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Can managers live with IT consumerization?

Last week the news of Google's new Hummingbird conversational search engine had analysts buzzing. One of the implications is that business users will expect the same capability from their applications. This is exciting – it adds more fuel to the fire of the consumerization of IT trend. But there is something interesting here. Google deployed the new algorithm without telling those who had already paid for search engine optimization. I wonder how business users would respond if internal IT deployed new applications this way?

2013-09-29

By Michael Goul, Chairman, Department of Information Systems September 29, 2013 - Three days ago the news of Google' s new Hummingbird search engine had analysts buzzing. After downloading the Google Now app to my iPhone and opening it, I was asked if Google could use my phone’s microphone. Next came a tutorial, then the familiar Google page with three icons towards the bottom: Apps, Voice and Goggles. I tapped voice and asked, “Who’s playing football tomorrow?” As I spoke, the words I said appeared on the screen, and then very quickly, a familiar-looking list of websites came up – the first being the official NFL site. I needed to be more precise, so I tapped the microphone again, asking “Who’s playing college football tomorrow?” and the response was a listing of upcoming NCAA games and past scores. I decided to look into Hummingbird on the web version of Google search and it turns out that Hummingbird has been running the searches there for about a month now, and nobody noticed. Some analysts are saying that the fact that no one noticed  is proof of the big success of the new algorithm. The new approach is about “conversational search.” The inevitable comparisons to Siri were bound to come fast — one writer titled her analysis “Google Conversational Search: like Siri, only Googlier.” In actuality, conversational search has been a feature of Chrome for some time. I typed in, “What time is Arizona State University playing?” The schedule came up for the game, showing the time. I wanted to try to break it, so I typed in, “What will the weather be?” It popped up today’s temperature, but not the game time temperature. Back to Google Now on the iPhone for the same test. Whoa! It showed the projected temperature on Saturday at game time. Now I am impressed with Google Now, wondering if it has more of Hummingbird than the regular search engine — specifically from this ‘conversational search’ perspective. So I asked, “Where is parking at the stadium.” Again, it understood context, explained there were several options, and showed me where they were on a map. Is mobile now more important to Google than the old web version? I started considering some of the implications of conversational search. One is that business users will expect the same capability from their applications. Drilling down into a report to do root cause analysis will be expected to be conversational with context inferred. This is exciting — it adds more fuel to the fire of the consumerization of IT trend. But there is something interesting here. Google deployed the new algorithm without telling those who had already paid for search engine optimization. One analyst quipped, “So as long as you have been following holistic SEO principles that obsess over the end user experience, your site shouldn't get dinged. Just monitor your traffic closely over the next month and keep producing high quality content so that Hummingbird doesn’t suck your nectar dry!” I wonder how business users would respond if IT deployed new applications this way. In some scenarios, that’s probably the case — deployments of back office software updates are best if they go unnoticed. Maybe business users won’t want to know if some IT details are happening behind the scenes. But where do you draw the line? Payroll? Medical device updates? Inventory management software? Analytics dashboards? Wouldn’t you want to know when this software is updated? Epilogue: ASU 61, USC 42. Google Now has a list of the new possible USC coaches.

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