This document summarizes a presentation by Kristian Norling on five ways to improve enterprise search and findability. The presentation outlines committing to search as a lifelong process, managing information lifecycles, optimizing metadata like document titles and keywords, utilizing employee networks to spread information, and analyzing search analytics and user feedback to further improve search. The document provides examples and explanations for each of the five approaches.

1. Five fast ways to improve search
and findability across enterprise
networks
Presented by Kristian Norling at Melcrum Digital Communication Summit,
2 April 2014, London, UK

2. Ask employees what their main pain points are when it
comes to using enterprise networks and chances are
“search” will appear high on the list. Yet a recent survey
conducted by Findwise shows that while 78% of
respondents believe finding the right information is critical
to business goals and success, only 24% have a search
strategy in place. Only 9% claim it’s “fairly easy” to find
content, compared to 64% who admit it’s “hard” or “very
hard”.
!
While the problem requires resource and in-depth review to
tackle effectively, there are simple ways to start the journey
while getting a longer-term strategy in place.
Five fast ways to improve search and
findability across enterprise networks

3. In this session, enterprise search expert Kristian
Norling outlines five smart tactics for improving this
crucial element of usability and shares insights on
those organizations currently getting it right.
Agenda

4. intranät, råd
hjälp, glädje, utbyte, mentorskap, debatt, events,
nyheter, insikt, övning, konferens,kunskap,
seminarium, fakta, flexibilitet, nätverksgrupp, inblick,
idéer, information
tips, upplysning, motivation, inspiration, nätverk
föreläsning, handledning, diskussion, lärande, stöd,
tanke, medverkan, utbildning, nöje, gemenskap,
nätverksgrupp, samarbete
workshop, erfarenhet, kunskapsdelning, samtal,
vägledning

5. That was a bit of false
advertising…
5 fast ways

6. 1. Commitment
2. Dates
3. Information
4. Sneakernet
5. Metadata
6. Feedback
7. Analytics
!
+ Tech stuff
7 ways + bonus

7. #MelcrumDCS
@kristiannorling

8. Lifetime
guarantee

9. nathansnider

10. “Enterprise data simply isn’t like web or
consumer data – it’s characterised by
rarity and unconnectedness rather than
popularity and context.”
Charlie Hull, Flax Blog

11. Source: Julie Hunt
Enterprise Search:
Un-Cool and Mission Critical

12. Level of satisfaction with
Enterprise Search?

13. 18.5%
Mostly/Very Satisfied

14. proimos

16. 1. Commitment

17. Search is
NOT a project!

18. It is a (lifelong)
commitment

19. 2. Dates

22. !
Delete
Archive
Keep
!
Delete, Archive or keep?

23. 3. Information

24. Information lifecycle
management

25. !
it is very important to have good
information hygiene...
!
Crap in = Crap out

26. Remember: information ROT
Redundant
Outdated
Trivial

27. SCA
Content Quality

31. 4. Sneakernet

32. E&Y

33. 5. MetaData

34. Search engine optimization
This quick reference guide outlines the method for optimizing content for the search engine to help
Ernst & Young practitioners get more accurate search results.
March 2012
A quick reference guide for Ernst & Young professionals
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a way to help you and other Ernst & Young practitioners quickly and easily find the content
you need using search.
Imagine that you are submitting a successful proposal document that Ernst & Young presented to an automotive client for internal audit
work, which you consider to be a good example. Put yourself into the shoes of the person who will be searching for an internal audit
proposal for automotive. Which of the following documents is most likely to come back in a search for “internal audit proposal
automotive”?
1. Optimize core content
This relates to the main content fields in all of our content repositories, namely the title/headline, abstract/summary and
body/attachment, which are the three most important items in terms of search performance.
► First, identify a list of keywords describing the key content of the
document that has to be added to the knowledge system, and rank these
keywords. If you save documents in the knowledge system on behalf of a
stakeholder, please ask the stakeholder to provide this information.
The main goal of this step is to identify a list of search terms that
should return this document as a result.
► Second, create an appropriate title. The title should be descriptive and
contain the most important keyword(s) from the list of keywords created
in the previous step.
Example: Your defined keywords are: proposal, CCaSS, Americas,
technology, advisory. Possible good title: Americas Advisory proposal
regarding CCaSS in technology January 2012.
► Next, write an abstract (summary). If you work with a stakeholder, ask this
person to create the abstract. The abstract should summarize the content of
the document. Include the most important keywords you determined
earlier.
Note: If you have a good abstract that matches the document content, it is
likely to show up in the search results. A good abstract will also influence
the relevance of a document, determining how high in the result list it
appears.
Example of the title, abstract and
attachment/body fields in a CKR

35. The document properties are a powerful tool for helping to increase the relevance of a particular document. Many templates within
Ernst & Young are frequently reused, but often the document properties are never updated.
Open document properties in any Microsoft document:
► Select the Office button in the upper left corner.
► Go to Prepare in the left column.
► Click Properties in the right section.
There are three fields you need to complete/check:
► Author: This field should contain the name of the person who authored the document.
► Title: Enter the title of the document.
► Keywords: Enter any keywords that a user might use to search for this document. Insert the keywords you have created earlier
in step 1 to optimize the core content. Examples might include the type of document (proposal, risk matrix, training), the
engagement or project name, or any other keyword that someone might search.
You may complete the other fields, but rules for these fields have not yet been defined.
3. Verify, define and change document properties of your attachment
Check the document properties and metadata, if possible. This is especially important for all
Microsoft Office files and PDFs:
► Ensure that the author’s name matches the source of the material.
► Correct the title field, if needed, based on the keyword list from step 1.
► Add each of the desired keywords and phrases to the keywords field.
► Save the document as a single attachment. Don’t combine multiple attachments in a
single zip file.
► For PDFs, if the information is incorrect, have the person who created the PDF recreate it
with correctly edited properties.
Don’t use titles such as “Proposal PowerPoint” or
abstracts containing no relevant information about the
document.
Do use titles such as “Americas CCaSS Proposals …
fees sanitized.pptx” accompanied with a descriptive
abstract stating the context of the document. Ideally, the
most important keyword(s) from the keyword list should
be mentioned in the attachment title.
Note: Always consider if you download the file to your
desktop and come across it a month later, would you
immediately know what it is about?
Attachments play a surprisingly strong role in improving the search results because the search engine goes through the attachments to
pull up the most relevant results. Make sure the attachment title is descriptive and catches/summarizes the subject matter.
2. Optimize the attachment
Note: You should clear out any values in the Notes section of a PowerPoint presentation that may not be relevant, such as
content that might have been relevant to the original version of the presentation but is no longer valid in the current version, or

36. 6. Feedback

37. Nordea
Feedback form

39. 6. Analytics
!

40. 0-results
200 most use search terms

41. VGR
Statistics

43. Bonus: Tech stuff
!

45. Thank you

46. Links…

47. “Big Data lives – enterprise
search is dead!” Really?
Source: IntranetFocus

48. The Big Data Benchmarked
Corporation?
Source: VINT

49. Source: IntranetFocus
Date -
The silver bullet of Enterprise Search

50. “Enterprise search is the practice
of making content from multiple
enterprise-type sources, such as
databases and intranets,
searchable to a defined audience.”
!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_search

51. SEO
@jcolman: How to Build SEO into Content
Strategy
!
Building the business case
CIO.com: How to Evaluate Enterprise Search
Findability Blog: Building a Business Case for
Enterprise Search

52. Information Architecture and
taxonomies
Early & Associates: 10 Common Mistakes
When Developing Taxonomies
Tagging
Presentation: Social Tagging,
Folksonomies Controlled Vocabularies

53. The Enterprise Search
and Findability Report
2013

54. Books

55. ENTERPRISE SEARCH
by MARTIN WHITE
@intranetfocus

56. !
SEARCH ANALYTICS FOR YOUR SITE
Conversations with Your Customers
by LOUIS ROSENFELD
@louisrosenfeld