A search box; a search button; and ten blue links – what could possibly be missing from this equation? With the volume of information within enterprises growing exponentially, it is also becoming harder to sift through the noise to find needed information. Enterprise search is a critical tool for retrieving and uncovering relevant content. But when search results don’t return the desired content, frustrated users are driven to try out yet another search engine; continuously repeating the same cycle, also known as The Enterprise Search Cycle. BA Insight’s Principal Search Architect, Mike Himelstein, recently explored the enterprise search cycle and the drive... More...

The Enterprise Search Summit 2013 in NYC has come and gone, but the knowledge, insight and instruction continues. Right off the curve of a fast and impactful ESS, we want to offer a package of materials from Jeff Fried’s workshop. Jeff Fried, BA Insight’s CTO is a worldwide speaker and writer in the industry. He holds 15 patents and has written over 50 technical papers during his career- including our ever-popular Essential Guide to Enterprise Search in SharePoint 2013. During ESS, he took a deep dive into some of the most practical knowledge that search consultants and users need in ord... More...

With SharePoint’s 2013 social search features, finding expertise across an organization has never been easier. Everyone from sales teams, to project managers, to human resources, to frontline problem solvers, benefit from a versatile engine that taps into a search engine and will rapidly identify expert knowledge. BA Insight’s Chief Technology Officer and Vice President of Engineering, Jeff Fried, recently presented at the Enterprise Search Summit in New York, several successful systems that use social behavior to provide strong cues to expertise finding. Applications in recruiting, collaboration, and team creation were highlighted. Click here to learn more about expertise finding and the tec... More...

You may read the title to the blog post and wonder what do the Beatles, the Cloud and Office 365 have in common?  I urge you to read on if you want to find out! Moving to Office 365 has many benefits, including low entry costs, a financial shift from CAPEX to OPEX and improved business agility. It is truly an exceptional tool that can help your business reach new heights.  That said, I have one warning for those of you interested in moving to 365: be careful to avoid what I call the “Beatlemania” effect.   It is very easy with any ne... More...

Over the course of the next few weeks, I will be discussing important concepts in using the Cloud and how you can achieve agility and effectiveness as you deploy Office 365 and other applications to the Cloud. Today, I’ll give a quick refresher course, with help from some information published by Richard Harbridge, and will go over the benefits and tradeoffs of the Cloud and Office 365 and how you can use these solutions effectively. To kickoff this series, I’ll also discuss the most common pitfall when using Office 365: the fact that it creates information silos within your organization. When onl... More...