We've been tackling the challenges of enterprise and site search for at least 3 decades. We've succeeded to the point that search is the gateway to many of our information repositories. Nonetheless, users of enterprise search systems are frustrated with these systems' shortcomings. We see this frustration in surveys, but, more importantly, most of us experience it personally in our daily work life. We all dream of a world where searching any information repository is as effective as searching the web—perhaps even more so. A world where we find what we're looking for, or quickly determine that it doesn't exist. Is this Utopia possible? If so, how do we get there from here? Or at least somewhere close? In this talk, Tunkelang reviews the track record of enterprise search. He talks about what's worked and what hasn't, especially as compared to web search. Finally, he proposes some paths to bring us closer to our dream.

As we review Findwise’s survey results and Tunkelang’s remarks on the future, Sue Feldman raises our awareness of the trends, technology, and market demands that are converging this year. We are moving from a technology-centric to a use-centric view of how computers fit into our lives. She highlights five trends from her book, The Answer Machine, to spark further discussion.

Reamy contends that to build really sophisticated info apps, you need to add a semantic element. Since building a semantic platform is complex, consider the relevant technologies, metadata, and auto-categorization. A framework developed at Sandia National Laboratories, called Applications that Listen (ATL), adds an awareness layer with logic that mitigates expert answers from a variety of systems that know the best answer to a query.

Many new options have emerged from the open source development community. The trick is to choose the solution that works best for your organization. It’s an entirely different model of software implementation and maintenance than most IT organizations are accustomed to. Organizations have many concerns regarding security, reliability, scale, and costs. This session addresses all those challenges through expert advice and real-life customer experiences.

Critical components in search platforms are often relegated to silos. Connecting discrete elements such as best bets, synonym rings, and user profile data help connect these silos to improve the quality of search results. In other instances, content creation occurs in collaboration with external partners. By providing ease of data flow and classification to enterprise content repositories, search can bridge the gap between ad hoc work processes and rigid systems. Cloud content storage plays a significant role in finding interrelated content.

Is instant access, the availability of big datasets, and ever-improving tools of analysis, signaling the beginning of the end of the knowledge economy? How disruptive is this, and how fast might it occur? Kinkaide discusses what analytics means for management, government, industries, and professions. Will knowing become automated, apps displace professional decision-making, and data science predominate? Kehoe amplifies Kinkaide’s remarks based on his experiences with many different types of companies. Both think emerging technologies can change the very foundations of enterprise search.

The mobile, distributed, global, 24/7 enterprise has led to huge challenges for information managers. Matters ranging all the way from device user interfaces to corporate governance come into play. And enterprise search is uniquely positioned to address those challenges. This session discusses the many aspects involved in dealing with providing an effective search experience in today’s distributed business environment.

As content types and devices proliferate, enterprise search is critical to delivering robust cloudbased e-discovery, compliance and supervision tools, and is expanding possibilities with predictive risk identification and mitigation.

Two case studies explore the practical aspects of improving the search experience and demonstrating the incremental value of search. At Ernst & Young, the importance of search log analysis for improving the search experience is well-recognized. Simek reveals some findings from E&Y logs and shares a Quick Reference Guide for best practices for query reviews. Johnson reflects on the challenges presented when organizations have mature and long-standing search implementations. How to demonstrate incremental value in the face of rapidly changing consumer search expectations is one.