Using Chaos Theory Principles to Overcome Information Overload within the Enterprise and on the Web – Part Two - My Enterprise 2.0 Conference Notes

This is the tenth in a series of notes on the Enterprise 2.0 conference in Boston, June 14- 17. This one is different as it covers the session led by myself and by my Darwin colleague, Thierry Hubert, Using Chaos Theory Principles to Overcome Information Overload within the Enterprise and on the Web.  Here is a link to the notes on part one of this session. Here is our description and summary of Thierry’s comments follows.

“With the addition of social media to the already increasing amount of Web content companies are spending more resources trying to make sense of what is happening. In addition, the connections between formal, informal, structured and unstructured information are becoming more difficult to establish. It may only get worse with the advent of auto-generated content and other content “farms.” In this session we will explore and discuss how the application of chaos theory to this issue can help break the silos of information and allow the emergence of meaningful awareness for better decision making.  This new paradigm moves beyond Page Rank to reduce the impact of traditional SEO techniques that elevate low quality content.  We will look at how the visualization of connections between content related to a particular theme can reveal new relationships and help with the discovery and awareness of trends, both anticipated and unanticipated.”

Thierry began but pointing out how we are surrounded by chaos on the Web through the over abundance of content. Page rank was a big improvement over prior search methods. However, it was conceived before the advent of social media. The increased and growing volume of Web 2.0 information is causing search engines to rethink their outdated popularity ranking algorithms by bringing timely social media content to the foreground in an attempt to increase relevance for users. 

In the recent FaceBook privacy controversy, Web users made it clear that they are not so eager to allow search engines to mine their communities’ content for the benefit of search engine companies and other third parties.  As a result, social media content is not rescuing search engine companies’ quest for intimate relevance.   Nonetheless, search is a critical part of the Web experience, but it is no longer the only way to deliver relevant information.

It is since the advent of the Web 2.0 that search engines are no longer capable of elevating recent and relevant information in a timely and contextual manner.  Popularity ranking is corrupted by Search Engine Optimizations (SEO) and requires too much time to elevate pertinent information that has a short shelf-life.  The sad thing is that users are missing meaningful information that is hidden on the 50th-plus page of a search result; they just don’t know what they don’t know since they can’t find it.

To address this challenge Darwin Ecosystem’s Awareness Engine™ applies chaos theory principles to reveal emerging patterns and correlations that accelerate the user’s understanding of what is happening about a given theme of interest regardless of popularity ranking.  We believe this organic and self-organizing model is best adapted to the evolution of today’s Web when compared with the increasing limitation of page ranking offered by search engines.  Although not a replacement for search engines, Darwin’s Awareness Engine highlights a new and missing perspective. Chaos theory does not offer a precise answer, but it reveals a movement or trend as it emerges in real time.

Thierry provided a number of examples of Chaos Theory in operation through the Darwin Awareness Engine. The Darwin interface provides a simple and interactive ScanCloud™(patent pending) that reveals correlated themes for contextual content filtering around your topics of interest, a BuzzTape™ that displays themes that have high content-acceleration within the last 24 hours, and the ability to save attractors (term used in chaos theory) to monitor the evolution of your favorite topics. Below is a sample Scan Cloud.

At the top is the Buzz Tracker ™showing the rising and falling starts. At the top left you can see that it is set to catch what is happening in the past hour. The Scan Cloud ™ shows the top themes emerging in the target sites. The right column shows the stories under these themes with links to the actual story. Now here is a close up of the Scan cloud so you read it better.

In this instance there is a reference to Knoxville in the middle of the Scan Cloud. If you click on it the stories in the right column shift to those related to Knoxville and display two stories about use of social media related to the recent floods in the area.

Looking at what was under Twitter in the Scan Cloud and the two stories below are found among others.

You can link to one of the stories in PC Magazine as displayed below.

Thierry provided a number of examples but this one gives a sample of the basic interface and process. Darwin’s Awareness Engine can provide a new model of information consumption through Chaos Theory that will benefit Web and Enterprise users alike while allowing Web 2.0 authors to be noticed in a timely and relevant context.