Search Done Right

As an executive, I appreciate the visibility search provides me into what is going on in my company: what employees are working on, what new products or features we are developing, what is said in our wiki, our website or our blogs.

So when I read this article, it dawned on me that the same technologies that are giving insights to executives at Fidelity Investments or Procter & Gamble could prove invaluable to the leader of a certain government.

Here’s the letter I wrote to him. I’ll let you know if I get a response.

_______________

Dear Mr. President,

I was happily surprised to learn that you dedicate time every day to read some of the letters addressed to you by common citizens. It makes me proud of this country to learn that, as busy as you may be leading the Free World, you still take the time to read what people like me have to say.

I could go on and on, but is there a point? Are you ever going to see this letter? What are the chances my letter will stand out of the thousands that pour into 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. each day? While I understand that you cannot read all of them (you do need a little time to govern after all), I believe that all these letters have value: they represent the pulse of this country.

So imagine if you were able to access, track and understand the letters all these people send you every day – to truly have insight into their concerns, their hopes and, yes, their criticisms. While it’s not possible for you to sift through each letter individually, technology can help.

Several companies (yes, mine is one of them) have developed software to help people search and organize information. Technology that already helps millions of citizens understand and leverage their government information on portals like USA.gov, can also help government leaders understand what they can do for citizens by analyzing and making searchable all the letters and email that you receive every day.

These letters deserve more attention, not less. A software tool won’t provide the human touch or attention, but it will give each letter the impact it deserves, and give you a finger on the pulse of this country.

Respectfully yours,
Jerome Pesenti
Chief Scientist and Co-Founder
Vivisimo, Inc.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 14th, 2009 at 11:26 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.