Business Intelligence Blog

Intelligent Agents Lurk in the Shadows

Gina — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 12:58:02 +0000

Forbes.com has an article this week about Shadowing IT. As Dan Woods puts it, “Fueled by their frustration with the solutions provided to them by corporate IT departments and by the power of readily available software tools via the Web, users have started creating their own solutions in the shadows.”

These solutions should be embraced!

One of the biggest differentiators these kinds of solutions offer is the ability to quickly deploy them! Take for example intelligent Agents… Intelligent Agent technologies offer the ability for the end-user (the business-user, the researcher, the analyst, portfolio manager, whoever he or she is) to quickly train and deploy personalized intelligent software Agents to carry out the time-consuming, tedious tasks of data aggregation and mining. Agent technologies empower the end user, rather than burdening the IT department. This empowerment should be viewed as HELP, not HINDERANCE. We see it as a cost-savings, an ROI to the bottom line!

It may take an IT department months to spec-out a business case, put a system in place, test it thoroughly, and roll it out to their users. By that time, the main purpose of the exercise may be lost or too much time may have passed for the full value of the application to be realized. We all understand the need for governance. We understand the need for policy. But if the end user can create and deploy his or her own time-saving, ROI-producing application, why shouldn’t they?

I believe in Shadowing IT and like to believe that intelligent Agents are just one of the many Web 2.0 technologies that enable “do-it-yourselfing,” in the shadows. It’s about time these cost-saving, ROI-producing, productivity amplifying tools creep out of the shadows and take their share of the limelight. These tools are valuable to the bottom-line and will continue to become more popular and prevalent in today’s competitive tech-savvy organizations. These tools are not going to wilt in the sunlight, they are going to feed on the creativity and applicability of the business user and flourish into technologies that the most competitive companies and best IT departments will be clamoring to share with their users.

Dare to Imagine! Web 2.0 Applications Are Not Hype…

Gina — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 20:11:56 +0000

I’m sure many have read the 3 recent Gartner Hype Cycle reports published this month:

Hype Cycle for Web and User Interaction Technologies, 2008
Hype Cycle for Application Architecture, 2008
Hype Cycle for Content Management, 2008

It makes me wonder… should we worry that mashups and web-oriented technologies that enable user driven innovation will soon reach their Peak of Inflated Expectations and then plunge into the Trough of Disillusionment? Knee-deep in the value that these applications offer the enterprise, I have a hard time believing this will happen. But, I can step back and take a good look at what I see happening. While I appreciate their value, I am emerged day in and day out in the sell-cycle and marketing of these applications, which makes me realize that it takes a special kind of person to fully grasp and appreciate the efficiencies of time, cost-savings and data collection these applications offer. Not to mention (and much more important), how they deliver and present unique views of data that feed decision-making and provide business intelligence that can truly differentiate one company from the rest of the pack.

Let’s consider the world of financial research… For some time now experts like Integrity Research have been alerting us to changes in client demands. They’ve explained the diminished perceived value of sell-side research. They’ve reported that buy-side firms are bringing the functions of analysis and research in-house.

While they don’t specifically point to financial research, six months later we have Gartner, in their own way, validating some of the technologies being used to gather intelligence, collect financial research, aggregate data and glean insights through Web2.0 applications.

Perhaps now what we need is a training course for the researchers, the knowledge workers, the analysts… While they now have more innovative ways of gathering intelligence, addressing research and presenting results at their fingertips, these tools won’t help the enterprise unless the people using them have a vision, a well-greased imagination or the insight to compare, contrast and plot seemingly unrelated data to find correlations… and let’s not forget that they’ll need a way to share their findings.

Wouldn’t it be remarkable if mashups and composite applications used for business intelligence and insight could spread like wildfire across the enterprise? I believe it’s possible but, only if the people conducting the research and collecting the data to be used for analysis DARE TO IMAGINE.

Automated Agent Surveillance of Web Data Delivers Unique Insights for Buy-Side Trading Decisions

Matt — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 13:29:21 +0000

Sell-side and independent research provide just a starting point for the buy-side. Finding unique and proprietary information has become more and more difficult. The Web is a gold mine of buried information nuggets. Buy-side professionals are challenged with finding the time to dig out and organize the relevant data. How can Connotate’s Agent Community GEN2 give buy-side professionals an advantage in this new environment? Over the last several months Connotate Agents have been building Fundamental Trends that are providing key insights for trading, including:

Falling Revenue – the paid job postings being made on major web portals and job sites are being monitored as a indicator of revenue. Several hundred data points are being gathered daily to build a time series perspective. One of the major sites, which has M&A discussions swirling around its parent, shows a 15% decline in job postings during the time period while one of its competitors shows a 4% growth and another competitor shows a 72% increase in job postings.
Pressure on a Sector – several major travel websites have shown a decline in web traffic. The information contributed to at least one short trade decision for the website with the largest decline in traffic.
Hiring - the job postings of the largest employers in the US (and other regions) are being monitored as an indicator of corporate performance. Thousands of data points are being collected on a daily basis to build a time series perspective. One company removed hundreds of job postings, approximately 10%, from its website several days before announcing weak earnings. Another firm removed 200 jobs (also approximately 10% of its total jobs available) just before it announced plans to shed $400b in assets. On the other hand, Connotate’s Agents report an increase of over 25% for a tech company’s job postings, consistent with a strong quarterly report from the company.

Click on the chart below to enlarge the image and see where Agent results show dips in job postings.

Digital Natives Take Charge of Information Overload with User-Friendly Tools

Gina — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 12:26:12 +0000

It’s all about instant gratification sometimes. It’s about getting what we want, how we want it and having the luxury of getting it as quickly as we can. These days we can order and personalize almost anything we want to meet our wants and desires. From super-sizing your fast food order to choosing and personalizing the gadgets you use on you iGoogle homepage, you can always “have it your way”. And that trend is making its way into the workplace for sure.

Many of us have had the luxury of evolving in our careers alongside the evolution of the internet and Web 2.0 technologies. We’ve embraced instant messaging and social networking in both our personal and professional lives but, wait a minute, those same tools that we can use so aptly in our personal lives just don’t meet our expectations at work – we need more robust, more powerful tools that offer the same flexibility and personalization we experience in our personal tech-savvy lives. The collective “we” I refer to however is not the typical IT professional, the collective “we” is not necessarily the CIO or Director of IT – it may be the person sitting in the cubicle next to you, it may be the Sales Coordinator who’s trying to figure out the regional “hot spots” that he needs to focus on; it may be the Clinical Research Microbiologist seeking the latest FDA approvals; it may be the Portfolio Manager looking for proprietary research to support her next trading decision… These tools that we’ve all grown accustom to in our personal lives are driving us to find the better, more interactive solutions for sifting through the hundreds of thousands of data points available on the internet and throughout the enterprise – and then mashup comparative data points to make better sense out of them.

The article “‘Digital Natives’ Take Charge; Get Ready for the Democratization of IT” by Bruce Molloy, CEO of Connotate, was just published in NJTech News and it’s certainly worth the read. Addressing the emergence of “Digital Natives”and the challenges facing every organization today, you get a good feel for how user driven innovation can shape the enterprise. And better yet, you hear how one company offers an “intelligent agent” solution that turns the flood of information out there into actionable intelligence.

Read the entire “ ‘Digital Natives’ Take Charge; Get Ready for the Democratization of IT” article.

Intelligent Sofware Agents Make Information a Digestable Feast

Gina — Thu, 29 May 2008 11:48:31 +0000

Bruce Molloy, CEO of Connotate was recently interviewed for inflight radio airing on several major airlines.

In the interview, Bruce describes how intelligent software Agents can be deployed throughout any enterprise to keep on track with market changes happening ever day and act as your front line of offense for gathering business intelligence. A patented technology for using machine intelligence to extract, aggregate, mashup and mine data from across the Web and throughout the enterprise, intelligent software Agents work on behalf of the business user to carry out the tedious, time-consuming tasks that are a part of financial research, competive intelligence and business intelligence gathering.

With over 700 billion pages of data available from Web sources and tens of thousands of data silos across the enterprise, it’s an enormous task for any one person or any team to gain control and make sense of all that information. Bruce explains how intelligent Agents enable a higher level of situational awareness and actionable intelligence that can help influence strategic decision-making in today’s competitive marketplace. And the best part… intelligent software Agents can be trained and deployed without any programming!

The interview mentions several high-level Agent application concepts. Listen to the interview podcast.

Learn to Leverage Intelligent Software Agents to Amplify Productivity and Profitability — Connotate’s May 1 Webinar

Gina — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 18:51:29 +0000

Want to find out how industry leaders in financial services and global publishing are using machine intelligence to connect a myriad of internal and external data sources to supercharge productivity, deliver rapid ROI and amplify profitability? Join Connotate, KMWorld and IDC on Thursday, May 1, at 2:00 PM EST for a live, online webinar presenting case studies on the topic.

The one-hour webinar will address the challenges facing companies as they look to maximize the value of information from Web and enterprise sources. Session highlights will include:

New Ways to Think About Information Access
How Intelligent Agents Enable User-Driven Innovation
Web 2.0 Meets Wall Street
Making Search Dynamic
How Agents Bring Publishing into the 21st Century

… and much more!

Free online registration

Welcome to Connotate’s Business Intelligence Blog

admin — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 15:05:22 +0000

Go Beyond Search… Access, Share and Deliver Intelligence and Awareness, not just Links

We live in an information age that is growing at a phenomenal rate. Today, hundreds of billions of high value data sources exist on the Web, and hundreds of thousands of pages of critical information live within Enterprise applications. It is estimated that 25-45% of a knowledge worker’s time is spent cutting and pasting, and collecting data from both these sources alone!

At Connotate we believe in working smarter, not harder. We’re changing the way businesses leverage information with a complete information ecosystem that increases productivity 10-100x, giving you the ability to spend more time on the things that matter most ― like developing new strategies and initiatives that leapfrog your business ahead of your competitors. With the help of our business intelligence solution, knowledge workers are empowered with a wide variety of applications that help them reach and unleash valuable, dynamic content from the Web and within your Enterprise 24/7 via a virtual workforce that facilitates information access, analysis, and automation.