention users - please do our work for us:
Now I realize I may be subscribed to more groups than most people - but that was one of the most powerful ways to zoom in on people with similar interests on LinkedIn, and given that THERE WAS NO CONVERSATIONAL CAPABILITY (and is that coming? Who knows?), the one and only value to me in being in so many groups is that it essentially bookmarked people for me that might be of interest to meet, partner with, work with, interview, etc..

Now some people have suggested that LinkedIn provide tools to merge/collapse redundant groups, because, whadda ya know, there are many cases where the purposes for groups are almost identical, again because groups where hidden away, unsearchable. Not unheard of for there to be 4-10 alumni groups for the same university for example, due to poor Findability. There's easily 100 innovation-related groups, same for sustainability/green/alternative energy.

LInkedIn's solution there? From their Customer Help area (different area than the FAQ section mind you - sensing any strategic thinking here? Me neither...):

Merging Your Groups

How do I merge my groups?

Due to the member-generated content and the high priority on member's ability to choose which groups they join, we do not offer an automated process for merging groups. For managers of groups that have similar concepts, we recommend contacting the other group manager explaining your goals for combining the groups. If the other manager would like to proceed, you would then choose one group to keep open.Below you will find the step by step instructions we recommend to merge the groups.

1. Identify all duplicate groups you would like to merge.
2. Contact the owners of the groups and determine which group you would like to be the main group.
3. Verify the group name, group logos, and group description for the main group.
4. Export the current member roster of the groups you would like to close.
5. Upload a correctly formatted CSV file to pre-approve members into the main group.
6. Invite all of the members who have been pre-approved to join the main group.
7. Delete duplicate groups by going to My Groups > Manage > Edit Group Info > Deactivate the group. Note: The "Deactivate the group" link can be found at the bottom of the "Edit Group Info" page right underneath the "Save Changes" button.

Note: If you are an official representative of an organization and believe that there are unauthorized groups using your group name or logos, please contact customer service to begin a formal review.

So the long and short of it is that LinkedIn is failing to provide tools to both individual members of groups, as well as to the owners of groups to help solve the limitations they are imposing well after the fact.

And people wonder why I believe usability matters, why thinking through processes matters, why social networking is a more subtle business than you might think, why search is only part of Findability, etc..

It's a miracle LinkedIn has grown to this point - this is another case where things are just broken enough to be annoying, but apparently not broken enough to cause an outright revolt. Same goes for Twitter - except in their case they can't keep the service up and fully functional for more a few days at a time.

I realize this is my Wednesday rant, but is it just me? Who is steering the ship at LinkedIn? Do they test these things with newbies and power users before deciding how to move forward with new features/functionality? What takes so bloody long to provide searchability into a database of your own design? This is just ridiculous - are ex-airline executives in charge, or why is it that the actual users don't seem to enter into the thought process?

(sigh)

Thoughts? I suspect there is going to be a revolt of power-users on LinkedIn, but who knows, I could be wrong. This whole process is so wrong that I can barely find ONE aspect that makes legitimate sense - but off-loading a mess with no adequate tools to make it at least palatable to help them prepare for the next wave is just crazy.

E-mail, Archiving, Cloud... Good? Bad?

Should you outsource your e-mail archive?

view presentation (tags: cloud computing saas outsourcing e-mail management)

Wrapped up an AIIM Wednesday Webinar earlier today, this one on Should You Outsource Your E-mail Archive? Will post a link (when it's available - next 24 hours or so) to the actual replay of the audio and slides, but here are the raw slides for my portion of the presentation.

Funny enough - e-mail/messaging and security where the original topics I first covered when I accidentally stumbled out of my IT-oriented cube and became an analyst. Much of this was a blast from the past for me - but as I said in the webinar, quite a lot has changed with regards to the options available for e-mail management capabilities of any kind.

Thanks for everyone who participated in the webinar and the savvy questions asked in Q&A.

Lost in a Sea of Search? Find It!

Did you know?

69% of people responding to our Findability survey believe that <50% of their business content is available online.

49% of respondents “Agreed” or “Strongly Agreed” that “Finding the Information I Need to Do My Job is Difficult and Time Consuming.”

Whew. I've spent almost a decade helping people understand how to make the most out of search, taxonomies, relevancy ranking algorithms, user interfaces, information architectures and more.

Looks like there is still plenty of work left to be done - as we are nowhere near universal satisfaction with Findability in the Enterprise.

As I've been mentioning for a few months now, the long awaited (well, I've been longing to deliver it, that counts, right?) Market IQ on Findability is now freely available for download. Over 65 pages and 70 charts/figures, I believe you (and your manager, executives, IT staff, business colleagues, etc.) will find interesting material in this research.

The research is provided completely and entirely free, although we do of course ask for (minimal) registration information. Grab yourself a copy while it is hot off the virtual presses!

I don't mean to paint an overly negative picture, but enterprises (and whoever does or does not "own" search/find or for that matter, content) are not doing a fantastic job at minimizing the amount of time wasted in organizations (time isn't money it would seem) trying to find the information people need to do their job, or the amount of time wasted in re-creating information that already exists, but can't be found.

Some organizations are doing a much better job at providing useful, intelligent Findability experiences for their employees, partners and customers - but it is far more rare than it is common.

What are YOU finding in your own experiences with Findability in the enterprise? Total chaos? Search bliss? Irrelevant junk? Instant success?

Would love to hear what your experiences are, and any feedback you have on this research. For those 528 people who contributed their time in responding to the survey, thank you again for your time and efforts. Much appreciated!

aiimALERT: Microsoft Acquires Powerset

Microsoft has acquired (after vehemently denying) Powerset, a San Francisco-based search and natural language company (see the Live Search Blog and Powerset Blog for more details).

Between Microsoft's $1.2 Billion acquisition of FAST earlier this year, their $240 million investment in Facebook to provide ad serving capabilities, the $6 Billion acquisition of aQuantive's ad network last year, and the (currently undisclosed but rumored at $100 Million) acquisition of Powerset, Microsoft is finally clueing in that it's not enough to provide tools/platforms/systems to create and store information - if it's not FINDABLE, it doesn't exist. In fact, in our upcoming Market IQ on Findability, one of our findings was that 69% of respondents stated that less than 50% (half) of their content was even available online. That is a completely different problem when compared to the web, which has millions to billions of pages at your disposal.

What does the Powerset acquisition bring to the Microsoft table?

Thought #1 (it’s about ads):
The primary driver of the Powerset acquisition is part of the play to compete against Google for consumer-based web search, rather than their acquisition of FAST, which is more “enterprise focused” and the area that most AIIM Members would typically be concerned with.

Microsoft is competing of course not simply from a “our search engine is better” standpoint, even though this is exactly the "elevator pitch" that Powerset has been using since they first unveiled themselves.

The point of the competition between Microsoft and Google is that there is money in advertising on the web. Lots of it. Metric tons of it. And who wouldn't want more?

So the goal for Microsoft with this acquisition is not really about giving the world better web search, but rather a “we can make our advertisers (and thus ourselves) much more money.”

I have to say that I am dubious that this will be the case.

The best online ads that surround the search experience are typically very targeted, and when done well, lead buyers to landing pages and an entire experience that is keyed in on the original query quite specifically. It creates and solidifies a path from the mind of the searcher, straight to a purchase path. This is "Modern eMarketing 101" (or should be).

Given the complexity involved in targeting ads CURRENTLY (without semantic/linguistic technology involved), how is this going to make advertisers more effective at selling?

Powerset/Microsoft had better innovate one heck of an advertiser/marketer friendly interface to actually make this work. While Microsoft may have some of the most popular user interfaces (by sales) on the planet, they do not have a great track record at simplifying the user experience (open every toolbar available in Microsoft Word, and you will no longer have space to create a document). This is not a simple task.

 

Thought #2 (it’s about better search – ha!):
From a “pure” search experience, people can barely be bothered to enter more than 1-3 search terms – what would make us think that users are going to type in fully formed questions as a query? I’ve joked about this many times in the last decade that Natural Language Query is at this point possibly the most UNnatural search experience possible. It would SEEM easier to allow people to “ask questions” of machines, but ingrained habits are terribly difficult to overcome, and the vast majority of interfaces that people are using for search do NOT train us to ask pointed questions of search engines (as The Atlantic’s recent cover story [by Nicholas Carr of "Does IT Matter?" fame] says, “Is Google Making Us Stoopid?”).

That is not to say that linguistics/semantics technology cannot be useful. Although there are certainly benefits, is this the silver bullet that Microsoft can aim in the direction of Google to take back or win ad revenue? Not by itself. Then again, Microsoft has been busy with all sorts of acquisitions to take this quite seriously (as mentioned above).

The other competitive front that is being mentioned around this acquisition is that it is not about competing with Google, but instead with Ask.com. Given that Ask.com is indeed built for natural language queries, that may make more sense, although Ask.com does not have anywhere near the mindshare of Google, MSN or Yahoo! Microsoft can of course afford to compete on multiple fronts however, and they certainly are spending quite heavily on improving search. Time will tell how users end up benefiting.

So lets sum it up as saying that of all the acquisitions or investments (such as into Facebook) that Microsoft has made in the consumer-facing, public web search market - as interesting as the techniques that Powerset uses are (Semantic Web, where art thou? Not here yet?) - this is much ado about nothing. It is a tiny blip -  one small, subtle capability that is going to take quite some time (if ever) to make a significant impact on this aspect of the Microsoft search business. The benefits of this type of approach, and the fabled "Semantic Web" have been talked about for a LONG time.

If only the same amount of investment and energy went into making enterprise Findability a reality, which we’re finding in our Market IQ on Findability is NOT the case, then the working world of “knowledge workers” would be a near utopian dream. And it’s not. Reality is much messier, and the problem isn't just technology. But more on that in the Market IQ, soon.

Other resources on this topic:

Microsoft Shoots and Scores with Powerset Purchase by Ron Miller

Cruising the Mall: Microsoft Scoops up Powerset for Universal Search by John Blossom

Report: Microsoft to Acquire Powerset Natural Language Search for $100M+ by Adam Ostrow

Method Or Madness? by Sean Park

FoFF - Findings on Findability? Fail! #1

It's funny, I've been covering Findability-related topics for 8 years now, and sometimes it is just very difficult to return to the "beginner mind" and remember what it's like to not be immersed in all of the guts of Findability. What works, what doesn't, how it works, how it doesn't...

This is a reason I like to trot out Geoffrey Moore's "Crossing the Chasm" idea - it helps to reinforce that ideas don't just pop up out of nowhere and reach complete saturation. Education, Awareness, Adoption, Success, Improvement - it all just takes time (and effort) to seep in.

Case in point -

I've been a Netflix subscriber for a few years now, and at the time, I felt I was late to the game. Apparently not! Most of our survey respondents have no experience at all with Netflix.

That's truly unfortunate, as they have great Findability (and usability), from where I sit.

A few items to be aware of - type-ahead search. Some would argue this is a waste, but if the performance hit isn't too much for you (as an implementer OR a user), it's awfully handy.

Here, I was typing in "star" and up came:

Improved my chances right off the bat that I would get to THE search result with one action.

Any guess what I was searching for?

That's right...

Star Wars, or more specifically, Star Wars IV: A New Hope (the original - which makes no sense at first glance, but presumably you're all sci-fi geeks too, right?)

And of course the search results show not just the two most likely candidates (the original and a digitally enhanced version), but related genres and collections (egads, those are taxonomies on the right!), and related titles I could watch instantly (Netflix has expanded outside of DVD rentals. Sadly they don't support Macs - but I won't go into Microsoft and their platform-specific DRM scheme just now).

The point of this entire Findability experience? Of course it's to MAKE MONEY.

And that is a point to keep in mind in the enterprise experience. Why does Findability suffer in the Enterprise? It's not magic, folks! Without attention, time, investment, a known set of reasons why Findability is failing, and what would make it better, well, NOTHING is going to be improved.

Create an account on Netflix and poke around. How you can take their approaches to increasing Findability and bring them to YOUR enterprise experience (or heck, your consumer-facing experience)?

And if you've pursued this at all, please, weigh in and tell us how it went. Painful to implement? Easy as 1-2-3? Expensive? Cheap? What benchmarks for cost reduction, time reduction, revenue increase, etc. did you find? Are your facets unfindable? Fragile?

Lastly - for more on our coverage of Findability, sign up to listen in (and ask questions) in our free public webinar on Findability (providing a peek into our Market IQ on Findability), this Thursday, June 26th at 2pm EDT (-5 GMT). I'll be there - will you? Let's find out...

Of Findability, Folksonomies, and Facets

Ramping up to our webinar in support of the forthcoming findings in the Market IQ on Findability, I wanted to point out a few useful resources to help in selling (or at least understanding) the issues that impact Findability, and ways to "solve" Findability.

First resource:
A presentation I'd posted a few months ago, and which I'd first created several years ago and used to make people's heads explode after I'd just spent 1-2 full days extolling the virtues of taxonomies and formal organization schemes.

Folksonomies and Facets

| View | Upload your own

Second resource:
At the Enterprise 2.0 Conference 2 weeks ago, I ran into Thomas Vander Wal, who coined the term "folksonomy." What better way to FURTHER explain the concept, than point to one of his recent presentations that relate to this? The presentation I chose discusses both the collaborative (it's made of people!) side of folksonomy (social bookmarking, primarily - ala delicious, connectbeam, etc.) as well as the tags and tagging that underpins the process.

After Noah: Making Sense of the Flood (of Information)

| View | Upload your own

Third resource:

If any (all?) of this is of interest, stay tuned for our Market IQ on Findability, and the free public webinar coming up on Thursday June 26th at 2pm EDT, we've released some early findings (see press release), and have quite a bit more coming.

In the meantime - anyone using a folksonomy approach in your organization? Successfully? Failing? Would love to hear more about your experiences, and help to raise the best and worst practices around these areas.

Re: Enterprise Search Still Sucks...

Always interesting to see what happens when you release some new findings out into the wild. What will people key on? Who will pick it up? Do they get it, or regurgitate misunderstandings and misconceptions?

In support of our upcoming Market IQ on Findability, and the free public webinar coming up next Thursday June 26th at 2pm EDT, we've released some early findings (see press release).

One shocking finding  (to me at least - you?) is that 69% of respondents (to our survey of over 500 companies, executed in May 2008) report that less than half of enterprise information is searchable online. Ouch!

For those who believe that search is going to solve their "can't find it" problem, that's very bad news.

And in that vein, a fellow analyst (for Enterprise Strategy Group), Steve Duplessie (Founder and Senior Analyst), provided the following commentary on our press release yesterday (this is going to be surreal - me quoting Steve quoting us):

[Dan's Note: Steve's blog post]

Enterprise Search Still Sucks…..

This is absolutely brilliant.  This is what makes my (pseudo) job worth it.

I just opened an email from Beth Mayhew, Director of Marketing for AIMM.org that says this:

[Dan's Note: Quote below of the entirety of our press release, minus the links. I thought blogging was about providing links to what you're commenting on, so users can form their own judgement. Or is this mere ivory tower mudslinging?]

"Enterprise Search Frustrates and Disappoints Users

69% of respondents report that less than half of enterprise information is searchable online

Silver Spring, MD – June 17, 2008 – In a new study on Findability to be released by AIIM, 49% of survey respondents "agreed" or "strongly agreed" that it is a difficult and time consuming process to find the information they need to do their job. The new survey of over 500 businesses conducted in May 2008, suspects that a prime culprit for the failings of Findability in the enterprise is the admission that 69% of respondents believe that only 50% or less of their organization's information is searchable online. Given the ready access that users are supposed to have in this "Age of Google" – how is this possible?

"Findability has been a common source of frustration in the enterprise for decades," states AIIM Vice President Carl Frappaolo. "As information has become more and more digital, from it's creation through to management, the pain of finding enterprise information has moved from the piles of paper on the desktop and in storage cabinets, to the digital landfill of file servers, e-mail inboxes, digital desktops, and content management systems. Despite the advances made in search on the internet, enterprise search leaves most users frustrated."

Finding content digitally is only possible if pointers to content or the content itself is in native digital format, made available for indexing by search, and/or accessible by information organization and access techniques (such as navigational structures, taxonomies, bookmarks, etc.). The lack of such functionality in the enterprise is at the heart of user frustration.

But fault does not lie with technology solution providers. Most organizations have failed to take a strategic approach to enterprise search. 49% of respondents have "No Formal Goal" for enterprise Findability within their organizations, and a large subset of the overall research population state that when it comes to the "Criticality of Findability to their Organization's Business Goals and Success", 38% have no idea ("Don't Know") what the importance of Findability is in comparison to a mere 10% who claim Findability is "Imperative" to their organization.

The lack of strategic understanding, implemented plans and technological pros and cons to address Findability in the enterprise continues to cause pain in most organizations, although slow progress is being made."

[Dan's Note: Steve's comments follow]

Several Points:

1. Duh. You can't find diddly in an enterprise or out. When does 2 zillion responses to search end up being helpful? It's ridiculous how much internal corporate knowledge is totally wasted because your own people can't find what they need.
2. "Findability"?
3. Not one to nitpick but "from it's creation" should be "its creation". 
4. Perhaps best of all – try to find out in this press release what AIIM stands for! The irony is superb. Better yet, go to AIIM.org – it still isn't obvious. When you search AIIM in their search bar, it takes you off site to Google, who promptly displays 326,000 results, none of which actually define AIIM as far as I can find.

So the organization assembled to deal with the issues associated with finding information does a survey that tells us that users are not happy when they can't find information, but uses Google to not find information that its members (or me) might like to find. I almost don't want to ask, but where do they keep these survey results? Have you seen 'em? Nope, have you?

You can't just make this stuff up. It would have been much better if they slipped in something like "48% of all data is entirely fabricated, but 98% of the time we can't prove it because no one knows where any of the information is".

So if this little brilliantly perfect example doesn't get you to realize that without an entirely different data-centric approach to categorizing and classifying data – ideally at creation – you are completely and utterly hosed, nothing will. E-discovery my butt.

And my commentary to Steve (he moderates comments [so much for transparency], so I'm posting here as well as tracking back to his post):

Steve - Interesting take on our research, thanks for the humorous commentary. Or was it serious? Hard to tell.

So apparently the very first link in the upper left navigation of AIIM.org, "About AIIM" wasn't good enough for you? Seems like a fairly obvious location to find such information, and if there are any best practices for website navigation, that would be at the top of the list.

Findability is NOT just about search. I couldn't have made the point clearer than that - so thank you for the beautiful illustration. Expecting search to solve all ills is a major failing for enterprise information management. Sometimes it's exactly the tool you need, and other times, not so much.

And yes, of course you're going to find thousands to hundreds of thousands of pages if you search for AIIM directly on our site. It does appear on every page after all. Perhaps you should stick to commentary on data, hardware and storage (which I will happily stay away from, except for those times when it intersects with my commentary on information, content and knowledge - that stuff that "data-centric" people would like to pretend doesn't exist or matter), since you clearly don't understand the way that unstructured (or semi-structured) information is indexed for search engine consumption and result display.

Incidentally, AIIM is no longer an acronym (or is it "AIMM" as you misspelled it in the 2nd line of "Director of Marketing for AIMM.org"?). Just as IBM is no longer "International Business Machines" (or worse I.B.M. - where does AP get it's guidelines for these things?), CA is no longer "Computer Associates" and the Web 2.0 API "standard" called REST is no longer "REpresentational State Transfer."

But again, if only you had looked at the "About AIIM" (at the top of every page on the site), you could've easily discovered that AIIM has (in the past) been an acronym for the Association for Information and Image Management. We've been around (with various name changes) for 65 years, and have around 50,000 associates and members in our non-profit association flock.

Lastly, you are nearly correct when you say "it takes you off site to Google," but not quite - but that's a failing on our part. That is the Google Search Appliance (note the subtle bolded "appliance" tag in the upper navigation), and the search results haven't been re-skinned for the site redesign that launched last week.

It could all be handled more gracefully and seamlessly integrated to be sure (although I'm an analyst - and not responsible for our own search implementation), but again, you're using the wrong tool for the job. Particularly if you searched only on AIIM (or AIMM), rather than a more targeted search.

Incidentally, if you had searched on "About AIIM," the page already referenced is hit number 5. Perhaps you are one of the search users who only looks at the first 3 results?

Thanks for making MY day - even though I've been helping to teach findability-related topics for 8 years now, I frequently wonder "Doesn't everybody already know this stuff?" Then along comes commentary like this, and it's clear that we're a long way from universally solving these problems.

Ah well, back to work! Much to be done.

Cheers,
Dan

So, dear blog readers - am I simply suffering from crankiness on this hump day (Wednesday), or does this just exactly illustrate why search is not the (only) answer?

There are many paths to the stuff you want to FIND - search, taxonomy or other navigation techniques, dynamic clustering, social recommendations, bookmarks, "pinned" results, visualization techniques to allow discovery of an information space, etc..

Would love your feedback on this, and if these types of problems are causing YOUR organization issues, please sign up (for free) to the Market IQ on Findability, and the free public webinar coming up next Thursday June 26th at 2pm EDT.

'Till next time... Dan

 

This is absolutely brilliant.  This is what makes my (pseudo) job worth it.

I just opened an email from Beth Mayhew, Director of Marketing for AIMM.org that says this:

[Dan's Note: Quote below of the entirety of our press release, minus the links. I thought blogging was about providing links to what you're commenting on, so users can form their own judgement. Or is this mere ivory tower mudslinging?]

"Enterprise Search Frustrates and Disappoints Users

69% of respondents report that less than half of enterprise information is searchable online

Silver Spring, MD – June 17, 2008 – In a new study on Findability to be released by AIIM, 49% of survey respondents "agreed" or "strongly agreed" that it is a difficult and time consuming process to find the information they need to do their job. The new survey of over 500 businesses conducted in May 2008, suspects that a prime culprit for the failings of Findability in the enterprise is the admission that 69% of respondents believe that only 50% or less of their organization's information is searchable online. Given the ready access that users are supposed to have in this "Age of Google" – how is this possible?

"Findability has been a common source of frustration in the enterprise for decades," states AIIM Vice President Carl Frappaolo. "As information has become more and more digital, from it's creation through to management, the pain of finding enterprise information has moved from the piles of paper on the desktop and in storage cabinets, to the digital landfill of file servers, e-mail inboxes, digital desktops, and content management systems. Despite the advances made in search on the internet, enterprise search leaves most users frustrated."

Finding content digitally is only possible if pointers to content or the content itself is in native digital format, made available for indexing by search, and/or accessible by information organization and access techniques (such as navigational structures, taxonomies, bookmarks, etc.). The lack of such functionality in the enterprise is at the heart of user frustration.

But fault does not lie with technology solution providers. Most organizations have failed to take a strategic approach to enterprise search. 49% of respondents have "No Formal Goal" for enterprise Findability within their organizations, and a large subset of the overall research population state that when it comes to the "Criticality of Findability to their Organization's Business Goals and Success", 38% have no idea ("Don't Know") what the importance of Findability is in comparison to a mere 10% who claim Findability is "Imperative" to their organization.

The lack of strategic understanding, implemented plans and technological pros and cons to address Findability in the enterprise continues to cause pain in most organizations, although slow progress is being made."

[Dan's Note: Steve's comments follow]

Several Points:

1. Duh. You can't find diddly in an enterprise or out. When does 2 zillion responses to search end up being helpful? It's ridiculous how much internal corporate knowledge is totally wasted because your own people can't find what they need.
2. "Findability"?
3. Not one to nitpick but "from it's creation" should be "its creation". 
4. Perhaps best of all – try to find out in this press release what AIIM stands for! The irony is superb. Better yet, go to AIIM.org – it still isn't obvious. When you search AIIM in their search bar, it takes you off site to Google, who promptly displays 326,000 results, none of which actually define AIIM as far as I can find.

So the organization assembled to deal with the issues associated with finding information does a survey that tells us that users are not happy when they can't find information, but uses Google to not find information that its members (or me) might like to find. I almost don't want to ask, but where do they keep these survey results? Have you seen 'em? Nope, have you?

You can't just make this stuff up. It would have been much better if they slipped in something like "48% of all data is entirely fabricated, but 98% of the time we can't prove it because no one knows where any of the information is".

So if this little brilliantly perfect example doesn't get you to realize that without an entirely different data-centric approach to categorizing and classifying data – ideally at creation – you are completely and utterly hosed, nothing will. E-discovery my butt.

And my commentary to Steve (he moderates comments [so much for transparency], so I'm posting here as well as tracking back to his post):

Steve - Interesting take on our research, thanks for the humorous commentary. Or was it serious? Hard to tell.

So apparently the very first link in the upper left navigation of AIIM.org, "About AIIM" wasn't good enough for you? Seems like a fairly obvious location to find such information, and if there are any best practices for website navigation, that would be at the top of the list.

Findability is NOT just about search. I couldn't have made the point clearer than that - so thank you for the beautiful illustration. Expecting search to solve all ills is a major failing for enterprise information management. Sometimes it's exactly the tool you need, and other times, not so much.

And yes, of course you're going to find thousands to hundreds of thousands of pages if you search for AIIM directly on our site. It does appear on every page after all. Perhaps you should stick to commentary on data, hardware and storage (which I will happily stay away from, except for those times when it intersects with my commentary on information, content and knowledge - that stuff that "data-centric" people would like to pretend doesn't exist or matter), since you clearly don't understand the way that unstructured (or semi-structured) information is indexed for search engine consumption and result display.

Incidentally, AIIM is no longer an acronym (or is it "AIMM" as you misspelled it in the 2nd line of "Director of Marketing for AIMM.org"?). Just as IBM is no longer "International Business Machines" (or worse I.B.M. - where does AP get it's guidelines for these things?), CA is no longer "Computer Associates" and the Web 2.0 API "standard" called REST is no longer "REpresentational State Transfer."

But again, if only you had looked at the "About AIIM" (at the top of every page on the site), you could've easily discovered that AIIM has (in the past) been an acronym for the Association for Information and Image Management. We've been around (with various name changes) for 65 years, and have around 50,000 associates and members in our non-profit association flock.

Lastly, you are nearly correct when you say "it takes you off site to Google," but not quite - but that's a failing on our part. That is the Google Search Appliance (note the subtle bolded "appliance" tag in the upper navigation), and the search results haven't been re-skinned for the site redesign that launched last week.

It could all be handled more gracefully and seamlessly integrated to be sure (although I'm an analyst - and not responsible for our own search implementation), but again, you're using the wrong tool for the job. Particularly if you searched only on AIIM (or AIMM), rather than a more targeted search.

Incidentally, if you had searched on "About AIIM," the page already referenced is hit number 5. Perhaps you are one of the search users who only looks at the first 3 results?

Thanks for making MY day - even though I've been helping to teach findability-related topics for 8 years now, I frequently wonder "Doesn't everybody already know this stuff?" Then along comes commentary like this, and it's clear that we're a long way from universally solving these problems.

Ah well, back to work! Much to be done.

Cheers,
Dan

So, dear blog readers - am I simply suffering from crankiness on this hump day (Wednesday), or does this just exactly illustrate why search is not the (only) answer?

There are many paths to the stuff you want to FIND - search, taxonomy or other navigation techniques, dynamic clustering, social recommendations, bookmarks, "pinned" results, visualization techniques to allow discovery of an information space, etc..

Would love your feedback on this, and if these types of problems are causing YOUR organization issues, please sign up (for free) to the Market IQ on Findability, and the free public webinar coming up next Thursday June 26th at 2pm EDT.

'Till next time... Dan

 

The Long Tail of Presentations (Be Findable!)

I've posted my presentations from time to time here on my blog, and typically hosted (in the end) at slideshare.net.

Although I've been a reader/viewer of presentations on slideshare.net for some time, I only began posting presentation to the site 7 months ago.

Why is that?

There were many reasons why I believed this was worth a bit of experimentation:

1. For content that I've already shared publicly already, this is a good central location for me to refer people to. Any time I present now, I simply point people to slideshare.net/dan.keldsen and away they go. Solves the problem of conferences or other events that do not have a presentation sharing location, and even if they do, provides the ability for people to see what else I'm yammering about (context and discovery is awfully handy).
2. Experimentation with "2.0" tech, and the ability to easily share/embed content, in my blog, YOUR blog, or anywhere else - makes it that much easier to get even more life out of my presentations. Re-usability and broad distribution is a great benefit of where we are in the state of the web these days. Simple standards and mechanisms win out over complexity every time. Please, feel free to refer to my presentation as you like - simply attribute appropriately, and link back to the slideshare repository (or wherever I've posted it).
3. If I'm sharing information already, for example a presentation I gave 6 months ago in Denmark entitled "Who's the Boss, MOSS?"- I'd be willing to bet that the majority of people on the planet didn't make it to that presentation. So why not open the information to a much larger audience? There were perhaps 50-75 people in the room - yet on slideshare, 1861 views have totaled up since I'd posted it the day of the presentation. That's a nice magnification of the audience - and in this case, that "Long Tail" is one heck of bigger audience than I'd had at my disposal in the live audience.
4. Like many of the other things I do, blogging and podcasting for example, you don't have to take my word for it that I know what I'm talking about - you can go and experience it for yourself. So rather than reading what I have to say about myself on a resume (or LinkedIn) about my experience and expertise (and I try to be as truthful and upfront as possible, but nobody is perfect - and as Seth Godin says "All Marketers are Liars" - see video of Seth on this topic)

There are many more reasons, and I'd love to hear what others are finding as either useful or useLESS about such a resource. There is almost no downside to posting your presentations - as long as they are meant to be public at all, the broader reach you can gain, the more usefulness that content will have to you and your potential customers, next potential employer, existing customers, etc..

And to simply whack you over the head with my point, and tie this to our current research - the Market IQ on Findability (due out in June, pre-register for the public webinar) - you can't FIND what isn't available in some findable form.

You may have some brilliant presentations sitting on your desktop/laptop - but unless it's out there, somewhere, in a format that allows it to be searched or otherwise navigated to, nobody will ever know about it. As I said in a somewhat controversial post recently, ideas are nothing - it's executing on them that's the trick. Take it another step, and even execution on the idea isn't enough. If you have a 100 MPG car that's in production, but nobody knows it exists, then you may as well not have bothered, as the end effect is ZERO. That's marketing, folks, and it applies both for the outside world (to consumers or other businesses) as well as internally to your organization (making people aware of what you can do as an employee).

Search isn't magic - and this business of the "Long Tail" which has gotten considerable hype since Chris Anderson's article in Wired and expanded missives in the book released in 2006 is not just applicable to consumer-facing services, and specifically about SELLING.

Much of the content that should be powering your organization is stuck in silos (such as your inbox) which might be of incredible value within your organization. And merely lamenting that information is in your organization, and going about in recreating a sales proposal, a PowerPoint presentation, or pursuing a line of research isn't just a bad idea, it is a huge waste of the existing resources of your organization.

Re-invention/re-creation is a tax on your organization that isn't adequately accounted for by typical financial accounting methods. Findability plays a key role in breaking that cycle - take a listen to a podcast interview I had done with Stan Garfield a year ago on "Reinvention Prevention" - which discusses this issue of findability for knowledge and innovation purposes.

To wrap it up - we've closed the survey for the Market IQ on Findability, stay tuned for the final report, and please feel free to pre-register yourself for the free public webinar where we'll be discussing the findings.

In the meantime - what is YOUR personal experience in the "Long Tail" - whether as a consumer (the "traditional" sense of the Long Tail), or within your enterprise? Are your colleagues understanding this? Is this a reason that gets people to contribute their content into a content management system, wiki, blog, etc.? Has it had any affect at all? Would love to hear how people are thinking and acting around this type of thinking.

Comment away!

Findability Survey is Now Live - Weigh In!

Our Q2 2008 research project is the Market IQ on Findability - and the survey to feed our data-driven approach to the quarterly research is now live. Do you have search in your enterprise? At all? Good search? Horrible? User-created tagging? Armies of Taxonomists? An ability to look across applications, repositories, sites in your quest for content, information, or knowledge?

Regardless of the state of organization's Findability Status - your input is extremely important to us. Please, weigh on in, and join the 100 or so people that have already completed the survey in the few hours we've had this open.

The more data the better, and this time around, we are looking not just for business drivers, functionality needed/wanted/hated, but also looking at satisfaction and implementation feedback on the list of companies/solutions provided in a previous post (vote in the survey, not in the blog entry).

Findability and all that it entails, search, taxonomy, user interfaces, information architecture and much, much more, is something that I've been very deeply involved in for the last 8 years, as an instructor, consultant, and implementer, as well as a researcher.

Search isn't solved just yet folks - but there has been quite a revolution in the world of Findability in the last 5 years, and my sense is that adoption at both the trailing and leading edges are still nowhere near where they could be. Would love to be proven wrong, or validated.

For any of the people who had taken our public or private versions of the Proving Ground on Information Architecture and Taxonomy (while I was at Delphi Group), feel free to join in the survey experience. For that matter, would love to hear how your projects have progressed, so feel free to connect with me in the nearly year old role within Market Intelligence at AIIM.org.

The resulting research will be freely available, due in late June, and will have an associated free public webinar as well.

In the short-term, you also have a chance to win 1 of 25 gift certificates for Amazon.com if you provide your e-mail address (so we can contact you if you win), and complete the survey in it's entirety.

I'm monitoring the survey via built-in chat in the footer of each survey page, as well as via Twitter. Any issues, please let me know.