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Are you sure it’s your vendor?
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Leading Vendors: Gartner Quadrant 2007
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Leading Vendors: Forrester Wave 2008
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Maybe it’s not the technology
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It may be your methodology
Good reasons to change vendors/technologies
Solution cannot scale as you grow• Document count / Update frequency
• Queries per Second
• Distributed Architecture
No support for Enterprise Search 2.0• Vendor only offers POST
• No dynamic navigation & result promotions
• No access for Business Owners
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Bad reasons to change vendors/technologies
Lack of resources to fix the problem• Can’t build expertise in-house
• No budget for consultants
• Unhappy users, unhappy management
‘Social Compatibility’ Issues• History with vendor personnel
• New management directive
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Still want to switch vendors?
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Lessons to Remember
‘Start with the end in mind’
Identify internal and external resources
Identify and prioritize requirements
Post Implementation
TRUST YOUR USERS
Other Issues
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Know your content
Inventory your data sources & search activity• Document structure & overall organization
• Security by collection/document
• What are your top searches?
• What best bets/promotions do you have defined now?
Review by search guru• What’s important may not be obvious to you
• Identify system/server issues well in advance
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Evaluation
Analysts• Helpful in starting due diligence• Remember many analysts are paid by vendors and clients• User referrals are worth their weight in goldSales Staff• Sales guys are sales guys: a great SE is your best friend• Price is always negotiable• Get license and consulting quote split outSpecify Needs/Select ‘Short-List’ Vendors• Identify what you need in your language: Know your success criteria• Be specific but rank your ‘A/B/C’ priorities• Be sure to understand why you didn’t select other leading vendors
Proof of concept is nice, but remember it’s a demo
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Know your requirements
Inventory your data sources• Document structure & Overall organization
• Security by collection/document
• How many documents do you expect?
• What analytics do you expect to track?
Review by search guru• What’s important may not be obvious to you
• Identify system/server issues well in advance
Know your success criteria in advance
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Implementation
Indexing• Good indexing required for good searching
• Understand how to mark-up content during indexing
User Interface• Single-shot relevancy is flawed: Use dynamic navigators
• Plan for the future
• Be aware of potential security issues
Relevance• Almost always need tuning
• Use context: User/Document/Query
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Post-Install
Verify It Works• Did it meet your success criteria? • Monitor search, not just hardware
Trust but verify• Did you get all your data?
Are users finding content?• Review search activity• Update content/thesaurus as needed
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Ongoing Operation
Review search activity periodically• What are people looking for?
• What are your top failed searches?
Update Taxonomy to match activity• Behavior Based Taxonomy -
not just content or subject taxonomy
Watch for trends• Know what is getting hot
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Other Search Challenges
• Access to multiple data sources w/ federation
• Insure search respects corporate security policies
• Organize your company for search: SCOE
• Minimizing central support: SaaS in the corporation
• Integrating taxonomies: which is most important?
• Tracking the ‘Top 100’
• Why not just use a Google appliance?
www.ideaeng.com
New Idea Engineering Inc.Some of Our Customers…
Resources
Search Dev Newsgroup:
www.SearchDev.org
Newsletter & Whitepapers:
www.ideaeng.com/current
www.ideaeng.com/wp
EnterpriseSearchBlog.com
Blogs:
SearchComponentsOnline.com
Forrester Wave: Enterprise Search Platforms 2006
Leading Vendors: Forrester
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Leading Vendors: Gartner
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Resources
Search Dev Newsgroup:
www.SearchDev.orgNewsletter & Whitepapers:
www.ideaeng.com/current
www.EnterpriseSearchBlog.comBlog: