Mining the Talk

This is the first book to provide techniques and approaches for mining knowledge from unstructured business information and the business value of this analysis. Mining the Talk describes a fundamentally new approach to mining knowledge from unstructured business information. This unstructured information in "free form text" that the authors refer to as "talk". It's simply the way humans have been communicating with each other for thousands of years, and it's the most prevalent kind of data to be found. Potentially, its also the most valuable, because hidden inside the talk is little bits and pieces of important information, which if aggregated and summarized could communicate actionable intelligence about how any business is running, how its customers and employees perceive it, what is going right and what is going wrong, and possibly solutions to the most pressing problems the business faces. These are examples of the gold that is waiting to be discovered if business can only "Mine the Talk". The primary methodology employed centers on the creation of natural classifications (taxonomies) of the data objects. The book illustrates that the only way to insure the "naturalness" of taxonomies is through expert human intervention at every stage of the taxonomy generation and modeling process. After giving a high level overview the approach, the book dives into a series of real world examples showing how the mining techniques work in practice.Leverage Unstructured Data to Become More Competitive, Responsive, and Innovative In Mining the Talk, two leading-edge IBM researchers introduce a revolutionary new approach to unlocking the business value hidden in virtually any form of unstructured data-from word processing documents to websites, emails to instant messages. The authors review the business drivers that have made unstructured data so important-and explain why conventional methods for working with it are inadequate. Then, writing for business professionals-not just data mining specialists-they walk step-by-step through exploring your unstructured data, understanding it, and analyzing it effectively. Next, you'll put IBM's techniques to work in five key areas: learning from your customer interactions; hearing the voices of customers when they're not talking to you; discovering the "collective consciousness" of your own organization; enhancing innovation; and spotting emerging trends. Whatever your organization, Mining the Talk offers you breakthrough opportunities to become more responsive, agile, and competitive. Identify your key information sources and what can be learned about them Discover the underlying structure inherent in your unstructured information Create flexible models that capture both domain knowledge and business objectives Create visual taxonomies: "pictures" of your data and its key interrelationships Combine structured and unstructured information to reveal hidden trends, patterns, and relationships Gain insights from "informal talk" by customers and employees Systematically leverage knowledge from technical literature, patents, and the Web Establish a sustainable process for creating continuing business value from unstructured data Preface xvAcknowledgements xx Chapter 1: Introduction 1Chapter 2: Mining Customer Interactions 21Chapter 3: Mining the Voice of the Customer 71Chapter 4: Mining the Voice of the Employee 93Chapter 5: Mining to Improve Innovation 111Chapter 6: Mining to See the Future 133Chapter 7: Future Applications 163 Appendix: The IBM Unstructured Information Modeler Users Manual 171