New Conference Pushes beyond Search

January 5, 2009

After watching some of the traditional search and content processing conferences fall on their swords, muffins, and self-assurance in 2008, I have rejiggled my conference plans for 2009. One new venue that caught my attention is The Rockley Group’s event in Palm Springs, California, January 29-30, 2009. You can get more informatio0n about the program here. The event organizer is Ann Rockley, who is one of the people emphasizing the importance of intelligent content.

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Ann Rockley, The Rockley Group

I spoke with Ms. Rockley on January 2, 2008. The text of that conversation appears below:

Why is another conference needed?

Admittedly there are a lot of conferences around for people to attend, but not one that focuses specifically on the topic of Intelligent Content. My background is content management, structured content and XML. There are lots of conferences that focus mainly on the technology, others that focus on the content vehicle or channel (e.g., web) and others that focus on XML. The technology oriented conferences often lose sight of the content; who it’s for, how can we most effectively create it and most importantly how can we optimize it for our customers. The content channel oriented conferences e.g. Web, focus only on the vehicle and forget that content is not just about the way we distribute it; content should be optimized for each channel yet at the same time it should be possible to repurpose and reconfigure the content for multiple channels. And XML conferences tend to be highly technical, focusing on the code and the applications and not on how we can optimize our content using XML so that we can manipulate it and transform it much the way we do data. So this conference is all about the CONTENT! Identifying how we can most effectively create it so that we can manipulate it, transform it and deliver it in a multitude of ways personalized for a particular audience is an area of focus sadly lacking in many conferences.

With topics like Web 2.0 and Social Search I am at a loss to know what will be covered. What are the issues your conference will address?

Web 2.0 is about social networking and sharing of content and media and it has had a tremendous influence on content. Organizations have huge volumes of content stuck in static web pages or files and they have a growing volume of content stuck, and sometimes lost in the masses of content being accumulated in wikis, blogs, etc. How can organizations integrate their content, share their content and make it most useful to their customers and readers without a lot of additional work? How do we combine the best of Web 2.0 with the best of traditional content practices? Organizations don’t have the time, resources or budget to do all the things we need and want to do for our customers, but if we create our content intelligently in the first place (structure it, tag it, store it) we can increase our ability to do so much more and increase our ability to effectively meet our customers’ needs. This conference was specifically designed to answer those questions.

Intelligent Content provides a venue for sharing information on such topics as:

  • Personalization (structured content, metadata and XQuery)
  • Intelligent publishing (dynamic multichannel delivery)
  • Hybrid content strategies (integrating Web 2.0 content with traditional customer content)
  • Dynamic messaging/personalized marketing
  • Increasing findability
  • Content/Information Management

Most attendees complain about two things: The quality of the presentations and the need for better networking with other attendees. How are you addressing these issues?

We are doing things a little differently. All the speakers have been assigned a mentor for review of their outline, drafts and final materials. We are working with them closely to ensure that the presentations are top notch and we have asked them all to summarize their information in Best Practices and Tips. In addition, Intelligent Content was designed to be a small intimate conference with lots of opportunities to network. We will have a luncheon with tables focused on special interests and we are arranging “Birds of a Feather” dinners where like-minded people can get together over a great meal and chat, have fun and network. We also have a number of panels which are designed to work interactively with the audience. And to increase the feeling intimacy we have not chosen to hold the conference in a traditional “big box” hotel, rather we have chosen a boutique hotel, the Parker Palm Springs (http://www.starwoodhotels.com/lemeridien/property/overview/index.html?propertyID=1911), a hotel favored by Hollywood stars from the 1930s. It is a very cool hotel with lots of character that encourages people to have fun while they interact and network.

What will you offer attendees?

The two day conference includes 16 sessions, 2 panels, breakfast, lunch and snacks. It also includes organized networking sessions both for lunch and dinner, and opportunities to ask the Experts key questions. And the conference isn’t over when it is over, we are setting up a Community of Practice including a blog, discussion forum, and webinars to continue to share and network so that every attendee will have an instant ongoing network.

I enjoy small group sessions and simple things like going to dinner with a group of people whom I don’t know. Will you include activities to help attendees make connections?

Absolutely. We deliberately designed the conference to be a small intimate learning experiencing so people weren’t lost in the crowd and we have specifically created a number of luncheon and dinner networking experiences.

How can I register to attend? What is the url for more information.

The conference information can be found at www.intelligentcontent2009.com. Contact info@intelligentcontent2009.com if you have questions. Note that the conference hotel is really a vacation destination so we can only hold the rooms at the special rate for a limited time and that expires January 12th so act quickly. And we’ve extended the early bird registration to Jan. 12 as well. If you have any other questions you can contact us at moreinfo@rockley.com.

Stephen Arnold, January 5, 2008

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