Less Stress, More Intelligence in NBC Intranet Search

Employees at NBC are enhancing what they learn on the job and helping their colleagues do the same, thanks to S.L.I. Systems' Learning Search technology.

The search technology installed on the NBC intranet, Inside NBC, learns from user behavior to improve the quality of search results, so information that proves to be the most useful to searchers is passed on as a leading search result to subsequent users.

NBC employees now save time and reduce stress by gaining faster access to quality information. Staff are now confident they can find the information they need, leading them to make better use of the intranet and subsequently, of their time.

Information to which they previously navigated with difficulty is now just one click away. While this information was accessible to them before the S.L.I. Systems search was installed 18 months ago, employees often could not be bothered to look for it.

Now, by simply typing a word or phrase, they receive quality search results that provide the information they're looking for, ordered according to the behavior of previous visitors.

It is the first search tool to be installed on NBC's intranet, and it has made a major impact for employees who previously had neither the time nor the patience to find what they wanted.

NBC IT manager David Giller says SLI Systems' search technology has made a significant difference for employees using the intranet and provides a useful tool for management to learn what information employees value most.

"It definitely saves time. If users couldn't find something themselves, they would end up calling the help desk or calling me. The time I was spending answering these queries I'm now spending on more productive tasks.

"The search has worked like a light switch for us as far as effectiveness goes.

"Before, staff just didn't have the patience to navigate through the site to find what they wanted. But now that we're providing the search mechanism on every page of the site, we're making every piece of content just one click away," says Mr. Giller.

S.L.I. Systems' solution for Inside NBC was a tool that could search several sources concurrently, giving a list of merged results that were tidy and uncomplicated.

On the home page of Inside NBC, a drop-down box listing sections of the site allows users to limit their search to a particular section or sections. The site indexer searches two sources by default.

With the search tool hosted on NBC's server, Mr. Giller and his IT colleagues can easily access a continuously updated analysis of search results.

Through this reporting functionality they have gained new insights into the kind of information in which NBC staff are most interested.

Peaking at the top of search results is EMS, the online annual staff review process. Employees are using S.L.I. Systems' search to quickly and easily access online information including their employee history record and performance reviews. Other popular search results are job postings and staff benefits.

Mr. Giller says S.L.I. Systems' intelligent search technology adds human logic to search results and has the potential to make a huge difference to other corporations big and small.

"If people using the search gravitate to one particular link (from a list of search results), and the technology picks that up, then there's tremendous value in it, " he says.

S.L.I. Systems has now recommended improvements to the site that would add further value to NBC's intranet. Mr. Giller says these are being considered.

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