Matching v. Searching
A blog on matching, and why it's better than searching, with a slight bias toward iXmatch, by Bret A. BusseTechnorati Profile Blogroll This
9.25.2003
The sizzle
I attended an AIIM (Association for Information and Image Management) content management seminar today. There were presentations by Doculabs, Documentum, Stellent, eVisory and bunch of others. The focus was entirely on creating and managing content, with barely a mention of what to do with it after it's been filed away. Stellent's marketing director said search is a core service in the content management architecture, and should be part of any content management system, but that was it.
I sat there, as usual, asking myself and anyone who would listen, what's the point of building elaborate systems to file stuff away if you're not going to make it easy to find later? I even asked the keynote speaker if I was right in perceiving this focus on creating and maintaining content, and lack of focus on retrieving it. He said, "For the most part, that's true. That's where the sizzle is."
9.11.2003
Matching adds value to applications
Applicant tracking systems, content management systems, marketing resource management systems, and any other apps focused on workflow are great for managing content and process. But they assume people have relevant stuff to manage. If you can easily store a million resumes or articles, but can't find the one you're looking for, or if you can keep track of which direct mail campaigns went out last quarter, but couldn't figure out to whom to send them, then what's the point?
Matching enhances all of these apps by identifying the best-fit candidates, most relevant content, and customers with the highest probability of purchase. Once these are identified, then the applications become much more powerful.
