Giving you time in a Swirl

It is understood that “Any company that creates more than $10 billion in shareholder value does one of two things: extend time (more time, saving time) or enhance time.” Time is priceless.  

Swirl recently released version 2.5 featuring a performance benchmark showing a median search time of ~3 seconds across 12 sources. In layman’s terms, Swirl takes a question, adjusts the question to each of the 12 sources, gets back results, reviews and ranks, then presents the best results. Swirl is doing this in one-two-three seconds. But the important part is not the 3 seconds; rather the “12 sources”.  

Have you ever thought of how long it takes to look for information across 12 applications, web sites, or simply browser tabs? It takes me a couple seconds to switch tabs; there is no way I can flip through 12 tabs in 3 seconds, let alone search for information, get the results and scan them for what I want.  

In 2003, IDC released a landmark study on the high cost of not finding information. The conclusion, it was expensive in dollars and time, and that’s 2003 dollars. Most knowledge workers often knew what they needed; they just did not know where to find it. Even worse, when trying to discover new information, there are resources that never get examined. Rest assured; nothing delights leadership more than paying for something that does not get used. 

But that was so 2003, the cloud had yet to be realized and productivity applications were just a novel idea. Well, play the sad trombone, the problem identified by IDC has not gotten better. Since that study (updated in 2015), the ability to efficiently find and use information remains in question. There is a reason you are hearing so much about the possibilities of #ChatGPT and generative AI. 

It is estimated the average employee works across 36 different tabs to do their job (your mileage may vary). According to Productiv, the average company has 254 SaaS apps (with enterprises averaging 364). How long does it take you to search through so many tabs and applications to find what you are looking for? Let us know if you are interested in giving Swirl a whirl.