Established in 1827 and currently employing more than 3,500 officers along with several hundred civilian staff, the Memphis Police Department (MPD) is tasked with preserving the public safety of the city of Memphis, Tenn. The department's nine precincts currently serve a combined community of more than 683,000 people and handle nearly 1 million calls each year.

(www.memphispolice.org)

Business Challenge
Data sharing and making effective use of information are two of the main challenges of modern police work. When the Memphis Police Department began looking for ways to improve its fight against violent crime, it recognized that simply deploying additional police officers was not the answer. Instead, the department began looking for a more elegant and cost-effective solution. With a wealth of statistical information already at its disposal, the MPD needed a way to sift through the available data and discover insights that could guide the deployment of its large force of uniformed officers.

Vendor of Choice: IBM
Founded in 1911, IBM provides hardware, software, consulting, and other services for a wide variety of technology and business needs. In 2009, the company acquired SPSS, Inc., makers of the eponymous statistical software package, and incorporated SPSS software into its information management portfolio. Today, IBM SPSS is in use in numerous universities, 12 of the leading global pharmaceutical companies, and all 50 U.S. state governments.

(www.ibm.com)

The Problem In-Depth
In 2005, police director Larry Godwin of the MPD became concerned about the city of Memphis, which was experiencing an increase in violent criminal activity and, at the time, ranked among the top 10 in the country in several categories of crime. Although the nation as a whole was experiencing an increase in violent crime during the same period, it was particularly pronounced in the city of Memphis. Something had to be done.

Although a typical response might be to hire and deploy more officers, such a process would be expensive and time-consuming. Instead, it was decided that the best solution was one that took advantage of the resources already at the disposal of the department, in particular, the broad range of information available to its officers and analysts.

On police procedural dramas such as CSI and Law & Order, a whole universe of information seems to be just a click away for the shows' heroic investigators. While it's true that modern law enforcement agencies have a great deal of information to work with, the sheer amount of information presents its own problems, and the process of turning that data into good police work and effective decision making can be a lot more difficult than it looks on TV.

The situation was no different for the MPD. Poring over the available crime statistics was a slow and labor-intensive process, to say nothing of incorporating other data sources such as census information. What the department needed was a system that would allow its analysts to quickly analyze new information and decide how best to respond to criminal activity, while also allowing it to detect ongoing trends and uncover emerging ones quickly enough to make a difference.

According to John F. Williams, crime analysis unit manager for the MPD, the solution needed to achieve two specific goals. "Number one: Reduce the crime rate within the Memphis area," he says. "And number two: [Pinpoint] or show us where crimes were occurring to increase arrests and stabilize the community."

To put together such a system, the department partnered with Richard Janikowski of the University of Memphis's Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice. It was through Janikowski's work with the university that the MPD ultimately began using IBM SPSS to analyze crime data for the new initiative.

The Solution
SPSS is a comprehensive mathematical and statistical package that was originally developed at University of Chicago in 1968. Acquired by IBM in 2009, the package comprises several individual products and solutions, including IBM SPSS Data Collection, IBM SPSS Statistics, IBM SPSS Modeler, and IBM SPSS Deployment. Taken as a whole, the package gives organizations the ability to collect, analyze, and react to almost any type of data. The package has seen widespread use in many industries and applications, including fraud investigation, healthcare, government planning, and education.

The statistical package also has a history of involvement with police work. According to Bill Haffey, technical director for the public sector at IBM, the company has worked with police departments of various sizes to establish crime analysis programs similar to what the MPD was looking for. These programs can draw data from a variety of sources, including raw crime data, city event schedules, and holiday schedules, as well as more unusual sources of data such as weather patterns.

The key to taking advantage of such a wide array of data sources is finding the connections between them. According to Haffey, IBM SPSS excels at this task by being data-driven rather than user-guided."In the discovery algorithms, the data-driven algorithms, you simply introduce a number of various factors that you suspect might have some effect on the outcomes," says Haffey. "The algorithms themselves will sort out the various relationships, the various causes and effects that might be important."

This emphasis on data-driven analysis can have some surprising results. In Richmond, Va., one of IBM's previous forays into crime analysis, data about the phases of the moon, was added into the predictive model. "It was almost a joke, initially," says Haffey. "It turned out that the phases of the moon were a critical portion of the model."

Another key feature of the package is the ability to create "business rules"-sets of criteria that trigger specific behaviors in the package, such as indicating to a user the need for further analysis. He uses the example of insurance claim investigation to illustrate their use.

"In the case of looking at insurance claims, obviously there are some very specific rules that a claims investigator would want to follow," says Haffey. "One example of a very simple business rule that you'd want to incorporate is if a car was totaled and yet there were no passenger injuries reported. ... [That] would be one hard and fast rule that this particular claim should be investigated."

Lastly, and most importantly, IBM SPSS can identify ongoing trends and use historical data and other information to build statistical models that can predict future activity. That sort of capability would be invaluable to the system the MPD was looking to create.

The Outcome
At the end of 2005, the decision was made to go ahead and provide the University of Memphis with crime data for the city, which it could then analyze with IBM SPSS Statistics. Then in 2006, an active pilot program called Blue CRUSH (Crime Reduction Utilizing Statistical History) was launched in one of the department's precincts, based on the university's work.

According to Williams, Blue CRUSH quickly demonstrated its efficiency. "We saw two things occur," he says. "We saw the increase in good quality arrests for those offenders who were using firearms to commit violent felonies. And also we saw a decrease in the overall crime in that area."

Based on the success of the pilot program, several additional programs were launched, and in 2008 the MPD finished training its staff of 12 analysts in the use of IBM SPSS Statistics and took over the operation of the program from the university. Blue CRUSH and IBM SPSS Statistics are now vital parts of the MPD's Real Time Crime Center, which generates both statistical and geographic data that helps the department track and combat crime more effectively.

Williams provides a hypothetical example of the sort of trends Blue CRUSH can identify. "We've got three robberies of individuals that are occurring in a particular area between 12 a.m. and 2 a.m. That's pretty good stuff for a police officer. So we're able, through that, to place those resources and have the officers in the areas where they're occurring," he says.

IBM SPSS Statistics also helps Blue CRUSH generate information packages that can be distributed throughout the department, simplifying communication demands and the need to distribute critical data. But most importantly, the MPD credits the initiative with a concrete impact on the amount of crime, which has dropped nearly 30% since 2006.

"We found that the use of SPSS in our Blue CRUSH initiative has been more successful," says Williams, "than any other saturation or zero tolerance policy in the history of the Memphis Police Department."

SpringCM has introduced the latest release of its award-winning cloud enterprise content management platform. New features include enhanced e-forms and metadata functionality designed to enable easier and faster deployment of SpringCM for a variety of process automation, workflow and document management applications.

SpringCM says the new version:

• ensures knowledge workers have the most current data and eliminates manual "picklist" maintenance with a new capability to manage picklist values from ERP, CRM and other systems;
• reduces errors and exceptions due to improperly formatted data in e-forms with new field masks;
• includes external content and Web sites and the ability to assign attributes and search on them with a new feature to store Web links or URLs;
• eliminates file downloads and printing with enhanced online document viewing;
• provides user interface enhancements based on customer usability research and metrics;
• provides non-technical users with an easy way to define automated document and workflow applications through use of additional document rules.

VBrick Systems, which develops enterprise IT video solutions, is acquiring Fliqz Media Corporation. Fliqz develops video platforms that let websites provide video to users and improve website search engine ranking. The solutions will be integrated with VBrick's VBoss streaming service, which helps organizations meet live and on-demand video needs.

In addition to video and SEO tools, Fliqz provides users with a variety of reporting metrics, including user engagement, completion rate, viral distribution, and video popularity. The Fliqz acquisition also brings a collection of new customers to VBrick, including Major League Baseball, Rackspace, and WebMD. According to the companies, Fliqz is already in use by more than 35,000 websites worldwide.

(www.vbrick.com, www.fliqz.com)

Ektron and Baynote have announced a technology partnership that deepens the integration between their two platforms and, the companies report, will provide their joint customers with the ability to deliver uniquely personalized Web site experiences for visitors.

They add that a combined solution will significantly enhance content targeting—both associative and adaptive personalization. Ektron reports its associative content targeting lets marketers establish a set of business rules to determine what content should be displayed based upon information gleaned from the visitor’s search criteria, geographic location, source traffic and other factors. For example, different content would be displayed dependent on whether the visitor arrived through a search link, or came from another site. Baynote’s adaptive personalization is said to extend targeting even further where the site itself adapts content based on visitor behavior.

CQ Roll Call has a new application to help users track legislation and other information regarding the U.S. Congress. Subscribers can now access a wealth of data on CQ Roll Call’s Web site, including congressional videos, hearing transcripts and more than 30 other sources of unstructured information.

The information application is the fourth built on MarkLogic technology for CQ Roll Call. It lets Web site visitors access the entire library of information via one search, rather than searching silos, to get the right information.

Blend Qatipi, VP engineering with CQ Roll Call, says, "Part of what keeps us in business is to be ahead of our competition in terms of what we implement and provide for our users. MarkLogic has helped us narrow searches easily, and the response our users get back is faster and cleaner."

According to MarkLogic, previous information applications that CQ Roll Call has built on its technology include:

• CQ Legislative Impact—By integrating XML content from more than 30 sources, including the Public Laws database and the entire U.S. Code, CQ Legislative Impact lets subscribers see the specific impact of pending or passed legislation on existing laws.
• CQ Floor Video—This implementation assembles closed caption text with video of the U.S. House and Senate while in session.
• Politics in America Book—Created every two years when a new Congress is sworn in, this book includes information about new congressional leaders and is available both online and in print.

Google simultaneously announced and released Google One Pass, a new service from the search giant that lets publishers dictate pricing and subscription models for accessing digital content. The service is designed to allow users to access their content on tablets, smartphones, and desktops, using a single sign-on. The service can also accommodate existing subscribers. The service includes a variety of models that publishers can choose from, such as subscriptions, "freemium" content, metered access (in which the first few articles are free, followed by a charge beyond a pre-determined point), and individual article sales.

The payments for the service are handled through Google Checkout, which the company already uses to process transactions through its Android Marketplace. Several German publishers signed on to the service at the event, including Axel Springer AG and Stern.de. Other participants include Media General and Popular Science. The service is available in Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the U.K., and the U.S.

For more coverage and analysis of Google One Pass and its impact on the content market, check out EContent's blog post.

(www.google.com/landing/onepass)

Coveo has released Version 6.5 of its enterprise search platform, which includes real-time, personalized and interactive business analytics and dashboards. New, configurable dashboard widgets provide users with immediate access to 360-degree views of the information they need, across any number of repositories, reports the company.

The Coveo Platform includes two layers, the Unified Indexing Layer and the Access Interface Layer, which — when combined — let users access information from all enterprise systems through a variety of interfaces — from a Desktop Floating Search Bar to personalized and interactive dashboards.

In addition to dashboards and widgets, as well as expanded support for global organization, key features in Coveo 6.5 include:

SmartFacets — Coveo’s latest development in navigating and computing search results dynamically computes sums, averages, minimum and maximum values, as well as numerical ranges, for facet values. Coveo also delivers graphical views based on the computed results, so users can generate a view of all sales opportunities in a region, for example.

Expanded support for global organizations — Coveo now supports 45 languages, including Asian, European and Arabic.

Coveo reports use cases include:

Customer service and support — Support agents can find information and resolve customer issues faster and more accurately, particularly complex issues, to which support organizations tend to devote the most expensive resources. Rather than piecing information together from multiple systems and interfaces (the average customer service agent has eight to 10 applications open at any time), Coveo provides a single dashboard view that dynamically consolidates and correlates information about cases, customers and more.

Sales and marketing — Coveo Platform 6.5 gives executives a complete, 360-degree view of customer information. At any point in time, salespeople and executives can access consolidated, real-time information about the complete relationship of a customer to the organization, its products, people, processes and any current or former projects. Coveo dashboards are easily configured to display personalized views of: account history and satisfaction status; cross-selling and up-selling opportunities; revenue details by region, sales rep, or product line; e-mail conversations and company experts, proposals, contracts and customer service tickets, all in a single, composite view.

Alfresco has released Version 3.4 of its enterprise content management system. The latest iteration has been designed for developers and companies to build applications where enterprise content is "social-ready" — that is, shared, collaborated on and syndicated across the Web — and captured for compliance, retention and control, reports Alfresco.

The company emphasizes the following key new product capabilities for the Alfresco Enterprise 3.4:

User interface enhancements to make document management more social. Alfresco’s refreshed Share interface for collaboration and document management now includes status updates (similar to Facebook and Twitter), content activity streams and enhanced search capabilities to make content easier to find.

Folder-based actions for simple workflow, along with advanced workflow (using jBPM). Business users can now set up simple document workflow, such as approvals or content transformations, inside the Share interface. For robust workflow, Alfresco Share now exposes workflows created with standards-based enterprise business process management tools.

Distributed content replication. Native support for content replication allows organizations to run federated content repositories. Key documents can now be replicated to support large geographically dispersed companies, reducing access time, removing single points of failure and removing the dependency on a single system.

Collaborative Web authoring. Alfresco Web Quick Start is a set of best-practice templates for building content-rich websites on top of Alfresco Share. Quick Start combines the power of Alfresco Share for Web team collaboration, with powerful content process control and publishing services like office-to-Web publishing.

Integration with enterprise portals and social software. Alfresco now includes a DocLib portlet to enhance its JSR-168 support, which exposes a document library in standards-based portals like Liferay or Red Hat’s JBoss Portal. And using CMIS, Alfresco continues to integrate with Drupal, Lotus Quickr and an expanding set of social business systems.

Autonomy has launched a full information management platform for the legal industry. Leveraging its private cloud, the new offering combines WorkSite, Records Manager, Universal Search, Process Automation and ConflictsManager to help legal professionals manage content throughout the matter life cycle from inception through to disposition.

Autonomy's cloud-based Information Management platform includes the following modules:

• WorkSite — enables law firms and corporate clients to link directly to relevant matter for a particular investigation or case, resulting in quicker access to corporate data and lower e-discovery costs.
• Records Manager — supports the unique requirements of the law firm by providing dual hierarchy file plans for the management of both client and firm records, mobility support, ethical wall security, federation across all data sources, including robust physical records management, as well as manage-in-place and case management capabilities.
• Universal Search — delivers an intuitive search solution tailored to meet the needs of lawyers that leverages the powerful conceptual search capability of IDOL to produce results that are contextually relevant.
• Process Automation — addresses the need in complex e-forms and information processing implementations to manage forms and documents; users are guided through the process using an intuitive wizard or table of contents-type director to ensure completion at each step.
• ConflictsManager — enables law firms to quickly and efficiently identify any potential conflict of interest prior to accepting a new business engagement.

Expert System, a provider of semantic software that searches, discovers, classifies and interprets unstructured text information, and geographic information system software vendor Esri Italia have announced a partnership.

The companies explain the integration of the two technologies will render geographic search and analysis activities more efficient. As a result, search results discovered through semantic analysis can be visualized in geographic maps derived from the geo-analysis, providing analysts with a deeper level of detail.

Copyright Clearance Center, Inc. (CCC), a not-for-profit organization and provider of licensing solutions, launched its Rights Delivery Platform. The platform allows for "one-stop shop" access to hundreds of millions of additional rights previously available only through RightsLink installations.

Customers can use the platform to order reprints from Elsevier, the New York Times, Springer, Emerald Publishing Group, Economist Newspaper Ltd., American Institute of Physics, American Chemical Society, American Society of Microbiology, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science directly on copyright.com. Customers can also obtain permissions from major science, technology, and medicine publishers such as Nature, Oxford University Press, and John Wiley & Sons, among others.

Other new features include enhanced search by publication type, country of publication, or language, as well as the ability for international customers to pay via credit card in their local currency.

(www.copyright.com)