James Gray

Exploring Search for Business Intelligence

Discovering certified information in the enterprise for insight and decision making is a challenging task for any large company.  Business leaders and employees all have a need for timely, accurate and relevant information to drive competitive advantage.  My experience is that even though a rich set of reports and analytics may exist within a company, many information workers may not know where to access this information or what information is available.  This can often result in the growth of redundant IT-owned applications and shadow applications in the business.

Recently I have begun researching how to to improve information delivery to a worldwide sales and marketing organization across Microsoft with the goal of driving use of certified information from Microsoft's Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW).  The large user base includes business leaders in a corporate role who need a global view of business metrics and employees who may need a subsidiary or business segment view.  One area of research includes the use of Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Enterprise Search and a Microsoft report catalog to provide relevant search results based on user attributes and report meta data. The vision is to enable any employee to quickly access highly relevant certified information (e.g. pipeline, partner profile) from Microsoft's main internal SharePoint site.

I look forward to collaborating with others who have successfully used search for business intelligence and I will plan to share the progress and outcomes of my research.

<InfoTechLeader.com> 

Google Custom Search for Your Personal Website or Blog

This weekend I had a chance to explore Google Custom Search.  One of my boys manages a blog site and the amount of content has grown significantly making it difficult to locate content quickly.  My basic requirement was to include a search box on the site to provide relevant results for only websites that I selected such as the blog site and his YouTube site.  Google Custom Search provided the ability to configure indexing specific sites while also customize the search results page.  For example, instead of spawning another browser window for the search results, the results can be directed to a page on your website.  This provides a great user experience and keeps users on your site.

This free search engine service does include advertisements, but this is acceptable for personal use.  You can also monetize the search results by signing up for Google AdSense.  Ads-free results pages are also available for a fee.  

I would also recommend improving indexing by submitting a sitemap for your site using Google Webmaster Tools and Bing Webmaster Tools.

<InfoTechLeader.com>

Add a Bing Search Box to Your Blog or Website

It's easy to bring the power of Bing to enable users to quickly search your blog or website for relevant content.  Use the Bing wizard to automatically generate the code you need to add a Bing search box to your site.  You can easily customize the search box to only search your site, multiple sites, as well as the web.  I use Bing on the the InfoTechLeader.com blog site as shown in the screen shot.

I would also recommend you become familiar with the Bing Webmaster Tools site to submit a sitemap and review search statistics.  The Webmaster Tools site can be used to view when your site was last crawled, top search pages, and how your site will respond to keywords.

I Bing, U Bing?

<InfoTechLeader.com>

Bing - Where and When Should I Purchase Airline Tickets?

Searching the internet for low airfares can be one of the most time consuming exercises.  Then there is the tough decision on when to purchase your ticket.  Next time you are ready to make travel plans, let Microsoft's new search service Bing save you time and money.

Bing Travel searches over a hundred travel agency and airline websites to enable easy sorting, filtering and comparison of your travel options.  This is a huge time-saver, but the best feature is the powerful technology and data that predict prices.  The search results include if prices are rising or falling, and a recommendation if you should purchase now or wait.  The purchase prediction is correct 74% of the time, and this is more scientific than looking into our own crystal ball.  After you have narrowed down your preferred flight, Bing then connects you directly to the supplier's website to book the flight.

The Bing Travel site also provides a comprehensive list of ticket deals and cheap flights daily based on over a billion airfares.

Set Bing as your default search engine (select "Add to Internet Explorer") to leverage Bing everyday.  You can also become a fan of Bing on Facebook to learn more about all of the new capabilities to simplify search and provide insight for informed decision making.  I will plan on sharing additional cool features and best practices as I use Bing daily.

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