Why Don't Search Vendors Think More Like Collaboration Vendors?

After the end of Day 1 at the Enterprise Search conference two thoughts come to mind. First, that the book Ambient Findability should be required reading my anyone in the collaboration space to better understand and appreciate information architecture and the collaborative and social aspects that surround how people interact with information. And second, it's a shame that the vast majority of search vendors are locked into a rather narrow way of thinking about search. Almost exclusively, the thinking is rigidly grounded around content. And I understand that - it's the basic blocking and tackling that needs to be done -- but I had expected greater out-of-the-box thinking in terms of the social and collaborative aspects of search and some bold, assertive and creative thinking about the future of how search intersects with community and networks as filtering mechanisms.

Peter Moorville's keynote was the only example of innovative thought today. There might have been others, once the event broke into multiple session tracks I could have missed something. But an informal poll of search vendors in the table top display room left me wondering if only Microsoft and IBM "get the bigger picture".

More later as I go through my notes - surprisingly the wireless here is not free and not even priced as a day pass. 

Comments

[mens health]

Instead, I suspect the most likely explanation is a utilitarian one: the principal didn't want to have to deal with potentially inappropriate costumes and the inevitable disciplinary and parental hassles that go along with that.