Eureka

You probably feel you have a good sense of the assets of your organization. You know how many employees you have because they are all in an HR database. You know the sales you made last month because they are all in a sales ledger database. You know how many items you have in stock because they are all in an ERP database. You know how many computers you have because they are all in an asset database. And at the end of the year, all these databases will be queried to produce the annual accounts.

After many successful Enterprise Search Summit events in the U.S., Information Today, Inc. (EContent's parent company) is launching Enterprise Search Europe in London. Conference Chair Martin White calls the event noteworthy, because in a world where "search" and "Google" are synonymous, he says, it is important to realize the scale of information retrieval research and of the enterprise search business in Europe.

Commentary from Martin White: About 50 years ago I fell in love with chemistry. I could think of no more interesting subject and spent 3 very enjoyable years at the University of Southampton. It was a time when the department was home to some exceedingly able researchers, and when I crept into the research meetings I heard phrases such as, "We are beginning to think ..." and "It's starting to look as though ..." as new techniques were being developed just down the corridor in the undergraduate labs.

Search is all about the meaning of words, and we need to take this into account in developing search technology.

Dear John: Over the last 6 months, we have spent a lot of time and effort talking to staff throughout our organization, both in this country and globally, to identify the way in which our current search engine is meeting their requirements. The objective of the research project was to develop a set of requirements for a new enterprise search engine, but one of the discoveries we made was that many of these requirements could be met by enhancing our current search engine.

A recent PricewaterhouseCoopers report titled "Trial by Fire," found that in a global survey of 7,200 senior managers responsible for information security, not one reference to the problems arising from search security are to be found. Securing search should be a key concern in search implementations, however.

Martin White: "There are not many things in life that get under my skin. Currently, third on the list is poorly implemented faceted navigation. It is fast becoming the fix-all for search applications where users do more than skim the first 10 results from a list of 50,000."

For everyone, the past year has been dominated by depressing statistics. I thought I was inured to these negative numbers until I read the section in the "Global Intranet Trends" report on finding information. Only 14% of respondents were very satisfied with their search application, and only 6% were very satisfied with the content that was returned from a search. Why are the results so poor?

The importance of providing effective search is being recognized at last. Almost every intranet strategy project has had a substantial search element to it, and I've worked on several in which search has been the primary focus. There are always risks when extrapolating from a few projects and a few more conversations, but I see some trends emerging.

The Strix Award might best be described as the Oscar of the information retrieval research world. It's presented annually to a person who has made a significant impact on research in information retrieval. The award was set up in memory of Tony Kent, Ph.D. (1933-1997), who made a major contribution to the development of information science and to information services, particularly in the field of chemistry. The 2008 award was presented to professor Kalervo Järvelin of the University of Tampere, Finland.

Search appliances can be rather like a ready meal. They are almost instantly available; all you have to do is slot them into a server rack the way you would a meal on to a tray in the oven. The meal can be quite satisfying if all you need is "food," but you learn little from the experience. The hard work has been done by developers and scientists, and while you may marvel at their skills, you certainly don't learn how to "cook."

Imagine for a moment that your company has built a factory and filled it with machinery. Or perhaps your company has built a large, new office building with a sizeable parking lot and a good cafeteria. These additions represent considerable investment. Now, imagine that they have forgotten where they built the factory and where the office is located. Beyond imagination, you say. No company would be that incompetent.