Mining the Talk

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 xv Acknowledgements xx Chapter 1: Introduction 1 Chapter 2: Mining Customer Interactions 21 Chapter 3: Mining the Voice of the Customer 71 Chapter 4: Mining the Voice of the Employee 93 Chapter 5: Mining to Improve Innovation 111 Chapter 6: Mining to See the Future 133 Chapter 7: Future Applications 163 Appendix: The IBM Unstructured Information Modeler Users Manual 171