The Sharer: New Blog on Search and Knowledge

A new blog by colleague Sundar Kadayam of Zakta. that I am following: " ... I am a technology entrepreneur. I have more than 23 years of experience in the software industry. I have been fortunate to be involved with many successful, award-winning products and industry-firsts. In 2007, I founded Zakta, where I work as its CEO. Zakta’s mission is to deliver Web search for YOU and people YOU trust. Zakta makes searching more purposeful by helping you find information faster, keep what you find and collaborate with others. SearchTeam.com, by Zakta, is the world’s first real-time collaborative search engine ... " .  

See also some of his novel collaborative search work at Zakta.com.

Zakta as a Social Curation Platform

I have mentioned Zakta a number of times here, I have communicated with some of the founders of the idea from inside and outside the enterprise for years.  They are starting write some new and interesting things.   About Zakta as a Platform.  " ... Zakta is the world's leading Social Curation Platform. Zakta helps power the next generation of social applications with search, curation and collaboration technologies.... ".    I am quoted there.  The use of the word curation is interesting.  It brings experts in specific domains to the increasing amounts of knowledge and data, structured and unstructured,  to determine how that data fits into specific decisions.   Check them out.

Zakta is on the Technology List to Watch

I have long followed Zakta's approach for collaborative search and enabling social intelligence.  I see they have been declared one of the ten technology companies to watch in 2013.  Inside Analysis Writes: 

" ... Zakta: Semantic technology is particularly useful in the kind of detailed research activities where you need to trawl through all available information and assemble a virtual research resource that excludes the irrelevant and identifies what’s important. This can, in our opinion, only be achieved by semantic search, which is part of what Zakta provides. Google is, by comparison, a very blunt instrument. Zakta offers series of tools and capabilities: Zresearch, Zmagnify, Zlearn and Zguides. ... " 

Zakta Search Engine

I see that Mahendra Vora and Sundar Kadayam have founded a startup called Zakta. Much more here. He and his colleagues are best known for founding Intelliseek, which was ultimately sold to AC Nielsen. We had a number of conversations. The object of Zakta is to get better and more organized search results by integrating social networking and personalization with your search. Good idea. Try Zakta here. I will test it.

Zakta Search and Social Intelligence

I went back to look at Zakta, a company formed by a number of former colleagues.  A few years ago I had cause to take a deeper dive.  Now looking again.    " ... Zakta is the Social Intelligence Platform. Enable smarter decisions by tapping into the collective wisdom ... ".    Worth taking a look, because enterprise research and analysis is rarely done well collectively.  This came out of a number of deep looks at how the enterprise works and how it now uses search, often very ineffectively.   Good white paper is included.

What is Social Search? Zakta Answers

Recently I took a first look at Zakta, a novel form of search engine that includes the ability to work socially with your searches, edit them, manipulate and use them as a means for knowledge-based collaboration. To me it's much closer to Vannevar Bush's original view of a search and knowledge based system. I got the chance to talk to Sundar Kadayam, their CEO, today. I also recently looked at Google's social search and found it to be uninspiring, it just didn't get many additional useful answers.

Kadayam showed me how Zakta can save you considerable time doing searches, plus adds the ability to edit and easily share the results by adding processes called Guides to formalize the process of your research. You can also point to these Guides from your blog or site. I will experiment with that in the coming week and give an example here.

Kadayam has written a blog post which further outlines the value of socially augmented search. While on the blog check out some of their examples of Guides, to understand how it goes beyond mere search.

Check out their Beta site. You can compare your results side-by-side to Google and Bing. The layering capability, which categorizes your results will alone save you time and help you organize your thoughts when searching.

Interview with Zakta

An interview with long time connection Sundar Kadayam about his very innovative search and knowledge system Zakta. We used some of Sundar's previous systems. Also some useful pointers about startups. Zakta is unique, give it a look and compare it with other knowledge search venues.
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Scoping from Big Data to Big Knowledge

 This was brought to my attention by the 'Window Weekly Podcast' this week, in part because it dealt with conversations we had with Linkedin before they were acquired by Microsoft.   This did not lead anywhere, but touched on many aspects of how to handle corporate knowledge effectively.  See also the similarity to another system, called Zakta, which we called  a 'Collaborative Search Engine'.  See Zakta.com   Which uses classifications of kinds of knowledge.   Which we tested early on.  Worth a look.  

Project Alexandria is a research project within Microsoft Research Cambridge dedicated to discovering entities, or topics of information, and their associated properties from unstructured documents. This research lab has studied knowledge mining research for over a decade, using the probabilistic programming framework Infer.NET. Project Alexandria was established seven years ago to build on Infer.NET and retrieve facts, schemas, and entities from unstructured data sources while adhering to Microsoft’s robust privacy standards. The goal of the project is to construct a full knowledge base from a set of documents, entirely automatically.

The Alexandria research team is uniquely positioned to make direct contributions to new Microsoft products. Alexandria technology plays a central role in the recently announced Microsoft Viva Topics, an AI product that automatically organizes large amounts of content and expertise, making it easier for people to find information and act on it. Specifically, the Alexandria team is responsible for identifying topics and rich metadata, and combining other innovative Microsoft knowledge mining technologies to enhance the end user experience. ... '

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/blog/alexandria-in-microsoft-viva-topics-from-big-data-to-big-knowledge/   Originally in MS Research.   ... ' 

SearchTeam Emerges

I have seen some fascinating early versions of SearchTeam, the real-time collaborative search engine from Zakta..  A great idea, think of it for collaborative use in a number of situations.   Say you are researching a new innovation, a technology detail, a competitive intelligence problem.  With an eye to later curating and understanding your results.  And of course you are always collaborating with users as you find, check and  document search results. We often saw that need in the enterprise.  It reminds me of the functionality in Vannevar Bush's proposed Memex system.  Nicely done.

Now it is here.   I have been testing it for some time in early forms, and it is very useful to do searches, share the results, and deliver value in ways it was cumbersome to do before.
See their concept video and a guided tour.


SearchTeam, in a nutshell:

SearchTeam enables trusted people to search the Web together, curating their search results, their thoughts and opinions, as well as relevant documents on a given topic, in one place (a SearchSpace).

Other Related Resources:

SearchTeam blog: http://blog.searchteam.com/
SearchTeam on Twitter: @SearchTeamNews / http://twitter.com/SearchTeamNews
SearchTeam on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/SearchTeam/174952665849873

Contact information:

Via Sundar Kadayam, Founder and CEO, Zakta
Email: skadayam@zaktallc.com          
Personal Blog: The Sharer - http://kadayam.com/
LinkedIn Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/sundarkadayam

Zakta Search

Once more I would like to suggest that you take a look at Zakta. Constructed by some very smart developers I know. Its been updated now a number of times. An alternative search engine that allows you to do all the usual things with search, but also seek out focused expertise in the form of 'Guides'. In addition, it sorts out the results of a search into alternate forms to make them easier to use. This is well worth a look as it evolves.

Try it here.
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Reorganizing the Web to Get Stuff Done

A big part of this is reorganizing search, a big component of our use of the Web.  This article talks about that from the search Microsoft engine Bing's perspective.   I have used Bing intermittently, when I think of it, but still mostly use Google.  As another alternative, see Zakta, which adds the group enterprise perspective, but still relies on classic search engines.  Zakta gets one part of it right, you want to tie the focus of the search to the focus of the job you are attempting to do. Otherwise search can end up being distracting,

Collaborative Search: SearchTeam

I wrote a note about Zakta's new Collaborative Search Tool: SearchTeam back in mid July.  Wanted to repeat that as I start to take a yet deeper dive look at the tool. I think this is really innovative idea.  Could have used this often when doing research and development.   Now thinking of several applications I am working on now.  Here is my previous post which had lots more links and details.  Try it!  The first fundamentally new search idea I have seen for some time.

Collaboration with Lists and Search

In CWorld:  Short view on the continued evolution of collaboration software.  Its acceptance within the enterprise.   As they say there,  this started with a very simple idea, the to-do list.    Most collaboration that exists is based on that humble idea.   Yet another way to look at collaboration is via a common task.  One that needs to be more collaborative and focused.  And what is done more often than search?  See Zakta's approach to this, which I have now reviewed a number of times.   Worth examining.

Making Internal Collaboration Work

McKinsey Quarterly interview with Don Tapscott:   " .... The author and strategist describes why effective knowledge management within enterprises requires replacing e-mail with social media. ... "   But I add it does have to be more than the current flavors of social media.  Here is one advanced option, called Zakta. 

Word 2016 Researcher Feature

Happened on this.  I note that this does not appear in the current version,  but in the insider addition of Word  2016 in Office 365.   This method lets you quickly assemble research from searches while developing a document.  It uses Bing. We examined a similar approach that would automatically search for content in a document and suggest associated research. The startup Zakta uses related approaches but also enables group research on a topic.

Detective by Charlie to Enhance, Speed Research

We took a look at early ideas like these,  look forward to trying.  Recall rhis used to be don by just running multiple searches nd combining results. We may finally be at the point where this is possible, when powered by better natural-language capabilities.  Combining internal and external knowledge.   Remembrance engines again.  See also Zakta, which I tried in this space as well.

Detective By Charlie Is The AI Tool That Enhances And Speeds Up Your Research Time  By Curtis Silver,     In Forbes

Detective by Charlie is today's example of artificial intelligence working to make our daily lives easier in some specific regard. AI is constantly being referred to as a thing that may destroy us all but the reality is that AI is more of a tool to enhance and streamline our workflows than it is something that will take our jobs. Detective by Charlie is one such AI tool, designed to save you time when performing browser-based research.

Every day we sit down at the computer and work on maintaining our lists, or compiling our lists or adding to our lists. Whether they be sales lists, lists of journalists to receive terribly composed PR pitches or a newsroom intern researching a story. Instead of hundreds of individual searches, 

Detective by Charlie is programmed to intelligently aggregate relevant information from a wide array of sources, presenting it in a cogent manner. It does this through AI and Natural Language Processing (NLP). It is automated, accurate and takes about a second.

Detective by Charlie can run dozens of Google searches in a second with whatever Boolean strings you've indicated. It is a product that is aimed at the sales industry. So think about how you would normally conduct that research for each lead. You'd hit up Google and Linked in to figure out the current CIO at a company. You'd hit up Crunchbase and Google News to check on any funding news. You'd do a Twitter search then Google News again to find any other relevant company news. That's a lot of searches for one lead. A whole bunch of tabs (which many of you pride yourself in having open) and time out of your day that could be spent making money instead of figuring out who to make it from. ... " 

More from Detective Labs.

Wiki Writing

Still very interested in the subject of how knowledge can be effectively and collaboratively shared. There seems to have been less on the topic written lately. See also my posts about Zakta, another collaborative-expert approach. And posts on Kyield, an approach for looking at the enterprise semantically, initially focusing in health care.

I am just looking at the free online book below on wikis:

Wiki Writing
from Information Literacy Weblog: EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative by Sheila Webber
This book is free online:
Cummings, R.E. and Barton, M. (Eds) (2008) Wiki Writing: Collaborative Learning in the College Classroom. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press and University of Michigan Library.
Information Literacy is mentioned specifically in the chapter by Mark Phillipson, Wikis in the Classroom: A Taxonomy ... '

Supporting Team Cognition

( Update - I was reminded that this is what the Zakta system does)

Ultimately quite an important topic.  How do groups think?   How do we make them better?

" ... our Cognitive Systems Institute Speaker Series on Thursday, February 9, 2016 at 10:30 am ET US (7:30 am PT).  Our speaker is Steve Fiore from the University of Central Florida, who will be presenting “Developing Cognitive Systems to Support Team Cognition.”

Please point your web browser to https://apps.na.collabserv.com/meetings/join?id=2894-8491 password=cognitive.   Use audio on computer or dial 855-233-7153 PIN Code: 43179788    Non-IBMers please use the "guest" option instead of entering your email.   

Please find the schedule of presenters herefor the next several calls.   A link to slides and a recording of each call should be available on the CSIG website (http://cognitive-science.info/community/weekly-update/).   We encourage those who join the calls to add questions and comments to the LinkedIn Discussion Group https://www.linkedin.com/groups/Cognitive-Systems-Institute-6729452  please ask questions at the end of the call.

Thank you and please let me know if you would like to be a presenter on an upcoming call!  

Dianne Fodell
IBM Global University Programs
fodell@us.ibm.com   .... " 

Research for Small and Medium Sized Businesses

I cut my teeth in technology and business research in the enormous enterprise.  That is a place where you have lots of flexibility that lets you bring in new methods, and test and deliver them easily.   A large company can quickly staff up to solve the problem.  Even create a group tailored to a single topic when it becomes crucial.   How is the small or even medium sized business to deal with product or context research?  A process that can include outside researchers.   Knowing how a competitor is addressing a problem, or how intellectual property rights might influence next steps, could mean the very survival of a small company.  

So what are your options?  Many small businesses like start ups just trade emails.  Or use a package that facilitates other kinds of communications that is not well suited to research purposes.     You have to train your outside the company users.  And those users do not appreciate having to learn yet one more package.   I am examining exactly this problem for several businesses at this time.

One approach which we were led to is that of Zakta.  An approach where you use a template for a process that everyone uses these days.  Search.   Yes, everyone does it, knows how to do it,  talks about it and applies search.  They just don't know how to use it efficiently with multiple people while also saving the results as corporate knowledge.

I am now just talking a deeper dive into this technology.  More about that here.  I will continue to write about the experience, and particularly about how it can relate to the use of the small and medium size company.  I would also appreciate information on any other relevant experiences.

This post was written as part of the IBM for Midsize Business program, which provides midsize businesses with the tools, expertise and solutions they need to become engines  of a smarter planet. More here.  

Going Visual with Your Research

I see that Zakta is putting out some new marketing on their research methodology.  Have been talking to them for years (but have never been paid by them).  They started their work emphasizing how groups can improve, direct and speed research.  A very nice idea that has been well done.  I see they are now emphasizing the speed of research and the visualization of results.   Good idea. Will take another, deeper dive.