Knowledge Management for the Federal Government (FCW – Federal Computer Week)
From the post:
Given the fast pace of today’s missions, it’s more important than ever to be able to find critical information easily when you need it. Explore the challenges of information sharing and how Google is helping increase knowledge management capabilities across the federal government.
Interesting enough title for me to download the PDF file.
Which reads (in part):
Executive Summary
Given the fast pace of today’s government missions, it’s more important than ever for employees to be able to find critical information easily when they need it. Today, huge amounts of data are stored in hard-to-access, decentralized systems with different legacy architectures, search engines and security restrictions. Searching across of all these systems is time-consuming. In fact, a study conducted by MeriTalk, DLT Solutions and Google found that 87% of federal employees spend about one and a half hours each day searching internal databases for information. With mission success on the line, overcoming these inefficiencies is a top priority.
This white paper summarizes the challenges of information sharing and explains the advantages that the Google Search Appliance (GSA) can offer to increase knowledge management capabilities across the federal government. It also shares real-life examples of how government agencies are using the GSA to break down information silos and provide users access to exactly the information they need, at the moment they need to know it.
…
The Google Search Appliance:
- Bridges new and legacy architectures to deliver a one-stop shop for searches across all systems
- Ensures the most complete and up-to-date information is available anywhere, any time, on any web-enabled device – regardless of location, bandwidth, access device or platform
- Moves at the speed of the mission with intuitive, personalized and dynamic search technology
- Assures complete mission knowledge with 24/7 automatic scaling, crawling and tagging that continuously reveals hidden data associations and missing pieces
- Breaks down barriers to stove-piped systems and legacy data
- Enriches gaps in metadata to make searches on legacy data as fast and effective as with new data
- Is proven, simple to install and easy to use
Well….., except that the “white paper” (2 pages) never says how it will integrate across silos.
Searching across silos is a form of “integration,” an example of which is searching with Google for “Virgin Mary” (sans the quotes):
- Mary (mother of Jesus) – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- Blessed Virgin Mary – Wikipedia
- The storm over Virgin Mary statue
- ‘Faith in the midst of ruins’
- 12 killed during Brazil river procession for Virgin Mary
A large search result with much variety.
Imagine the results if you were searching based on a Westernized mis-spelling of an Arabic name.
I tried to find more details on the Google Search Appliance but came out at DLT Solutions.
Didn’t find any details about the Google Search Appliance that would support the claims in the white paper.
Maybe you will have better luck.