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Follow the Yellow Brick Road – Which way to SharePoint 2013?

By marting@conceptsearching.com on May 14, 2013 in Blog, SharePoint, SharePoint 2013

Ahha, seems the only way to get to SharePoint 2013 from an older version is to migrate. Ok from 2010 to 2013, but nothing before – think 2003 and 2007. We have several clients on SharePoint 2013 – and got there without glitches. We don’t have many that are left on 2003 or 2007 as a matter of fact.

So what’s the difference from the standpoint of unstructured and semi-structured content? Either clean up the mess now or later, or like many folks not at all. From this perspective, migration is a better choice to follow. Many migration tools have solid products that do what they say they do. Our products work alongside of them. The ability to mass move content is relatively straight forward. However, from an information governance approach, mass moving content results in the same problem of mismanaged content.

To migrate document collections effectively, the text content of each document needs to be searched to determine its value. This can’t be done manually, as the volume is too high, and the consistency of human review and decision making is unreliable as well as costly. If manually processed, the security rights of the documents as they are moved to their new location must be applied. General migration tools cannot safeguard document confidentiality because they do not make intelligent taxonomy workflow decisions based on the text content of the individual document.

The way we do it, as content is migrated it is analyzed for organizationally defined descriptors and vocabularies, which will automatically classify the content to taxonomies, or optionally the SharePoint Term Store, and automatically apply organizationally defined workflows to process the content to the appropriate repository for review and disposition.
The end result is a highly effective approach to cleanse irrelevant or unnecessary documents, as well as to identify records that may not been declared or have potential privacy exposures.

Alas, as a vendor I wish everyone used our technologies for migration, but they don’t. How do you approach this? If you are moving from 2003 or 2007 to SharePoint 2013 what would be the best method for you to strategically cleanse content before it available in your shiny new SharePoint 2013 environment?

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Concept Searching Survey Finds Intelligent Migration a Key Priority for 2013

By admin on March 22, 2013 in Blog, Enterprise Metadata Management, Information Governance, SharePoint, SharePoint 2013

Concept Searching conducted a survey in the fourth quarter of 2012 to identify key executive priorities for 2013, specifically around the use of applications that require metadata. The survey included Concept Searching clients as well as the broader marketplace. Although improving search was the number one priority across the board, surprisingly, migration was also high on the respondents’ replies.

Responses from the Concept Searching client base revealed that 33 percent have used the technologies for migration, with 53 percent of the broader marketplace looking for a solution that can intelligently address the migration process. The migration process now requires more sophisticated techniques to ensure compliance objectives are met. Simply moving documents from one repository is not enough, as content that was typically unmanaged will remain unmanaged, continuing to expose an organization to risk. Information cannot be managed from inception to deletion without comprehensive metadata associated with the content, and incorporating the multiple channels and origination points from which content was received.

To read the press release, click here.

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Successful SharePoint Stories or Tales of Woe?

By marting@conceptsearching.com on March 8, 2013 in Blog, SharePoint, SharePoint 2013

Recently I read an article, ‘SharePoint Faces a Challenging Future’, posted on InfoWorld that references a new report from Forrester where SharePoint has come under fire as not all it’s cracked up to be. Interesting food for thought. This made me start thinking about ‘real live’ organizations many of which have their own SharePoint success stories to tell (or tales of woe). Just thought the points mentioned were worth thinking about. The article above references a new research report issued in February from Forrester. This report uses data from Forrester’s August 2012 Global SharePoint Usage Online Survey to analyze the current and likely future state of SharePoint adoption in enterprises.

Some of the observations concluded that SharePoint has a long way to go and is at a cross road. I must also emphatically state that it wasn’t all gloom and doom for SharePoint. But we are going to concentrate on the gloom and doom just for the sake of conversation. See if you agree with some of the points made by the authors.

“The gap in satisfaction between IT pros and business managers — SharePoint met the expectations of 73 percent of the former, and of 62 percent of the latter — is of concern, according to the authors.” (I actually don’t think these are necessarily negative stats. One point not made was the maturity level of the SharePoint installations – have they been up and running for years or still in some stage of deployment?)

“Dissatisfaction is centered on several areas, including adoption challenges, a dislike for the SharePoint user experience, a preference for other tools like email and skepticism over its business value.”

“At this juncture, CIOs and other IT executives should rethink the role of SharePoint in their organizations. For example, if SharePoint is used only for document collaboration, it is an expensive proposition for which more affordable options exist, according to the authors. It’s also a good idea to monitor how Yammer is integrated with SharePoint, and assess how comfortable the organization is with providing enterprise social collaboration via a cloud model. In addition, CIOs must keep a close eye on SharePoint’s mobile capabilities.”

“Dangerous competitors include IBM, Google, Jive Software, and Box. Despite its rousing success in enterprises, circumstances have changed, and SharePoint must prove its value all over again.”

So all you SharePoint aficionado’s – WDYT?

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Where’s the missing link in government?

By carlam@conceptsearching.com on February 11, 2013 in Government, Information Governance, Records Management, SharePoint, SharePoint 2013

Although this blog focuses around government it highlights an interesting paradox. The first article details the US federal Chief Information Officers Council update on the list of core competencies for training and hiring policies so they can hire personnel that are capable of addressing new technology challenges facing government. The council recently released an updated Clinger-Cohen Core Competencies and Learning Objectives and recommended that every federal agency should include staff with experience in social media, open government, and cloud computing.

The document also includes new “competencies” in IT governance, IT program management leadership, vendor management, cybersecurity, and information assurance strategies and plans. According to the article, “Federal chief information officers should ensure that the knowledge, skills and abilities represented in each competency in this document are resident within their organization for overall staff productivity,” the document said. So far all’s well and good and a step in the right direction.

Switch to another scenario. In an editorial by Steve O’Keeffe, from MeriTalk, he discusses the GAO Report released in late January. What struck me as I read both articles back to back is the apparent lack of integrated agency operational plans and the lack of accountability. Some highlights from Mr. O’Keeffe’s article that are recommended in the first article are noted below.

Rampant systems duplication – with 777 supply chain systems, they now need a supply chain system to track their supply chain system inventory
Agencies spend 73 percent of “defined” IT budget on maintaining old systems
IT Dashboard says almost $12.5 billion in IT projects at risk
$3 billion worth of IT projects are without governance
Data center diaspora and dollar discrepancies. Only three of 24 agencies submitted data center inventories and only one has a complete consolidation plan
Failed IT programs total 2.6 billion

I wonder in a ‘real’ organization how often the best laid plans of mice and men often go astray? Although if you add up IT government agency spending it would probably make our eyes pop (luckily for us no one knows what that amount is), but even on a smaller scale how many companies state corporate direction and then it all falls through the cracks? The government is not alone. It is probably more than we think.

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What the heck? Tell me what to call it.

By carlam@conceptsearching.com on February 7, 2013 in Enterprise 2.0/Web 2.0, SharePoint, SharePoint 2013

Since I am in marketing I can’t seem to pin down what to call ‘social networking’ as a good ‘umbrella’ term. It appears that I am not alone – please see below what professionals are calling themselves. But back to the ‘correct’ term. Here’s what I’ve come up with so far:

Social networking
Social networking tools
Social automation
Social computing
Social business
Social media
Social collaboration
Enterprise 2.0 and Web 2.0
Knowledge Management

The last bullet is an odd ball as it is no longer considered a relevant term and is in disfavor by many, but I have seen the term when referring to “social ?” (I’m quite sure I left some out). Now at a granular level we can probably find differentiators for each term. I have one colleague who still doesn’t know what Enterprise and Web 2.0 are, no matter how many times I explain it to him. He constantly tells me that real people don’t know what that means, oh well.

Oddly enough, coinciding to writing this blog, it seems that ‘social’ professionals are now jumping on this bandwagon. In a blog by Brittany Ballenstedt she wrote, “In January 2013, the number of Twitter users with “social media” as part of their bio has grown significantly, to 181,000, up from a mere 16,000 in 2009. “Maven” and “ninja” were nearly tied for being used the most – nearly 22,000 times. Other popular titles were “evangelist” (20,829), “guru” (18,363) and “consultant” (9,031). “At this rate, everyone on Twitter will soon be a social media guru,” Ad Age’s B.L. Ochman writes.”

From a business perspective, what do you think is the best umbrella term to incorporate the various components? Or should there be unique distinctions in terms and not one ‘umbrella’ term. What does your organization use?

And, if you are an expert in social media, what title do you prefer?

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Protecting Unstructured Content from Exposure

By marting@conceptsearching.com on February 7, 2013 in Data Security, SharePoint, SharePoint 2013

Corporate risk is increasingly becoming a priority for senior management. The demarcation of who is responsible for the protection of data is becoming blurred. It can no longer be the responsibility of one person, and must encompass all stakeholders and end users to identify and secure privacy assets to protect an organization. Regardless of whether a breach is contained within an organization or, worst case scenario, exposed to the world, 76% of organizations will face investigations, forensics, law enforcement, and actions to protect the victim from harm (Ponemon Institute).

Our approach to the protection of privacy and confidential data includes the proactive identification and protection of unknown privacy exposures before they occur, as well as identifying in real time organizationally defined vocabulary and descriptors in content as it is created or ingested from any source and removing it from unauthorized access. (Read more).

At what point and how do you handle potential data privacy exposures? Or do you?

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What’s on the top of your list for 2013 Priorities?

By carlam@conceptsearching.com on February 6, 2013 in Big Data, Data Security, Enterprise Metadata Management, Information Governance, Records Management, Search, SharePoint

We recently completed a survey on the key priorities for executives in 2013 as it relates to any application that requires the use of metadata. The respondents included our clients as well as the broader marketplace. The survey focused on the use of what we call ‘intelligent metadata enabled solutions’. Concept Searching’s Smart Content Framework™, which is supported by automatic semantic metadata tagging, auto-classification, and taxonomy management technologies can be readily extended to not only improve search, but records management, data privacy, migration, and text analytics. The results in some cases surprised us, and others were to be expected.

In the broader marketplace, all respondents indicated improving search was their top priority. Not surprising. The trend forward is interesting with a clear emphasis on managing migration, protection of sensitive information, and the automatic declaration of documents of records with 53% of companies looking to deploy solutions for migration, 51% for sensitive information and data privacy, 27% for records identification, 20% for eDiscovery & FOIA and only 16% for text analytics.

In looking at our clients, 33% have actually deployed the technology for migration, 29% for sensitive information and data privacy, 25% for records identification, 23% for text analytics, and 21% for eDiscovery and FOIA. For all clients, the technology is also being used to improve search, either using Concept Searching’s conceptSearch product or through integration with any search engine such as SharePoint, SOLR, Google Appliance, and the former Microsoft FAST products.

I would be interested in knowing if these results are priorities for your organization and if so, what would be a must have or a nice to have?

The survey results and more about intelligent metadata enabled solutions can be accessed here.

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Leveraging Unstructured Content in SharePoint

By marting@conceptsearching.com on February 5, 2013 in Enterprise Metadata Management, Information Governance, SharePoint, SharePoint 2013

As a metadata, classification, search and taxonomy provider, we have seen a dramatic shift in the market. One client with us for eight years has deployed the technologies to solve search, records management, data privacy, and migration in SharePoint. A recent survey of all our clients and the broader marketplace indicated that organizations are seeking solutions that leverage their SharePoint investment, and provide the ability to re-use and repurpose content with an enterprise infrastructure platform for unstructured data, that is flexible and easily adapted to address changing organizational requirements. In the age of limited funds and resources, organizations are also more focused on achieving a measurable ROI.

The crux of the problem has always been the inability to generate contextual metadata, either manually or automatically, that results in intelligent metadata. Intelligent metadata is the output of automatically capturing conceptual metadata, and identifying relationships and context, enabling the proactive management of content through goal and mission aligned structures and workflows. This approach results in the deployment of intelligent metadata solutions that are integrated with an organization’s unstructured information governance policies. The inability to identify intelligent metadata from within content impacts the entire lifecycle management of the asset.

My point is that organizations would never even consider not managing their data assets. With unstructured content booming (at a much faster clip that data), I am often surprised why some organizations don’t take this seriously – or perhaps they don’t know where to being? What do you think?

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No, this really isn’t a product pitch.

By marting@conceptsearching.com on February 1, 2013 in Enterprise Metadata Management, SharePoint, SharePoint 2013

I rarely if ever make product pitches in my blogs, and I will continue to not do so, if it appears that I am, it was not the point. However, I recently completed some competitive analysis of vendors focusing on SharePoint and what struck me was the insurgence of vendors who are spreading their wings and saying they do all kinds of things as it relates to metadata generation, classification, and some even “taxonomies “ (and I use that word loosely in this context). These are all our core competencies and have been for 12 years. If I was looking for the type of technology we provide, I actually would be very confused with the myriad of choices.

I am quite certain that their core technologies are very good, if not excellent, although what struck me is that they have tweaked their marketing message, not introduced new technology, or are delivering radically new solutions that provide a proven and sound approach for the overall management of unstructured information.

I guess because I have depth in the industry I am surprised that prospects can’t tell the difference without educating them. Is it just that unstructured content is typically not managed so organizations are unaware of the differentiators or is it that organizations don’t have the expertise on staff who understand the challenges of managing and utilizing semantic metadata generation, auto-classification, and taxonomies to improve business processes? I am often impressed with the knowledge and audience of LinkedIn readers. Obviously not the norm.

What are your thoughts?

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