Make Better Decisions with Geographic-Driven Search
Search engines provide answers in many ways; however, no single search engine can give you every answer tuned specifically to your query. Consider geographic information retrieval. If geography is important to your search, you must use a solution that visually links information with maps.
Efficient organizations recognize the critical importance of location intelligence (LI). The need for this sort of intelligence is evident. The rapid evolution of global commerce requires organizations to respond quickly to new opportunities, evolving customer demands and the emergence of market-differentiating processes and technologies. Often, the competitor that responds most appropriately wins customer share.
Why does geography matter in enterprise search? Search that considers location enables companies to analyze data that is useful to marketing, sales, the supply chain and other aspects of operations. For public and private entities, enterprise search represents an important tool for knowledge workers to make better, more efficient decisions. Knowledge workers need to know who, what, why, when, how and where. They need to visualize pertinent information on a map in seconds, with great accuracy, from any work platform.
There’s a problem: approximately 30% of most organizations’ data and documents are not found in a typical search. How many times have you searched for information on a topic and then “re-searched” the hits to find the exact match?
Finding important information in the enterprise encounters the same issue. Unstructured documents such as articles, reports, bulletins and notes may not be accessible within a traditional search. Content stored in structured databases may be available, but often it is scattered throughout a number of repositories such as document management systems. According to the National Academy of Sciences, as much as 85% of content is unstructured. Furthermore, 80% of decisions made by knowledge workers in an enterprise are derived from information stored in unstructured format.
Hence the emergence of location intelligence: the use of contextual location-related data to provide information on which
businesses can base decisions and improve their overall performance. Most organizations possess mountains of documents generated or amassed by the various aspects of the business, captured and stored in various business software applications. They have mounds of data that potentially could help the organization broaden their view of both global and local environments. However, these important documents remain undiscovered because they’re inaccessible or very hard to find.
New Search Tools
Organizations can leverage both structured and unstructured documents to make better decisions. This requires context. Location intelligence applies geographical or spatial context to information to inform actions or responses to business opportunities. For example, consumers need access to location-based information for product research and shopping, and businesses can gain insights from knowing the location of factors ranging from their own assets to competitors.
Geographic text search solutions have emerged that enable knowledge workers to find accurate, relevant content in seconds using a map. The ability for any organization to leverage geography to better manage unstructured content creates intelligence that expedites work processes and organizational success. Location combined with intelligent geographic enterprise search technology is a harbinger to the knowledge worker economy.
Documents in various types and formats can be located based on their geographic references contained within the text. Knowledge workers can now answer the question, “what do I have in my document collection that talks about this place?”
Knowledge workers who search for documents using a combination of keywords and a map discover relevant information faster. This leads to more efficient and accurate decisions. For example, consider a worker searching for a document that describes a commercial real estate investment in San Jose, CA. First, the obvious problem is that there are 1,102 places in the world named San Jose—a search engine will return many geographically scattered documents. Second, “Jose” is a name—the search result will no doubt return some documents mentioning Jose. Third, a document that mentions the phrase “45 miles southeast of San Francisco” will not appear in the search results, yet it could be the most important document. Traditional search technology is not always able to distinguish between such ambiguities.
Geographic text search solutions allow a knowledge worker to enter a keyword and use a map as a filter. Behind the scenes, the solutions rely on the process of applying natural language processing (NLP) on an unstructured document to identify geographic references—explicit or implied. This goes beyond simple string matching. By considering all text in a document, a geographic text search system can consider contextual clues to more accurately determine the exact geographic reference and its location mentioned in a document.
Seamless Integration With Other Platforms
A geographic text search solution integrates with many mapping and document management technologies. A map-agnostic solution allows users to search for documents using interfaces with which they are already comfortable; these include Google Earth, ESRI ArcGIS, etc. This provides flexibility to use cutting-edge visualization tools when performing a geographic search.
A geographic text search solution also integrates with a wide range of content management technologies. By acting as a fusion tool, a geographic text search solution allows users to seamlessly search for documents across multiple repositories and content management systems such as EMC/Documentum, Open Text simultaneously—with one search.
If location is important to your search, you must use a solution that visually links information and geography. Geographic text search solutions have emerged that enable knowledge workers to find accurate, relevant content in seconds using a map. The ability for any organization to leverage geography to better manage unstructured content creates intelligence that expedites work processes and organizational success.
MetaCarta provides users with map-driven geographic search, geographic referencing, and data visualization capabilities. MetaCarta products make data and unstructured content “location-aware”, making that information geographically relevant. These innovative solutions make it possible for customers to discover, visualize and act on important location-based information. For more information, please visit
www.metacarta.com.
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