Search ─ How the Data Explosion Makes Us Smarter

Search is as old as language. We've always needed to find something in the jumble of human creation. The first web was nothing more than passing verbal histories down the generations so others could find and remember how not to get eaten; the first search used the power of written language to build simple indexes in printed books, leading to the Dewey Decimal system and reverse indices in more modern times.

Then digital happened. Besides having profound societal impacts, it also made the act of searching almost impossibly complex for both engines and searchers. Information isn’t just words; it is pictures, videos, thoughts tagged with geocode data, routes, physical world data, and, increasingly, the machines themselves reporting their condition and listening to others’.

Search: How the Data Explosion Governs What We Think and Do holds up a mirror to our time to see if search can keep up. Author Stefan Weitz explores the idea of access to help readers understand how we are inventing new ways to search and access data through devices in more places and with more capabilities. We are at the cusp of imbuing our generation with superpowers, but only if we fundamentally rethink what search is, how people can use it, and what we should demand of it.

Stefan Weitz is a Senior Director of Search at Microsoft and charged with working with people and organizations across the industry to promote and improve search technologies. While focused on Microsoft's product line, he works across the industry to understand searcher behavior, academic developments, and innovations from all over and, in his role as an evangelist for Search, gathers and distills feedback to drive fundamental search improvements.

Prior to Search, Stefan led the strategy to develop Microsoft’s next generation online platforms and developed Microsoft's muni WiFi strategy and implementation, leading the effort to blanket free WiFi access across metropolitan cities. Stefan has been writing code since he was 8 years old and is fluent in both hardware and software architecture, trends, and potentials. A 16-year Microsoft veteran, he has led various groups in Windows, hardware, Informatics Security, and global business strategy in roles ranging from development to program management, business development to marketing. Stefan holds a half-dozen patents in various disciplines and is a frequent lecturer to industry and academic groups on the future of information storage, retrieval, and usage.

Stefan is a huge gadget "junkie" and can often be found in electronics shops across the world looking for the elusive perfect piece of tech. Stefan also serves on advisory boards for many startups ranging from biometrics to advertising to virtualization and is an active Angel investor. In his spare cycles, he is working with national educational reinvention groups to reboot K-12 education and is actively advising startups focused on boosting student achievement through technology and big data. He is on the GenCon Board for Conservation International and active in Endeavor Global, a non-profit dedicated to incubating high-impact startups in developing markets.