The Patient Consultant

FAST Search Conference – Day 3

WOW, what a great ending to the conference!  I was a little disappointed after day 2 but they really pulled out all the stops for an informative final day.

Bjorn Olstad gave a presentation on creating great user experiences in search.  He talked about the visual, conversational, and actionable aspects building a user-centric search experience.  Search solutions in the future will be more about how we have a dialog with the business data rather than simply typing in keywords we hope will provide us with results.  Our search results should allow us to rapidly turn answers into outcomes; the search experience will become more “human”.  Bold promises but at least someone is shooting for the stars.

A demonstration of the Microsoft Surface table was given by EMC.  I had seen a demonstration of the surface application on the first day.  While there are still a few glitches with interacting with the surface this definitely seems like the future of interactive, collaborative computing platforms.  The best way to describe the table is to compare it to the movie “Minority Report” with Tom Cruise (without the glove requirement).  A person is able to share a variety of information including videos, files, and maps as well as search for information from a variety of data sources (more on this later).  There is no up or down so information can be turned, stretched, shrunk or passed across to anyone from any seating position.

Later in the morning a panel discussion, which included Jim Murphy (AMR Research), Sue Feldman (VP of Search at IDC), Mark Stone (EMC Consulting), and Ellen Dowd (Hitachi Consulting), discussed the future of search.  There was some real interesting discussions on how MS Surface will impact how people search.  There was also discussion on the so-called “Religious War” between Content Management and Search; Should all content be tagged or should we just be able to search, find, and use information relevant to our needs?  Some time was also devoted to getting beyond the “document paradigm” so we can focus on what we need to do rather than worrying about what file type we think we need.  We also need to get beyond thinking of search as keywords and relevance, focusing more on building a human-friendly search interface which allows more natural language interaction.  This was indeed a lively discussion and one I would like to hear more of in the near future.

The afternoon wrapped up (for me) with a presentation by Helen Mitchell Curtis on Government 2.0.  Helen discussed the need of Government to put citizens first by embracing social and collaborative technologies to encourage change.  This was, by far, my favorite break out session of the conference.

All in all, a great conference with a few disappointments.  I’m looking forward to getting the message out to our future clients that search is not a nicety, its a necessity!

 

FAST Search Conference – Day 2

Day 2 was actually not impressive.  I often feel attending the right session is a crap shoot (Vegas pun intended).  Perhaps the speakers had a hard time following up the awesome general sessions of Day 1.

To be fair, the break-out sessions had interest topics.  Some of the points never came across well but there were a few good nuggets of information I took away from Day 2.

• There is one camp of people that believe search is the best navigation.  Content Management and Information Architecture may not be the be-all answer for all time.  I find this an interesting thought in context of some of the demos shown on search.  Search could be a Dynamic IA based on the context of the user’s requirements at a specific moment in time.
• Search needs to bring in more sources of information.  Amazon is a great web site with a great experience for purchasing a book and reading reviews.  However, it could be a more personalized experience if customers could also read reviews of their friends (i.e. Virtual Bookshelf friends on Facebook)
• Implementing Web 2.0 technologies and search requires striking a balance between the freeform flow of information (i.e. Facebook, Twitter, etc) and ensuring Intellectual Capital is protected where required.  Trusting end users to do the best thing was a common theme in the afternoon discussions.

Of all the presentations seen in day 2 the idea of search instead of structured navigation intrigued me the most.  My favorite drawer at home is the junk drawer.  It has no organization but contains the things I use the most on a weekly basis.  No IA required! 

More to come from Day 3 when I get home.

 

FAST Search Conference – Day 1

Its already yesterday’s news but making mention of day 1 at FAST Conference is still worthwhile.  The second speaker of the afternoon was Tom Tapscott, co-author of the best seller Wikinomics.  If you’ve never read this book I highly recommend giving it the time.

Although most of the speakers of the day covered the topic of the changing workforce, none captured the essence of the challenges and opportunities better than Mr. Tapscott.  The youngest of our workforce (born in or after 1980) have grown up digital.  This means they are not used to or comfortable with working in organizations structured like it still 1950.  A powerful comment coming from someone who himself is old enough to be more comfortable with older structures than the collaborative nature of youth.

In a damnation of the book “The Dumbest Generation” Mr. Tapscott provides data, based on a $4M research project, suggesting in fact generation Y (born post 1980) is the smartest generation.  They are well organized, familiar with the digital economy more than any other generation, can contribute to organizations immediately, and RIGHTFULLY demand a better workplace (they want to have fun at work). 

Hearing Don talk reminded me how forward thinking Habañero has been towards its staff.  Habañero is definitely unique when it comes to ensuring employees are doing the work they are interested in.  They do not follow a traditional hierarchy and encourage everyone to find their own path and interests while contributing to the solutions we offer our clients.  The also encourage everyone to have fun doing it.

What does this mean for me in Saskatchewan.  I am very interested in building a very untraditional office in Saskatchewan.  An office where people can work/live wherever they want in Saskatchewan and work with virtual teams in Calgary and Vancouver to deliver the best solutions with the best value for our customers.  A placeless work place (anywhere, wherever you’re comfortable).

What does all this mean in the context of search?  For me, it means finding and hiring great people does not include advertising in the traditional media (newspapers, job sites).  Searching out the right people is more about networking, tapping into social groups in the virtual worlds off Facebook, Twitter as well as the real world social groups (CIPs, .NET Regina, etc).  Its about finding groups of people that are interested in the type of work we do and offering a working alternative where the individual can grow and contribute based on their interests, strengths, and most productive hours to accomplish tasks.  The lines between work and life are being blurred.  If you truly love what you do this is the ideal workplace to attain your own definition of work/life balance.