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PeopleTM
In the corporate environment one has access to thousands of people such as co-workers, partners, consultants, or even prospective hires. How well do we leverage the assets of these people? How long does it take you to find the person that has the knowledge you require?
PeopleTM is a web based enterprise search application that enables a workforce to discover and use the full breadth of the company's knowledge. It answers the employee's most commonly asked question:
"Who" in our network of employees, partners, consultants, prospective hires, et al. ... ?
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PeopleTM is designed so businesses can tap the wealth of knowledge and expertise of individuals within their organization, maximizing a company's productivity.
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 | Intergrated Search and Browse | | |
On the main search page, PeopleTM lets you browse through the information hierarchy, in addition to searching. Searching can be done through two different ways. You can conduct a standard keyword search that displays the structure and location of all references to that keyword within the hierarchy. Or, you can also connect various criteria together to get very drilled down and precise results. Of course, all your results are sorted by presence in real time.
| Introducing Structured Tagging | | |
Information is not intrinsic; it is hierarchical. Standard tagging, a major component of Web 2.0 fails to provide any context, rendering the content of the information vague.
PeopleTM enforces a structural hierarchy on its tags, so the information is clear for browsing and searching.
[+] More about structured tagging
Take the standard tag, Cisco:
Is the person a former Cisco employee?
Or are they an expert in Cisco networking technology?
Are they certified?
Or, does it refer to the instance of Cisco as a client of one of our Channel Partners?
Now imagine disseminating multiple tags: Mountain View, Duke, Database, Asia, C, Cisco, Maple, Linux, Microsoft, and Yale.
From these tags, how can one infer that the employee obtained her Masters at Yale in Computer Programming, went to Duke as an undergrad, spearheaded the development on her company's Database product, is an expert in C programming, is an intermediate user of the mathematical software, Maple, develops on the Linux kernel, has a Cisco CCNA certification, used to work for Microsoft, was a member of our team in Asia, but was recently transferred to our Mountain View office?
Yet, this is exactly the type of information structured tagging within PeopleTM can convey.
Wait, But Tags Work Fine for Picture and Video Sharing Sites?
Standard tagging is sufficient for photo or video sharing sites, where one can afford to be less precise.
A picture or video generally conveys one theme. For each standard "floating" tag, the user must infer its meaning. For pictures and video, multiple tags serve to reinforce each other and provide "context clues."
People are multifaceted. Each tag usually refers to a different aspect of that person's value to the company. Most of these attributes are unrelated and provide no help at disambiguating their meaning. Structured Tagging solves this problem.
| Community Driven | | |
PeopleTM is entirely driven by its community of users. To associate yourself with a structured tag, simply browse to it and click join. To add your own, right click in the appropriate place in the hierarchy and enter a name. Anyone can create and edit structured tags.
| Real time communication tool | | |
In its results, PeopleTM gives precedence to users that are currently using PeopleTM. Users are sorted by whether they are online in PeopleTM, followed by their online status in a preferred IM client (such as MSN, AOL, Yahoo, etc.). If online in PeopleTM, use the fully integrated chat feature to instantly communicate with them.
| Search on Your Own Custom Types | | |
PeopleTM is completely user customizable, and thus features all the versatility of regular tagging. Create custom types, such as Channel Partners and Clients, and apply structured tags to them just as you would to people.
| User profiles | | |
All people and custom types have user profiles that elegantly display structured tags, as well as basic contact information and a picture. Additionally, customizable, searchable, free-text fields are available for information that is not primary.
| Synchs with Popular Data Sources | | |
PeopleTM can be synchronized with LDAP and Active directory. If your organization uses something different, PeopleTM has the ability to grab data from any data source using its web services API.
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