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Holtz Communications + Technology

Shel Holtz
Communicating at the Intersection of Business and Technology
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A small step toward the adaptive workspace

First I read Stephen Wildstrom’s Business Week column (subscription required). Then, driving home from SFO, I saw a billboard advertising it. With two references in one day, I figured I had to try it.

“It” is Blinkx, a free download that provides you with instant online research assistance. The product is new and, in some respects, still in development, but it shows tremendous promise as an early entry in the adaptive workspace category. The adaptive workspace is an emerging set of products that will try to anticipate your information needs based on what the system knows about what you’re doing and delivering relevant resources. It fulfills the pipe-dream promise of IT to deliver what you need, when you need it, in the format that works for you, wherever you happen to be.

Blinkz plugs into most browsers (IE, Mozilla, Firefox) as well as Microsoft Word. Icons are anchored to the Windows bar at the very top of the window instead of adding them to your already burgeoning toolbars. When a document is open in a window, Blinkz conducts a speedy search and loads the results behind the icons. Icons exist for news, the Web, video, blogs, shopping, and your local hard drive. You only get the top five or six results in each category, so you’re not overwhelmed with possible links.

So far, the Blinkz search engine has archived only about 20% of the Web so you’re offered the opportunity to use Google or other search engines instead. And so far, only BBC’s video archives are accessible under the video heading. Some of the results are bewildering, but in general, Blinkz offers useful tips on additional information. It’s especially useful when working in Word. As I typed a report for a client recommending next steps for their intranet, Blinkz offered links to resources on the kinds of features I was suggesting. Nifty.

Once some of the bugs are ironed out and the Blinkz search engine reaches critical mass, it could become indispensable. Even now, in its nascent form, it’s free and unobtrusive. Give it a try. It couldn’t hurt.

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