24. An apparatus including a memory device having instructions stored thereon that, in response to execution by a computing device, cause the computing device to perform operations comprising: parsing content of a received query into elements; associating an annotation with respective ones of the elements; comparing a first condition of at least one rule from a rules dictionary against the elements and the annotation; comparing a second condition of at least one rule from the rules dictionary against peripheral information distinct from the content of the query; generating a query response based at least in part on the comparisons and displaying the generated query response as an answer to the query; selectively firing at least one action of at least one of the rules from the rules dictionary based on respective results of the comparisons, wherein the subset of the information retrieval technologies comprises a first information retrieval technology and a second information retrieval technology, wherein selectively firing at least one action comprises selectively firing a plurality of actions; in response to at least one of the firing actions, operating a subset of information retrieval technologies based on the selectively fired action to produce respective information; generating the query response based on said respective information; matching, via at least one of the rules from the rules dictionary, a plurality of the elements and the annotation to a concept representing an intent of the query content, wherein each of the plurality of the elements and the annotation corresponds to a word of the query content, wherein the matching utilizes a regular expression language and wherein the operations further comprise determining if at least one of the elements and the annotation shares a common ancestor in a multi-layered concept repository with a question example of the at least one of the rules; in response to a first one of the firing actions, operating the first information retrieval technology; in response to a second one of the firing actions, operating a second distinct one of the information retrieval technologies; and providing, via the second one of the information retrieval technologies, a managed answer.
24. An apparatus including a memory device having instructions stored thereon that, in response to execution by a computing device, cause the computing device to perform operations comprising: parsing content of a received query into elements; associating an annotation with respective ones of the elements; comparing a first condition of at least one rule from a rules dictionary against the elements and the annotation; comparing a second condition of at least one rule from the rules dictionary against peripheral information distinct from the content of the query; generating a query response based at least in part on the comparisons and displaying the generated query response as an answer to the query; selectively firing at least one action of at least one of the rules from the rules dictionary based on respective results of the comparisons, wherein the subset of the information retrieval technologies comprises a first information retrieval technology and a second information retrieval technology, wherein selectively firing at least one action comprises selectively firing a plurality of actions; in response to at least one of the firing actions, operating a subset of information retrieval technologies based on the selectively fired action to produce respective information; generating the query response based on said respective information; matching, via at least one of the rules from the rules dictionary, a plurality of the elements and the annotation to a concept representing an intent of the query content, wherein each of the plurality of the elements and the annotation corresponds to a word of the query content, wherein the matching utilizes a regular expression language and wherein the operations further comprise determining if at least one of the elements and the annotation shares a common ancestor in a multi-layered concept repository with a question example of the at least one of the rules; in response to a first one of the firing actions, operating the first information retrieval technology; in response to a second one of the firing actions, operating a second distinct one of the information retrieval technologies; and providing, via the second one of the information retrieval technologies, a managed answer. 27. The apparatus of claim 24 , wherein the comparisons utilize a regular expression language.