Search Benefits of an Enterprise Information Model (Video)

At Enterprise Search & Discovery 2018, co-located with KMWorld 2018, Melinda Geist, Intel enterprise taxonomy strategist, and Bram Wessel, Factor principal, discussed the value of an enterprise information model as a core search asset.

“The capability to model the information that will drive the business internally and externally has become nothing less than a core corporate asset for us,” said Geist. “In this era of programmatic and automated marketing, having a stable enterprise information model is essential not just for success, but even to be able to operate. This is true for any area of the discipline, not just search,” added Wessel.

According to Wessel, an even larger point is that once you have defined your shared system of meaning—your core information assets that span the enterprise—it has a number of really good benefits for enterprise search:

For example, it keeps search in alignment with the rest of the enterprise’s information if give you a basis of meaning to build a search experience around.
It gives you actual instruments, like fields and metadata that you can use to directly to configure search.
It provides a way to conduct a gap analysis between search and taxonomy.
It allows you to set up a feedback loop between search and user behavior, and your enterprise information, and the search experience.
It allows you to measure the performance of tags and keywords. It allows you to set up a continuous improvement regime using the analytical inputs that you get from search behavior.
It offers guidelines for search rule development that—and those things can often be tricky.
It provides a governance framework that allows you to maintain quality of your search experience—just as you maintain the quality of your user experience or your data.
And it saves a ton of time.

“So as you consider this challenge in your organization, it's very important to realize that every organization's challenge is going to be unique,” said Wessel. “Organizations come in all shapes and sizes, and road maps are not one-size-fits-all. All of these things we just described about Intel’s challenge are going to be different for your organization.”

View the video.

Many speakers have made their slide decks available at www.enterprisesearchanddiscovery.com/2018/Presentations.aspx

Learn more at Enterprise Search & Discovery 2019, coming to Washington, DC, Nov. 5-7.