John T. Kane Email & Phone Number

SearchPlex specializes in search technology and AI consulting. We offer comprehensive services tailored to businesses that rely on search technology at their core. Search Technology is a horizontal platform much like databases and covers mutiple use cases such as eCommerce Search, Product Search, Site Search and Enterprise Search. We provide unique consulting services that includes recent NLP innovations such as Word Embeddings, BERT, Large Language Models (LLM's), Generative AI (GenAI) and how to best incorporate these technologies into your existing or new Search use cases. We view Search holistically in that all search engine components contribute equally to improve your customer's Journey from the top of funnel to conversion or engagement or renewal.

I measurably improve customers search experience and guide them to that perfect product that they did not realize they were seeking. I have provided search consulting services to startups and large corporations that relate to enterprise search, onsite search as well as E-commerce search for improved user experiences (UX / UI). I have provided freelance technical services to large corps and smaller startups. I've presented at online (remotely) conferences on Online LTR and my different roles as Software PM and Enterprise PM in Sept. 2020.

Seattle, Washington, Us

In a remote contract PM role at Getty Images, I developed a new advance NLP-based product roadmap for an improved Search experience on iStock.com and GettyImages.com. Additionally, I identify a solution for the disconnect between searchers and buyers vai a "search mission" to semantically link search sessions over longer time periods. I worked with a team of Data Scientists, ML / AI Engineers and Sr. Product Management to deliver new a new longer term Search Roadmap. My PM approch has always been to turn customer ideas & business goals into deployed advance Search using AI models for Learning-to-Rank (LTR). We used different AI models such as Decision Tree & Random Forest that improve key business metrics. I worked cross-functionally with an internal Data Science team to incorporate future Deep Learning techniques and genetic programming into a lightweight framework.I have managed new search products and feature enhancements from concept to launch and coordinated with a go-to-market (GTM) strategy.

San Francisco, California, Us

I owned the strategic vision and product roadmap for the search and recommendation platform that is critical for Zoosk's revenue growth and business metrics. Zoosk was re-platforming from a database-driven recommendation to a modern search engine and recommender platform based upon Elastic's ElasticSearch technology. Initial efforts were to achieve parity with the MySQL search results and my roadmap would utilize a Learning to Rank (LTR) plugin for reciprocal recommendations. I uniquely understand that seldom is the presenting problem, the real issue. They had a perceived problem of providing the searcher better candidates that were geographically closer (proximity), yet when looking at this issue in detail, they also had revenue challenges that were not automated and tied to what the searcher was seeking. I provided the technical guidance incorporated within a search recommendation platform (No search UI) that used weights and other parameters for a personalized search that took into account the business goals. I worked directly with the CMO and Engineering teams for both Zoosk and Spark Networks. Zoosk was acquired by Spark Networks in Aug. 2019

Fontana, California, Us

Voyager Search provides advance Geographical Info Services (GIS) search over complex geospatial data-rich maps used by government agencies and commercial customers. As Product Manager for Voyager Search, I helped improve product features for Voyager Search ODN (Open Data Network) platform. This online platform is used to demonstrate new features for the Voyager Search 2.0 platform. I'll work directly with the sales team and assisted existing customers to close deals for. Voyager Search. I worked remotely with distributed sales and engineering teams.

Houston, Texas, Us

As the Remote Lead Product Manager for Site Search as HPE was splitting from HP, I led the successful execution for migrating Google's Site Search (SaaS search service) and improved overall Search Experience features. After this migration, Google announced the ending their SaaS service and I lead the replacement effort via a managed POC. This put HPE in the position to successfully implement a true state-of-art eCommerce Search and Site Search. This was a worldwide team effort by many within HPE.

Framingham, Ma, Us

As the remote-based Global Search PM, I provided direction to Engineering to build and improve search and recommender solutions for Staples eCommerce search. In this contract consulting role, I helped Staples move from Endeca to a cloud-based Solr solution utilizing a Live POC methodology. I evaluated the technical capabilities of these Solr Search-as-a-Service (SaaS) vendors based upon live metrics such as Conversion rate and RPV (Revenue per Visit). I created a long-term roadmap that incorporates Search, Analytics and User Behavioral data for personalized search. In the search roadmap, I used my experiences in search research, usability testing, and competitive analysis to provide Staples with a state-of-art roadmap. This remote contract role was during the time that Staples was not able to acquire Office Depot.

San Francisco, California, Us

Product Manager lead for Lucidworks Fusion from initial concepts to Launch and post-launch. Fusion is Lucidworks commercial search engine with improvements over Solr such as Pipelines, Signals (external data sources) and recommender. I worked with a worldwide Engineering team in daily Agile/Scrum sessions and planned current and future sprints and roadmap. I managed the first Lucidworks Fusion Beta program with frequent customer interaction that contributed to product feature improvements. Lucidworks is the commercial company behind Apache Solr.

Houston, Texas, Us

Provide new search features for HP.com, such as Auto-Complete and Related Searches using FAST. I worked remotely with other HP teams based in SF Bay area as well as Austin, TX.

Waltham, Ma, Us

Bio-tech life sciences online medical technical services.

Norway-base Search software co that was acquired by Microsoft for advance search technology.