David Gaulin – Norconex Inc

I am currently on a plane, coming back from three wonderful days of training on the Google Search Appliance 7.0 at the Google headquarters in Mountain View, California. I must admit that I was as impressed by the environment of the Googleplex as I was by the GSA itself.

On the complex, you will find numerous kitchens and restaurants, a full size T-Rex skeleton, ping pong tables, spas, pools, a beach volley ball set, a bowling alley, GBikes, and more. At first, it looks more like a family vacation destination than an office complex. But don’t be fooled by the distractions, real work is going on within those walls. (more…)

Norconex is glad to help Sophie Carrier-Laforte, an outstanding amateur athlete who is targeting the biggest honors again this year, going further. I have had the privilege to know Sophie for a long while now and I have seen her progression as an athlete. I must say that her hard work and her dedication to her sport is a true inspiration to me and the team here at Norconex. It took her many years to get where she is now, in the top Canadian Junior, but her journey is just beginning. (more…)

Over the last few weeks, I have had the opportunity to work and play around with the Google Search Appliance Version 7.0, and I must say that it’s an interesting piece of technology. Varying opinions, such as “Yeah, GSA is cool, but it can’t do X, Y, or Z,” have prevented many people from adopting the Google offering as a real Enterprise Search solution. Thanks to the new version, most of those limitations are a thing of the past. The platform is much more mature than previous versions. You can sense that Google is really making the effort required to improve its search platform so that it properly addresses the needs of the Enterprise market. It’s not just about web content anymore. (more…)

Norconex will be back at this years CIBC Run for the Cure event, on September 30, in Ottawa. The Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation CIBC Run for the Cure is Canada’s largest single day, volunteer-led fundraising event dedicated to raising funds for breast cancer research, education and awareness programs. It was founded by a small group of volunteers who wanted to raise awareness and funds for the breast cancer cause. Last year, Canadians united to raise over $30 million in the 2011 Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation CIBC Run for the Cure. Please help make this year another success and come run with us or make a donation here.

Enterprise Search Europe 2011 (#eseu) has come and gone. So what was new and exciting in this first edition in terms of technology? Not much. As stated by many speakers during the conference, Enterprise Search technology is pretty mature now. It has been around for multiple decades and most of the major break throughs have been made. There is always room for some innovation, but the event did not un-cover any ground-breaking research or incredible search improvements. (more…)

Your organization has implemented a new search engine and things seem to be running well. Staff are able to search for and find documents that help them get their job done. Employee feedback has been positive, and people are overall quite happy with how the search implementation has turned out. Now that the first phase of your search overhaul has been completed however, what’s next? How about this: look into ways your search engine can be used to improve not only its document findings, but also the finding of human experts who can help provide you with appropriate answers.

At Norconex, we’ve been quite lucky to be able to work with numerous different types of clients, ranging in size from start-ups to Fortune 10 companies. One of the most interesting benefits of working with a wide variety of clients comes from observing problematic behaviour patterns within organizations. This post focuses on one of these patterns: not being able to find who has particular knowledge within your organization. You may not realize it, but the solution to this problem is likely closer than you think. (more…)

What a search summit! Always interesting to meet people with whom you can exchange tips, tricks, and techniques. A lot of familiar faces, a lot of familiar products, but also a few new comers trying to shake up the industry. (more…)