When Search is not Enough Case Study: The Advertising Research Foundation Gilbane Boston November 27, 2007 Gilbane Boston November 27, 2007

1 Why search matters? Explosive growth of unstructured/structured data Business critical application Intranet often overlooked as source of knowledge capital Search has become too hard Search is the content enabler Storage without search is useless

2 Exalead’s answer Global search-centric company  Enterprise software vendor  Web search engine (exalead.com) Search as you think, by serendipity Next-generation products  Simplicity of consumer products  Features of enterprise products Complete product range  Full-featured, fully scalable and real-time products  Both packaged and fully customizable products

3 Information Access: simple or complex problem? Complex Problem Complex Solution COSUMERIZATIONCOSUMERIZATION Complex problem Complex solution Simple problem Complex solution Simple problem Simple solution Complex problem Simple solution American Greetings us.118.com tayait.com ARF

4 About The ARF Founded in 1936, the premiere advertising industry association. Leads key industry learning initiatives that increase the contribution of research to better marketing, more effective advertising and profitable organic growth. Mission is to improve the practice of advertising, marketing and media research in pursuit of more effective marketing and advertising communications.

5 ARF Members: Global Brands

6 Values Guide: Knowledge Solutions Relevance Quality Access Absorption Collaboration Application to Business Decisions

7 Knowledge Solutions Initiatives 1.Help Working Groups manage communications to external audiences and improve their project management 2.Promote interaction among members and increase their value to one another through a social network 3.Extend the reach and impact of conferences, Thinkshops and councils 4.Make ARF Knowledge Easier to Find and Access For Members and Staff PProvide a tool for knowing: –L–Locate –E–Explore –D–Discover

8 Why “Knowing” Is Important People scan, they don’t read They want direction and answers Results need to tell a bigger story than “here’s a list of documents.” Staff and members need to:  See results in a context  Quickly spot relevant items  Filter results to narrow – or expand – interest  Preview results  Easily work with a result set  Be guided to related concepts They want emotional satisfaction

9 Project Scope and Sources Scope  Support mission: advertising, marketing and media research that improves the effectiveness of advertising and marketing communications Sources  Shared Drive  “Best of ARF” collection: Selected Conferences, white papers, standards and guidelines, and reports  ARF Publications: J. Advertising Research (housed in a third-party database)  ARF Websites: General Web site and focused secondary sites  Industry Sources

10 Selection and Vetting Selection Criteria  Goal: To develop a focused collection of authoritative, high quality documents –a “treasure trove” not a “warehouse”  Determine the most relevant documents for members and staff Vetting  Knowledge Solutions domain expertise guided selection and quality judgments of file system and web-based sources  Ambiguous selections or those with lower confidence were reviewed with Chief Research Officer

11 Software Selection Criteria:  Unified search of file system, web, database  Easily handle multiple file formats  Leverage ARF “folksonomy” and adapt to changes  Preview documents  Extract entities from document properties – and within the document - and use to filter results  Accommodate custom synonyms and furnish tools for creating custom entity extraction rules  Limit/Restrict Sources based on user profile and security  Launch document in appropriate application  Integrate with third-party solutions  Affordable

12 ARF Constraints Taxonomy  ARF would not build a taxonomy –Resource issues, time, maintenance Entity Extraction  Key entities needed to be available out of the box  New entity extraction rules should not require a lot of effort Document Preparation  Need to work with existing documents “as is,” only minor clerical tasks can be performed

13 Knowledgebase Setup Sources Configuration  File System –Built upon an existing folder structure (folksonomy) that reflected the “big buckets” of ARF knowledge –Segregated documents that were strictly internal from those that were suitable for members  Web Sources Document Preparation  External audience - reviewed and modified the Properties fields, especially Title and Author, to improve indexing and results pages –  Internal-only documents - left alone because the numbers are so great Source Relationships  Respect third-party security

14 End-User Experience Basic search and query for all users idea engagement

15 Search By Serendipity

16 Leverage Beyond User Search Integrate with third-party applications as a service  QnA system –Exalead will parse Questions and Answer, then –Query the knowledgebase, and –Present top three results as part of the response

17 Questions?