Month: December 2008

Four Types of Search

I spent a fair amount of time at a prior job looking at document management systems and enterprise search. As part of the knowledge management effort, it was key to figure out how people found the information or documents they needed. In reviewing user behavior, I have identified four different types of searches for documents:

  • Fetch
  • Recall
  • Research
  • Precedent

Below is more information on each type of search and user expectations for search results. I will also discuss how well a document management system (DMS) or enterprise search tool will handle the different types of searches.

Fetch

A “fetch” search is when the user has a document ID (with a Document Management System) or a file name (with a file server system).

The user would expect the single document to be returned. There should be no need for relevancy rankings.

The “fetch” search is the most basic of the four types of searches. It is such a basic part of a DMS and works so well in a DMS that most users do not even think of it as a search. Nonetheless, it is the most common search and the most important. A user expects to be able to get a specific document back instantly for editing or reuse, without having to interpret search results.

A “fetch” is core functionality of a DMS. An enterprise search tool would fall short in this type of search. The DMS is keyed to find specific metadata from the document profile. The enterprise search tool typically uses the metadata to influence the relevancy rankings of a particular document.

Recall

A “recall” search is when the user knows the document exists and has some specific information about the document that the user can distinguish it from other documents.

Examples are: documents edited in the last five days, all the documents for a particular matter, all of the purchase agreement for a client.

The user will expect a a list of documents that will be over-inclusive, but the list will have information to distinguish the particular document the user is looking for from the rest of the documents.

A DMS excels at this type of search and is core functionality for a DMS. The enterprise search will generally not perform well at this type of search. For the DMS search to be successful, user input is required to make sure the metadata/profile of the document is accurate.

Research

A “research” search is when the user is looking for documents on a topic. The user may not know if any documents on the topic even exist. The search is typically for keywords in the document.

An example is: information on “arms-dealing”.

A user will expect a list of documents displayed by relevancy.

An enterprise search tool excels at this type of search. The user is looking for terms in the document. The enterprise search tool can use its algorithm to identify which documents have the most treatment of the search terms.

A typical DMS will fall short on a “research” search. A typical DMS does not rank searches based on relevancy. If a search yielded dozens or more results, the user would have no reference as to where to start a review of search results. A typical DMS also has an inferior text search engine.

It is the frustration when running a “research” search that users cry out for an enterprise search tool.

Precedent

A “precedent” search is a search for a model document.

Generally, the key to finding a good precedent is knowing the context in which a document was previously used, rather than text in the document itself.

An example is: ” a purchase and sale agreement for a retail shopping center in Florida”. “Purchase and Sale Agreement” will be in the text of the document and the name of the document. But “Florida” and “retail shopping center” may not appear in the text of the document. If they do appear, they would appear infrequently.

They key to making a precedent search working is leveraging the document metadata against other systems. For instance, we require users to assign a document to a particular matter. We plan to use that matter identification to pull information from other sources and impute that information on the document.

The other key to a precedent search is using a faceted search to narrow the search results using the additional metadata.

A version of this post appeared in my old blog KM Space: 4 Types of Search.

Managing Customer Data From The EU: Are You Compliant?

TRUSTe presented a webinar on Managing Customer Data From The EU: Are You Compliant? The panelists were:

Maureen Cooney, CPO and VP of Public Policy, TRUSTe
Damon Greer, Director, US-EU Safe Harbor Framework, US Department of Commerce, International Trade Administration
Heather Shaw, Vice President, ICT Policy, US Council for International Business
Dean Forbes, CIPP, Sr. Director, Global Privacy Office, Global Compliance & Business Practices, Schering Plough

In the EU, the consumer owns the data about them. In the US the collector owns the data.

There is a safe harbor available, but you must be under the jurisdiction of the FTC and the DOT. Financial services sector, insurance, telecommunications and non-profits are not eligibile.

You Need An Impartial Chief Compliance Officer

As Merritt Maxim of CA points out, Madoff Scheme Highlights Need for Impartial CCO, one of the biggest red flags in the Madoff scandal was that was the disclosure that Madoff’s brother Peter served as the firm’s Chief Compliance Officer.

“While having any sibling or family member serve as a CCO should not be an immediate cause for concern, the results of the Madoff scheme indicate that the only CCO who could have enabled the Madoff scam to persist was someone who was either:

A) Related to Bernard Madoff
B) Complicit in the fraud
C) Did not adequately fulfill their responsibilities as a CCO or
D) All of the Above.”

Corporate In-House Counsel in the Age of Internal Compliance

You can listen to a webinar from the Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics Fall Symposium – Corporate Compliance: The Role of Company Counsel from October, 2007.

Panel III – Corporate In-House Counsel in the Age of Internal Compliance

Professor Rostain started off with a summary of her paper: General Counsel in the Age of Compliance – A Research Agenda (.pdf).

She cites two reasons for compliance regimes. One is the diffusion of compliance throughout the organization. The goal is to centralize the management of those functions. The second is the multi-disciplinary approach to compliance. You need different types of knowledge and expertise.   In-house counsel needs to relinquish some of the control to group managers.

Are in-house counsel managers first? or are they lawyers first? Which is the better model? Do they exert more influence when they take the role of manager or the role of lawyer? Professor Rostain cited some previous studies on these topics. If they focused on legal risk, they had less influence over corporate decision making. Lawyers limited to explaining the risk and deferring the risk decision to the managers had less influence in the the corporation.  One survey responder equated managers as playing offense and counsel playing defense.

Professor Rostain stated an example of counsel making clear what her personal opinion was and what her professional opinion is.

Killingsworth pointed out the dark side of the new powers of general counsel. After SOX, new reporting obligations were forced on general counsel.  One problem is that the general counsel may be investigating a potential violation and have a duty to report it at the same time, making it difficult to do both well. Counsel are also worried about the increased risk of criminal action against in-house counsel. You only talk to regulatory people about your compliance program when it has failed. You need to penetrate down to everyone that can get you in trouble and everyone that can keep you out of trouble. Is important to mpve from abstract compliance terms into the mechanics of the business processes.

Straw states that “knowledge of the business” is the most important part of creating an effective compliance program. The face of compliance needs to be visible and accessible. A code of conduct sitting on the bookshelf is not effective.

Barlow focused on risk.  She talked about ERM, the process and how it fits into compliance.

Zip Codes Are Not Personal Identification Information Under California Law

In Party City Corp. v. The Superior Court of San Diego County, the California Court of Appeal in the Fourth Appellate District held that zip codes are not “personal identification information” under California’s Song-Beverly Credit Card Act of 1971, California Civil Code Sec. 1747.08. Information “concerning the cardholder” is protected pursuant to the purposes of the Act, in order to prevent customer identification that goes beyond what the consumer has consented to disclose.

In this class action case, the plaintiff claimed that Party City’s request for a zip code in connection with a credit card purchase violated the Act. The trial court agreed, granting the plaintiff summary judgment. The Court of Appeal  overturned the trial court concluding that summary judgment should be entered for Party City.

The Court of Appeal found that zip codes are not personal identification information based on the plain language of the Act.  The Court of Appeal also examined postal regulations to understand what zip codes encompass. The Court of Appeal determined that zip codes are not “personal” identification information about a particular cardholder.

“A zip code is not an address, but only a portion of it, and knowing a stand-alone zip code has not been shown to be potentially more helpful in locating a specific person than knowing his or her state or county of residence. A zip code is not an individualized set of identification criteria, such as telephone numbers would be, but rather zip codes provide identification of a relatively large group, on the present record.”

Timothy P. Tobin (UPDATE: Apparently he is no longer an attorney at Proskauer) of the Privacy Law Blog of Proskauer Rose LLP pointed out this case.

Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics Fall Symposium – Corporate Compliance: The Role of Company Counsel

You can listen to a webinar from the Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics Fall Symposium – Corporate Compliance: The Role of Company Counsel from October, 2007.

Introductory Remarks

Panel I – Conflicting Duties: Lessons from the KPMG Prosecution

  • Michael Frisch, Professor of Law, Georgetown Law
  • Sarah Duggin, Associate Professor of Law, Catholic University Law School
  • Mary Kennard, General Counsel, American University
  • Sol Glasner, General Counsel, MITRE Corporation
  • N. Richard Janis, Partner, Janis, Schuelke & Wechsler
  • Irv Nathan, Partner, Arnold & Porter

Panel II – Gatekeepers Inside Out Webinar

  • Jeffrey Bauman, Professor, Georgetown Law
  • Sung Hui Kim, Associate Professor of Law, Southwestern Law School
  • Carol Rakatansky, Vice President and Associate General Counsel, Sallie Mae
  • Robert Lupone, General Counsel, Siemens Corporation
  • Ann Kappler, Partner, Wilmer Hale

Panel III – Corporate In-House Counsel in the Age of Internal Compliance

  • Mitt Regan, Professor, Georgetown Law
  • Tanina Rostain, Professor of Law, New York Law School
  • Kathleen Barlow, Vice President, Marsh USA
  • Ann Straw, Vice President & Chief Compliance Officer, Laidlaw International
  • Scott Killingsworth, Partner, Powell Goldstein

Fannie Mae Code of Ethics

Fannie Mae has their Code of Conduct posted on their website.

So?

The Wall Street Journal reports that the Federal Housing Finance Agency has imposed a revised code of conduct aimed at preventing mortgage brokers and lenders from pressuring appraisers to inflate their estimates of home values.

Now there is a revised Home Valuation Code of Conduct effective May 1, 2009. According to the news release from the FHFA:

The revised Code builds on existing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac seller-servicer guidelines to increase the reliability of appraisals for loans sold to the Enterprises for their portfolios or for securitization. The Code applies to lenders that sell single-family mortgage loans to the Enterprises beginning May 1, 2009 and will help assure that borrowers, homebuyers and secondary mortgage market investors receive fair and independent property valuations.

Toward an Ethical Culture: Characteristics of an Ethical Organization

Kirk O. Hanson, executive director of the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, asked at a recent meeting of the Business and Organizational Ethics Partnership: “What are the signs that a company is getting it right and addressing the most important dimensions of managing ethics in an organization?”

Anne Federwisch put together a summary of the presentation, Toward an Ethical Culture: Characteristics of an Ethical Organization, and a copy of the powerpoint slides.

His best practice elements:

  1. Statement of values
  2. Code of conduct
  3. Example of senior executives
  4. Training and repeated communication of values and standards
  5. Systems which embody the values
  6. Continuous evaluation of behaviors
  7. Effective hotline system
  8. Mechanism for resolving toughest cases
  9. Compliance enforcement system
  10. Periodic renewal process for values and standards
  11. Governance system for ethics and values

The Ethics of Citicorp Center

I am not writing about the financial bail-out. I am focusing on a real estate construction story that happened back in 1978 when Citicorp Center was built On Lexington Avenue in New York City.

Image by Trxr4kds
Image by Trxr4kds

A portion of the building was constructed on air rights to accommodate a building on one corner of the property. The design put the load-bearing columns in the center of each side instead of the corners. The structural engineer, William J. LeMessurier, designed a wind brace system arranged is a tiered V pattern on each side of the building to enhance the lateral stability.

The building code of New York City required testing of building’s resistance to perpendicular winds. But since the the support columns were at the mid-point of each facade, the building stability was at greater risk from diagonal winds. This problem was discovered after construction of the building.

This put more stress on the building than LeMessurier had anticipated. The problem became critical when the braces had been changed from the more-expensive welded joint to a bolted joint.

LeMessurier calculated that the building would only be able to handle a 16 year storm.  Basically, the Citicorp Center building could collapse in a moderate hurricane. It was July and hurrican season was approaching.

LeMessurier deatiled the mistakes in a document called “Project SERENE.” The acronym stood for “Special Engineering Review of Events Nobody Envisioned.”  LeMessurier convinced the building owner to weld on reinforcing braces. The repair was conducted under a cover story to prevent panic. panic that would surely come from the thought of a 59 story building collapsing in a heavy wind.

Among the courses of action he briefly considered was driving along the Maine Turnpike at a hundred miles an hour and steering into a bridge abutment without telling anyone else about the problem he had discovered. Another was silence. Few people knew about the problem.

By blowing the whistle on himself, he risked professional disgrace, litigation, and bankruptcy.

“It wasn’t a case of ‘We caught you, you skunk. It started with a guy who stood up and said, ‘I got a problem, I made the problem, let’s fix the problem.’ If you’re gonna kill a guy like LeMessurier, why should anybody ever talk?”

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