Biographical Information

Articles by Stephen E. Arnold

Achieving success in KM

My hypothesis is that for many content-centric and knowledge-centric processes, those involved want to get to the "good stuff." The demonstrations, the visits to trade shows and the selection of a vendor are just more fun than making flow diagrams and verifying requirements.

Big begets big: The information governance challenge

A shift from traditional information management methods is taking place. The shift is not revolutionary. The change is evolutionary. At some point enterprise knowledge solutions give way to newer, smarter and predictive systems.

Collaboration— A management unicorn

How does knowledge management fit into a workplace in which employees take independence as a core principle? In my experience, enterprise software is only now being adapted to the needs of mobile, at home and contract workers.

For confidence-driven employees: Is automated collection a cure?

E-mail in government agencies, in my experience, is supposed to be swaddled in systems under the stewardship of security and technology professionals. The user name and password is, in theory, linked to a particular individual. The messages are passed through systems designed to record, back up and monitor those under the government umbrella.

Bold action or management process? Finding the right balance in KM

General Electric has a software start-up. The somewhat surprising development is the subject of the Harvard Business Review essay, "Building a Software Start-Up Inside GE," by Brad Power....

Disruptions and KM

Some KM systems provide collaboration tools. Authorized users can send an e-mail or a message to another user. That approach was state-of-the-art five years ago. But for new hires, the old-school KM approach may pinch like a pair of too-small shoes.

Big data-KM’s bowl, water or goldfish?

Big data poses one of those puzzles with which my Psych 101 professor taunted the class. Consider this question: Is big data the bowl, the water in the bowl, or the goldfish in the water in the bowl?

Universal, federated or unified search in the land of information silos

You talk to your mobile phone to search, don't you? My wife, who is no technology lover, does. Our 75-year-old neighbor thinks Siri, Apple's voice search system, is a real person. Ask a question on a voice search-equipped Android phone, and you can get specific driving directions to the closest pizza parlor or gas station. The future has arrived—or has it?

Smarter software is coming … just slowly

With a breakthrough in computing architecture, the hope is that the accuracy of the systems can move to 95 to 99 percent accuracy.

Enterprise collaboration, cartels and confidentiality

A few years ago, I participated in a meeting in which several different agencies discussed data management software. When the representative for the GSA explained the availability of shared services, meeting attendees understood the potential cost savings. By using software already licensed, the time and cost for launching a new initiative could be slashed. The talk was positive, but the concept of shared services has been making only modest progress. Collaboration was useful in the meeting.

But once the agency representatives got back to home base, it was business as usual.

Enterprise search: What is it and where is it headed

There may be some challenges for enterprise search in the organizations of tomorrow. Without innovation, enterprise search is likely to find itself marginalized as enterprise knowledge management solutions proliferate. Search without search may be shorthand for who needs old-fashioned search?

Unlikely tension—Ignition springs, information and KM

Organizations whatever their ilk face mounting costs for information access. The indirect costs—that is, the money spent that is part of business—may be even higher. When leadership lacks management skills and technical insight, disasters become more likely. I thought about this as I learned about General Motors' (GM) ignition spring problem. The company experienced a knowledge management implosion in my opinion....

Surveillance: an important facet of KM
The knowledge dilemma

As organizations struggle to maintain a competitive advantage and minimize risk, surveillance will become an important facet of knowledge management.

The big data steamroller era

Big data is in its Aveling & Porter steam roller phase. Large volumes of digital information have to be pressed into something usable.

Happy union: KM and the cloud?

Cloud computing and big data appear to be a new technology marriage made in heaven. For many organizations, the cloud and big data could crack the knowledge management problem.

Video metadata: ripe for innovation

Video is a content type that has increasing importance in the enterprise.

Will SEO manage information access?

I can certainly envision a future where search engine optimization, which may be perceived as having more value than traditional information retrieval, may become the gatekeeper for enterprise search in some organizations.

It's a messy endeavor: Automated text processing

Four interesting challenges are testing organizations that want to manage their knowledge in a more effective way....

Where Is ConceptNet, Watson?

Psycho-cognitive search- A steroid for KM?

Analytics: unlocking insights

In the present big data environment, analytics is the only way to try to make sense of the volumes of digital information available.

Desktop search: changes ahead?

Specialists in the enterprise will need desktop search systems as long as there are desktop computers. The "death" of a PC does not mean that an entire population will disappear overnight. On the other hand, desktop search is not perfect, and innovation seems to have stalled.

Semantics: next step in KM

"Semantic technology can improve indexing, identify entities and output tags, which can be analyzed by sophisticated numerical recipes..."

KM and CRM: Is the line blurring?

"The blurring of CRM with knowledge management has begun in earnest..."

Social DNA in the enterprise

"In my opinion, the reason why social search is a huge deal for both Facebook and Google is that the service allows precision-targeted advertising that is increasingly successful in achieving higher levels of revenue..."

Three amazing reshapes for 2013: A new spin on classic search

..."Can companies that are based on traditional information retrieval foundations compete against specialist firms with purpose-built big data systems? Can a traditional search vendor play in the trend-setting big data world?..."

Enterprise information frameworks: Will Gangnam style work?

Can an established organization like a government health service agency, a trucking company or a textbook publisher adapt to the jazzy, social, brave new world of big data?...

The modern organization: Translation challenges

The knowledge challenge: Surging volumes of content

"Figuring out what is in big data collections places a significant burden on traditional search, content management and database management systems..."

IntraFind: empowering KM

Franz Kogl, managing director of sales and marketing for IntraFind, explains that their system allows a user to personalize his or her information experience.

HP and Autonomy: Is change coming in enterprise IDOL?

Big data, cows and cadastres

Digital information is doubling every few months. A gigabyte of data is nothing compared to a petabyte. Analytics is the key to unlocking the value of "huge flows of structured and unstructured information."...

Xyte's insight into online behaviors

Enterprise search is a touchy-feely service. If you have interviewed potential users of an enterprise information system, you probably have heard, "I prefer a system that works just like Google" or, "I want the system to provide just the information I need." Those types of statements make clear that search is a subjective concept. When search engine expert Steve Arnold expressed his concern with traditional surveys, a colleague suggested that he check in with Dr. Linda McIsaac, whose work involves a next-generation method of determining employee preferences. He asked McIsaac if she would update him on her methods for obtaining statistically valid data about an individual's or a group's preferences. Her company is Xyte, which uses her method described as "human behavior technology." Her work makes it possible to predict employee behavior and translate it into tangible business results. The Xyte approach, according to the company's Web site, is grounded in neuroscience and psychology. In this article, Arnold provides a review.

Bitext engages in the semantic arena

Bitext develops software that enables machines to understand the language people use every day. Bitext now offers support for English, Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, Brazilian, German and Dutch. In development are languages such as Arabic, traditional Chinese, simplified Chinese and Japanese...

Insight into an information tsunami

As the information tsunami rages, is SharePoint a solution to information management woes or a contributing factor to the challenges we face in managing information? KMWorld columnist Stephen Arnold talks you through it.

Taming knowledge with open source

Looking backward and forward

Janus is a reminder of the technical, management and business challenges digital information presents today...

A new sales recipe for the enterprise:
Governance, semantics and a dash of open source sauce

My view is that a content management system exposes problems that were previously invisible...

Image recognition: A job for smart software or an average human

SharePoint governance: Is semantic technology the answer?

What is evident to me is that SharePoint and governance are the digital equivalent of peanut butter and jelly or any other pair welded into one's consciousness...

Semantic technology:
From sentiment to applications

Steve Arnold gets all sentimental in this analysis of cutting edge search technology.

Semiotics for enterprise search

Semiotics focuses on signs and symbols as indicators of meaning. In this article, Steve Arnold reviews systems that search for meaning in enterprise content.

An increasing need for semantics

Cut loose with semantics and NLP

The semantics of product data

MapReduce, Chubby and Hadoop

...the buzzword of the summer is Hadoop. Bloggers and poobahs have done loop-the-loops around Hadoop...

Google communications–
Regular, blended or transformational?

Google, rich media & the enterprise

Google enterprise apps: A Microsoft migraine?

At a recent business lunch, one executive asked the question, "What do $50-per-user Google Apps for the Enterprise mean?" One of the wits dining with me answered, "A Microsoft migraine."...

Google broadband: Is there an enterprise angle?

Google and its strategy of “meh”

"Meh" has become a way to signal indifference. In one syllable, a person in step with current lingo can say "meh," meaning "so what" or "who really cares." Feigned indifference can be maddening. Ask a Microsoft executive about Google and you get an earful. Ask Google about Microsoft and you may elicit a meh...

The Google enterprise fabric

In the last half of 2009, Google operated like a medieval wool mill. The basic technology works, and the mill operators have been focusing on increasing production. But Google is a 21st century company. What few of its competitors and customers have realized is that Google is now in production mode...

Finding your language wallah

Old joke: If you can speak three languages, you are trilingual. If you speak two languages, you are bilingual. If you speak one language, you are an American...

Google mounts a big WAC attack on Microsoft in the enterprise

Google’s chiaroscuro motif

Google's enterprise services received what Italians call chiaroscuro. The idea is that light falls across a canvas and reveals details that might otherwise be difficult to perceive. The PR blitz for Chrome as a new Google operating system is interesting, but it may not make it easy to see two broader enterprise initiatives revealed in July 2009. The penetrating light came from two different continents and concerned two quite different Google services...

Making room for appliances

Google and Salesforce: composite applications for better enterprise lift

Google, the giant in Web search, introduced a service that allows friends to "see" one another's location on their respective mobile devices. The service, a component of Google's social networking services, has different facets. The Latitude feature plots friends on a Google Map. The Connect feature makes it easy to join a community. Those new offerings keep Google in step with similar offerings from online vendors designed for the young and those young at heart. Google and Salesforce.com have taken an important step...

Google’s App Engine: getting serious about the enterprise market

Science fiction buffs know about the "tractor beam." A starship floats without power. A space tug locks onto the crippled star cruiser with a magnetic beam. The space tug reels in the crippled starship the way a fisherman lands a rainbow trout.Google's enterprise tractor beam is its App Engine. The fish are enterprise customers. Unlike the science fiction tractor beam, the Google beam is quite real and starting to reel in the enterprise catch...

Google’s expanding telecommunication service

...The most interesting development for me in the last month or two is Google's Voice service. In March, Google made available a service that offers users a single telephone number and a bevy of features. Google's interest in telecommunications, mobile devices and on-the-go search reaches back to the company's earliest days. Few know that Google co-founder Sergey Brin is the inventor of one of Google's patents filed in February 2001, "Voice Interface for a Search Engine," US7027987...

Google and the enterprise: Spring 2009 campaign

Google's spring campaign probes the Microsoft enterprise stronghold in a direct way...It's using search, applications, maps and a SWAT team of resellers...

Google and the Cuculus Strategy

Cuculi wait until another bird is preoccupied, then, with the coast clear, they will lay an egg in the other bird's nest...

Learning about Google via Google

Google’s chrome-plated bulldozer

A risky cloud approach?

Maps assume enterprise role

Maps have gone from stone to paper, and now from paper to pixels. The Internet has revolutionized the concept of a map—they're cheap (if not free) and easy to find online, and they are customizable. So not surprisingly, online maps and mapping services are among the most popular applications online. You can find a wide range of features and functions from Google, Microsoft and Yahoo...

The summer of transparency

Google has been and remains a secretive company. Part of the firm's reluctance to engage in orgies of public relations is common sense. Mountain View, Calif., is open but also closed.

Growth report: Google at age 10

Microsoft's Steve Ballmer suggested that Google was a one-trick pony. Google won its crown with online advertising. Since the day when Google's founders made the decision to enter the online advertising business, Google changed from a quirky search engine to a revenue powerhouse.

Google solves problem, sees opportunities

Google's engineers devised a system and method to operate a "smart" shuttle service for its employees.

Google "glue"? Will Google adhere to you?

One size does not fit all with search engines

Probing the knowledge market

Google is taking an important step forward in Web-based content acquisition and distribution. In addition, the Google technology is well suited to some organizations' need for robust, hosted content management and distribution systems.

Should your enterprise outsource search?

Many IT professionals and Webmasters expect search to be baked into their existing applications. What’s delivered is a search soufflé that disappoints.