The five steps I have identified for selecting a search engine will help you avoid undertaking a technology project that can’t be successful. Some of the steps can be strenuous for both you and your search vendors. Depending on obstacles in your organization, you might not manage to complete all the steps. But your selection process will be greatly enhanced by considering all—even if only completing some—of the steps.

I’m assuming you have laid the groundwork for technology selection: You have a clear vision and the support of key stakeholders. (If you don’t, check out my advice at www.psgroup.com/detail.aspx?ID=837.) Your vision defines search success metrics to be achieved, and the metrics establish the value of achieving the vision. The five steps in successful search engine selection are as follows:

1. Inspect scenarios for technical requirements
2. Assess content
3. Estimate limits
4. Plan for special cases
5. Perform comprehensive technical evaluation and planning

Step 1.  Inspect Scenarios for Technical Requirements

The right way to identify requirements is to inspect your audiences and their key scenarios, using real-life situations, questions, and answers. A customer looking for guidance on using a product might be best answered by a video another user posted to YouTube. The answer another customer needs might be explained in a 30-second clip buried deep in a 2-hour webinar. Your distributors need to embed your search results into their applications. Does your requirements list support those scenarios?

In determining the technical requirements for your search engine, it’s critical that you consider a broad set of audiences and use cases, both current and future. Think big during requirements, so you’ll select a product that will fit your needs for some years. (Think small during implementation, so your projects can attain quick success.)

Consider all the audiences your information retrieval service will serve and list their key scenarios or use cases in business terms. We’ll use this list again in Step 5. Make sure you include not only seekers of all types, but also your search managers, people who manage or contribute content, business managers, and IT architects and developers. All of these people have specific needs. People responsible for managing the search experience need reports, tools, and technology to support their efforts.

(For a detailed list of stakeholders, scenarios, and requirements, check out www.psgroup.com/detail.aspx?id=862.)

Step 2.  Assess Content

I believe the most common cause of poor search expe­riences,and therefore the most common reason for replacing search technology, is theorganization’s failure to consider how content impacts findability. You mustassess content to determine whether it covers all topics adequately and if itis properly tagged for findability.

There are a couple of quick tests you can perform: Downloada free trial search engine or use your current search engine to test some ofthe scenarios you identified in Step 1. To what degree are poor results due topoor content? To state the obvious, if the content doesn’t exist, the searchengine can’t retrieve it. To state the not-so­obvious, if the content has poor(or no) titles and headings (or is badly written), a search engine may find itbut rank it very low in the results … and the user will never find it. If itdoesn’t include a date, the search engine may rank 6-year-old content ahead ofcurrent information.

If your content is in poor shape, you must acquire toolsthat will automatically analyze and tag it for findability, and report oncoverage of what searchers are asking for. Quite a few search offerings includetools that perform these tasks, and there are also stand-alone tools andservices. Whatever sourcing you chose, plan to assign resource to manage theinitial and ongoing efforts of ensuring your search engine can present theright content. If you can’t fix poor content, there is little point isproceeding with better search technology.

Step 3.  Plan for Special Cases

Special cases in search are the information, audiences, or scenarios that aren’t readily handled by your technology or processes.The most common examples today are complex requests from researchers and scientists, experience and expertise search, and audio search. Failing to plan for special cases is, sadly, the de facto standard in dealing with these thorny problems. But not handling them creates pockets of justifiable resentment in the organization, and erodes the benefit you should be receiving from your search technology investment.

Devise a strategy for dealing with each of them, including a high-level resource plan and timeline for implementation. If the strategy is not acceptable (too costly or too lengthy), then you are not taking an approach to search that is going to meet your organization’s requirements. Don’t just assume the situation is not practical. Rethink your approach and look for a solution that leaves the door open for everyone.

Step 4.  Estimate Limits

Overestimating the organization’s patience, budget, and commitment is a sure path to trouble. As you begin the selection process, make your best estimate of the following:

• Maximum time to pay back investment
• Maximum time to achieve noticeable results
• Amount of resources each business unit will commit during the implementation project and going forward               
• Degree of success that must be achieved (e.g., Search SuccessPercent or Conversion Percent)
• Effort required to get content in adequate shape
• Effort required to maintain content in adequate shape

This information will help you evaluate the solutions and prioritize your requirements. And if the effort required clearly transcends the investments you think are committed, then it’s time for a heart-to-heart talk with your sponsor. There may be some pressure to back off on your estimates of initial and ongoing effort. Before you bow to that pressure, remember that failure to invest properly in content and special cases is probably the root cause of your users’ dissatisfaction with the current search technology.

Step 5.  Technical Evaluation and Planning

A stringent proof of concept (POC) test is the final hurdle to successful selection. It is critical that the POC test be comprehensive and difficult. Devise tests using searches that don’t work today, that touch on your special cases, and that address all the key scenarios you identified in Step 1. Use test automation tools to test dozens or even hundreds of queries. Have knowledgeable people identify the two best answers for each query. The single most important criteria is this: How many of the right answers appear in the top five results?

If your requirements include content improvement, such as metadata extraction and classification, you should test these capabilities in your POC as well.

Part of your evaluation should also be the implemen­tation plan. It will no doubt start with a pilot, typically delivering big results in a short time, perhaps 30 days. Too many implementations never get farther than the pilot. You need commitment and plans that carry through your entire set of requirements (including those special cases).

Conclusion

Following these five steps, or even just using some of them, will greatly increase the success of your search selection, and of the implementation project that follows. One final word of advice: Keep your vision for your search project at the front of your thoughts, and make sure that every decision will move you closer to, or at least no farther from, the ultimate goals of the investment.

About the Author

SUSAN E. ALDRICH is a senior vice president and senior consultant at the Patricia Seybold Group. Aldrich manages the Search, Navigation, and Discovery Research Practice, with a personal research focus on customer self-service, information management, and technologies and practices for monitoring, measuring, and managing the Quality of Customer Experience(QCE).

ProQuest announced that two resources supporting evidence-based nursing study and practice from the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) are now available through ProQuest Nursing & Allied Health Source. The services are RAPid and SUMARI. While JBI’s RAPid training tool enables users to systematically evaluate research articles and write structured research findings to publish on the JBI interface, SUMARI guides groups to conduct systematic reviews relating to clinical questions. These recent additions supplement nursing study and practice, support evidence-based nursing and provide a training tool for nurses and nursing students. users have access to over 11,300 full text nursing dissertations, Study Paths written by nursing educators, and cultural competency reports from CultureVision.

(www.proquest.com, www.cambridgeinformationgroup.com)

Thanks to a project currently under way at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), readers will soon be able to experience Charles Dickens novels in serial installments. With a $30,000 grant from the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissions (through the federal Library Services and Technology Act), the university’s Gordon Library is digitizing the original serial parts of all 15 of Dickens’s novels (150 parts, totaling 15,000 pages), including Oliver Twist, A Tale of Two Cities, and Great Expectations. The digitized works will become part of the first complete online archive of Dickens’s serialized novels, which will be available to readers and scholars through the Web. The serial parts will be scanned, and the resulting images will be saved as high-resolution PDF/A files. Each PDF will be fully text-searchable, enabling users to search for words or phrases in the novel or the accompanying ads. Each file will be enhanced with metadata—facts about the history of the individual serial parts and their preservation.

(www.wpi.edu)

InQuira has introduced Version 8.1 with Multilingual Dictionary (MLD) of its namesake Web self-help software, which is said to improve searching for content for multinational audiences and to facilitate the ability of users to review, translate and post content in their native language.

The company says Version 8.1 with MLD extends its capabilities to locate content across multiple languages, using natural language approaches to understand the user's intent. It adds that this release includes significant new multilingual features to improve knowledge management and customer service applications on a global scale. InQuira is now able to support 13 languages using a natural language approach, including Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese and Ukrainian.

The main features of InQuira 8.1 with Multilingual Dictionary include:

cross-lingual search--enables single natural language searches across multiple languages to return accurate results in all available languages; language can be manually set.

localized industry dictionaries--basic language dictionaries, as well as four industry-specific categories to help understand the intent of queries (automotive, financial services, telecommunications and customer service).

translation workflow--localized files are said to be easily identified and managed through region-specific workflow processes while retaining their association with the master documents.

Endeca Technologies, Inc., a search and information access software company, announced that Scripps Networks Digital, a provider of lifestyle and home media, has selected and deployed Endeca’s search, navigation, and content publishing capabilities on the all-new HGTV.com site. The Endeca-powered experience allows site visitors to search and explore content and provides Scripps’ editors and producers with self-serve tools. For deployment of Endeca capabilities, the Scripps Networks Digital teams partnered with Ironworks, a certified Endeca partner and specialized systems integrator. The site leverages Endeca to power a host of features including: search, Endeca's Guided Navigation experience, content spotlighting capabilities, and Endeca's Page Builder tool.
 
(www.endeca.com)

Yahoo! Inc. introduced enhancements to Yahoo! Mail. Yahoo will begin rolling out to users on a limited basis over the coming months. The smarter inbox experience features a new Yahoo! Mail Welcome Page which surfaces messages, information, and activity updates from people users care about most, as well as an updated inbox and folder view that filters messages from those connections. The smarter Yahoo! Mail inbox also gives users access to relevant third-party applications that can leverage the user's email content, calendar, and contacts with the user's permission. Yahoo! Mail's smarter inbox provides a filtered view of the users' messages and by bringing applications from across the web into Yahoo! Mail.

(www.yahoo.com)

NewsGator has debuted a new version of Social Sites, its comprehensive enterprise social computing solution, which relies on the MOSS 2007 foundation. NewsGator claims Social Sites 2.5 gives organizations new insights into their enterprise social networks in order to fine-tune them for increased business benefit.

Through Version 2.5's dashboard, administrators can oversee user, group, tag, community and feed activity with the option of drilling all the way down to the article level. A new On-Boarding Wizard enables users to quickly associate tags (keywords) with themselves based on their roles and professional focus.

The company further reports Social Sites 2.5 improves search results within an enterprise social network, making it easier to establish more valuable connections with individuals, communities and content. Additionally, Social Sites 2.5 includes SharePoint Webparts that enable organizations to leverage the SharePoint Search Center to discover communities, people, content and tags established within Social Sites. In fact, NewsGator Social Sites interoperates with any search solution based on the emerging Open Search standard, enabling organizations to use the enterprise search engine of their choice.

Social Sites 2.5 is also said to enhance organizational awareness by giving users a single, unified view for staying updated on colleagues, communities and SharePoint activity. Version 2.5 captures colleagues’ activities in real time as they tag themselves or an article, rate content, report their status or perform more than 20 other types of actions. Users can also subscribe to colleagues’ external feeds--from a blog, Twitter, Facebook or any designated source--if the originator wishes to offer the feeds to others. Administrators can determine which activities are trackable.

NewsGator Social Sites 2.5 enables users to create a community discussion around any article, document or blog post created in SharePoint. Content can be rated on a five-point scale within Social Sites to enhance discovery by other users. In addition, users can privately tag content to prevent conveying sensitive information.

Mindjet has released MindManager 8, which is designed to help individuals save time, ease information overload and become more efficient, says the company.

Mindjet further explains that MindManager 8 is a Windows desktop application that allows users to map their ideas and information visually. The map is a visual diagram that imitates the creator’s thoughts, with the interactive benefits of embedded data, live hyperlinks, collaboration capabilities, etc. Mindjet adds that its new offering integrates word processors, spreadsheets, presentations and e-mail and allows users to capture, organize and act upon ideas, data and knowledge without leaving the mind map.

Mindjet reports that new capabilities in MindManager 8 include:

Mindjet Player--transforms maps into fully interactive Adobe PDFs or Flash .SWF files that can be shared with anyone, published to blogs and embedded in Web pages.

Embedded browser--maps now incorporate a browser window so you can view Web pages and PDF documents without leaving MindManager.

Integrated Microsoft Office file editing--ability to edit attached Microsoft Word, Excel, Project and PowerPoint files from within MindManager’s embedded browser, eliminating the need to leave the map and launch a separate application.

Integrated Web services--Google and Yahoo searches can be initiated directly inside a map, with mapped and editable search results that can be refreshed with one click, or automatically updated each time you open your map. (MindManager 8 can also search Amazon, Facebook, MySpace, Microsoft Live Search, eBay and StrikeIron.)

Searchable maps--maps created with MindManager are fully searchable by many desktop search applications.

Automated task management--provides instant summations of task start dates, end dates, level of completion and exception management.

Database linker--MindManager can access data from MS Excel, Oracle, IBM DB2, MS SQL Server, MS Access and MySQL.

Yahoo! Inc. announced that Carol Bartz, a veteran technology executive who was most recently executive chairman of Autodesk, has been named CEO and a member of the Board of Directors. Prior to becoming executive chairman of Autodesk in 2006, Bartz led Autodesk as CEO for 14 years. Bartz has been the Lead Independent Director of Cisco Systems since 2005 and a director since 1996. She also currently serves on the Board of Directors of Intel Corporation and NetApp. Yahoo! also announced that president Sue Decker has informed the Board that she will resign after remaining with the Company for a transitional period.

(www.yahoo.com)

MelZoo.com announced the launch of a new search engine. It has developed a search engine that provides the results of the search on the left side of a window and the actual website is framed on the right. The correct website is displayed immediately as the mouse hovers over each individual search result. MelZoo.com displays all findings on one page, available to the user without additional clicking efforts or waiting time.

(www.melzoo.com)

Oce Business Services, Inc., a provider of document process management and electronic discovery, introduced CaseData, a rebranded and enhanced version of the company’s current dataDeliver ASP document review system. Designed by attorneys for law firm and corporate legal professionals, CaseData is a new, scalable online system that enables collaborative production, search, and review of electronic data and scanned paper files for litigation and regulatory matters. CaseData’s range of features includes concept searching. Additionally, enhanced proximity searching enables users to control the distance between keywords in their discovery searching. The CaseData system also provides keyword pre-highlighting. This capability enables reviewers to see why a document is relevant to a case without reading the entire document.

(www.oce.com)