Conference Spam or Conference Prime Rib
January 21, 2009
I winnowed email over the weekend. I noticed what seemed to be an increasing amount of conference spam. I don’t want to name the offending conference organizers, but I think that traditional conference organizers must be feeling the pinch of the economic downturn. For example, I just learned that one conference outfit that asked me to give a talk wants me to pay several hundred dollars to publish my presentation. I ignored the request. Another outfit sent me a list of 10 reasons to attend a mobile conference in Barcelona. Hey, Barcelona is a great city, but in today’s economic environment, I am not buying my own ticket to Spain so I can learn about mobile phones. I can read some Web log posts and interact with people on this Web log. Another outfit has told me that I can learn about the future of enterprise search. Sorry. Enterprise search doesn’t have much of a future. The most successful companies are providing systems that mesh with work processes and deliver actionable intelligence or some other buzzword just not “enterprise search”. The recent pull out from the IDG Apple conference sent shock waves through the conference world. If Apple jumps to the CES 2010 show, what happens to Macworld? What about information conferences that try to cover multiple disciplines in the unruly world of digital data? Those puppies confuse the attendees and anger the exhibitors. What’s network attached storage have to do with eDiscovery and licensing news from Factiva? Answer: not much from an exhibitors’ point of view I opine.
There are some promising new conferences coming along. I am not including the “in crowd” meet ups that occur routinely in the San Jose – San Francisco corridor. The go to search meeting for 2009 seems to be the Infonortics’ Boston meeting. You can find information about that program here. I have a vested interest in this conference for three reasons:
- I roll out the findings from my most recent analyses of Google’s patent documents and technical papers. The period from April 2008 to the present has been Google’s most productive. Few know about Google’s broader technology thrusts outside of the Googleplex.
- I fund and oversee the Evvie Award. Named in honor of one of the leading online innovators, Ev Brenner, the award recognizes the best presentation developed for the conference. The judging panel’s criterion is to answer the question “Would Ev have liked the presentation?” The people making the value judgment typically include Sue Feldman (IDC), Liz Liddy (Syracuse University), and David Evans (Justsystems), among others. The recipient receives a modest cash honorarium and an equally modest trophy. The value is peer recognition at this important conference.
- I learn from speakers who “do” search and content processing. I don’t endure presentations from the exhibitors or the best friends of the conference organizer.
Infonortics, unlike some of the near-death and deadly dull conferences, limits the number of attendees. Register early or find yourself waiting for next year.
Stephen Arnold, January 21, 2009
eeggi at Infonortics Search Conference
January 19, 2009
The Boston Search Engine Meeting, operated by Infonortics Ltd., continues to be a must-attend event. Several of the search-related conferences have fallen on their nose. One is a marketers’ dream. SEO (search engine optimization) experts explain how to get a high Google ranking. A few non-marketers attend but find the audiences indifferent to anything but short cuts to Google goodness. Another conference confuses attendees so no one knows who is speaking where or when. Not much hope for shows like that, I fear. Another floundering fish is a huge event focused on everything from scanning to search. Last year, before the meltdown, attendance at most sessions was–ah, how shall I say–sparse. Another candidate for retirement as well. But the Infonortics show keeps on delivering a solid program, attracts motivated attendees, and thankfully does not run a carnival of booths. At one show in the fall, Google pulled its staff and left an empty booth for half of the trade show’s hours. Now that’s a nice site. An empty Google booth. The saving grace was the fact that few people were in the exhibit hall. This addled goose flapped through and then went to a client’s office. The show was underwhelming.
I just learned that the Infonortics conference in April (more information is here) will feature a presentation by eeggi’s “advisor” Frank Bandach. eeggi has an interesting PowerPoint making the rounds of people who cover search and content processing. I viewed it and want to get more information about this company.
eeggi said here:
eeggi is the world’s first mathematic-based search engine, capable of finding results based on CONCEPT instead of just Text. Text-based engines treat words such as “photo” and “photograph” as if they meant completely different things; and yet words such as “banana” (fruit), and “banana” (crazy) as if they meant absolutely identical things. But eeggi’s concept-driven allows it to retrieve superior and conceptually equivalent results such as: 1-Synonyms (identical meaning), 2-Similarities (similar meaning), 3-Conclusive and deductive results, 4-Multiple languages, 5-Tabulates words with multiple meanings, 6-Directional conceptuality 7-Less irrelevance, 8-User controls to search magnitude.
The eeggi Web site is understated. You can find it here. Some canned demos are here. I will learn more in April 2009. Infonortics publishes my Google monographs. I will be on the program as well, and I am doing a tutorial in which some of the new Google technology will be discussed.
Stephen Arnold, January 19, 2009
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.
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
New Publication from Hartman and Boiko
December 14, 2008
Erik Hartman and Bob Boiko have a new venture. They are asking information management professionals for articles about their content management strategies, methodology, technology and tools. Contributions will address a specific issue, problem or challenge and present a proven solution — giving readers practical advice and experience. The Beyond Search geese think this is a worthwhile project. Bob Boiko and Erik M. Hartman, spark plugs of the Information Management Framework Association, made a call for industry contributions to “Information Management – Global Best Practices.” The collection is meant for analysts, developers, architects, managers, content creators and other technical and non-technical staff involved in the creation or maintenance of information systems. The first edition of the “Best Practices” series is scheduled to be released in October 2009 and annually thereafter. For more info on the book and how to contribute, navigate to the organization’s Web site here or e-mail Dr. Hartman here: erik at hartman-communicatie dot nl
Jessica Bratcher, December 14, 2008
Getting Ready for the SEO Grilling
November 24, 2008
For the last 20 years, I have been attending and participating in the International Online Show. The show is now in the capable hands of Incisive, a UK based company. Each year, there are one or two sessions that catch my attention. The show next week in London promises to be interesting for me. I am giving a talk about the future of search and participating in a panel about search engine optimization. I can summarize my endnote in one word: Google. My talk explains how Google will have more impact in the enterprise search market than it did in 2008. If you want to know how and what, you will have to attend or wait until I post a summary of the speech. I don’t make a PowerPoint deck available before my talks. I prefer posting a PDF of my speaker notes and letting those interested link to that version of my remarks.
But SEO. That is the session that could cause me to gulp another blood pressure pill.
SEO: Consultant Heaven
I want to be crystal clear: SEO is a practice that annoys me. The reason is that content and correct code are what I value. SEO is a package of hocus pocus designed to create the sense that tricks will cause a Web page to appear at the top of a results list. Since most people don’t create substantive content, most Web sites don’t provide the indexing systems with much to process. Other outfits use a content management system like the ancient Broadvision or the remarkable Vignette. These systems generate Web pages that some Web indexing systems cannot process. Other people create Web pages with scripting errors. Sure, my team and I make scripting errors, and we try to fix them. If we can’t, we create a page without the offending function and live with the simplified presentation. Other companies pay 20 somethings from Cooper Union to create Web sites entirely in Silverlight, Flash or Adobe AIR. When a Web indexer or crawler hits these sites, the indexing system may not have much to work with or have to work overtime to figure what the site is “about”. I could list some other flaws in Web sites, but you get the idea. Click here for a listing of SEO experts.
Will you be the victim of an SEO consultant’s hold up?
Now people who are clueless about what good content is or what resources are required to create good content, don’t show up in a Google, Yahoo, or Live.com (maybe a new name is coming soon) results list. You can see this problem by running a query for “financial services.” You don’t get much meat because the phrase “financial services” has been co-opted by the SEO consultants.
Webinar: Open Standards and Semantic Technology
November 14, 2008
The economic downturn worldwide bodes poorly for dollars to add more search technologies to the enterprise, but the umbrella in the thunderstorm may be found in a movement quietly readying for a download launch. When will a standardized, semantic IT infrastructure be the basis of the enterprise’s entire IT framework for operations across all divisions?
There is a growing discussion in Europe, now spilling over into the US, regarding the SMILA project, the SeMantic Information Logistics Architecture. For more detail, click here or navigate http://eccenca.broxblogs.de. This open source solution is coming from a partnering of brox IT-Solutions, and empolis in Germany through Eclipse.org.
Semantic Technologies
Semantic technologies continue to gain in the discussion amongst researchers and companies investing in their own search frameworks across the organization because it is the unstructured data that remains the elephant in the room. There are proponents in several large IT companies that believe an answer is available in SMILA. When will a semantic IT infrastructure be the basis of the enterprise’s entire IT framework for operations across all divisions? Consider this white paper (in German-use translate.google.com) http://www.heise.de/open/Union-Investment-Integrationsplattform-auf-Basis-offener-Standards–/artikel/118395 The paper contends that:
“Open standards make applications more quickly realized and flawless.”
Eccenca is the commercial level version available for enterprise that is being deployed with professional services and support. At brox, the company is building commercial-grade architecture and applications for the enterprise under the Eccenca Foundation, based on the SMILA codebase. Eccenca products will reflect internal expertise of existing customer requests, including those of startups in Theseus, Volkswagen, and others. See more information in the response to this blog’s recent discussion (Nov.4th) at http://h3lge.de/weblog/. Eccenca.com and the first download of SMILA are anticipated in short order. At Eccenca.com, brox will set up and manage a marketplace for standard-based plug ins, solutions, and expertise.
Webinar
There is a webinar in English coming up to discuss this whole approach further, coming up on December 17, 2008. The seminar will run about one hour and take place at 8:00 am PDT / 11:00 pm EDT / 4:00 pm GMT. The seminar will be given by Georg Schmidt (brox IT-Solutions) and Igor Novakovic (empolis). The title of the webinar is “SMILA – SeMantic Information Logistics Architecture.” This webinar will present the SMILA project (emphasizing the integration possibilities), provide the status report about the latest project developments and give a short demonstration of currently implemented features.
The webinar will discuss the challenge of the amount and diversity of information is growing exponentially, mainly in the area of unstructured data, like emails, text files, blogs and images. Poor data accessibility, user rights integration and the lack of semantic metadata are constraining factors for building next generation enterprise search and other document centric applications. Missing standards result in proprietary solutions with huge short and long term cost. SMILA is an extensible framework for building search solutions to access unstructured information in the enterprise. Besides providing essential infrastructure components and services, SMILA also delivers ready-to-use add-on components, like connectors to most relevant data sources. Using the framework as their basis will enable developers to concentrate on the creation of higher value solutions, like semantic driven applications.
An article authored by Dawn Marie Yankeelov, president of ASPectx.
Search 2009: The Arnold Boye08 Lecture
November 11, 2008
What began as a routine speech became a more definitive statement of my views about enterprise search in 2009. I delivered a lecture on this topic to a standing room only crowd in Aarhus, Denmark, at the JBoye 08 conference. The conference organizer asked me to provide a version of my talk for the conference attendees who were unable to attend my lecture. I have now posted the full text of my remarks on the ArnoldIT.com Web site. You can read the PDF of this lecture here.
Let me highlight several of the features of this talk, which concatenated remarks I have made about the future of search over the last 90 days:
- I identify the major trends that I am watching in the enterprise search “space”. I don’t dig into social search and some of the more trendy topics. I identify what will keep people using a system and those responsible for search and content processing in their jobs.
- I highlight a small number of companies that I think are going to be important in 2009. I mention five companies, but I have a much longer list of promising players. These five are examples of what is going to drive search success going forward.
- I spell out some meta challenges that vendors and licensees face. To give one example of what’s in this short list, think SharePoint. With 100 million licensees, SharePoint is likely to have as significant an impact on enterprise information access as Google. But there is a dark side to SharePoint, and I mention it in this report.
I have one request. Feel free to use the information for your personal learning. If you are engaged in teaching, you may reproduce the document and invite your students to critique my ideas. If you are a consultant shopping for a phrase or idea to borrow, that’s okay. Just point back to my original document. I see many “beyonds” now. Beyond Google, Beyond Business Intelligence, and so on. I expect that “just there” search will experience similar diffusion. Of course, if you just pirate my phrasing, I think the addled goose will point out this activity. Geese can lay golden eggs; geese can spoil an automobile’s finish as well.
As always, I have had to cut material from this write up. You may point out my errors, omissions, and shortcomings in the comments section to this Web log. Keep in mind that this Web log is free, and it is an easy way for me to keep track of my ideas and lectures.
Stephen Arnold, November 12, 2008
Overflight Award for Excellence
November 10, 2008
ArnoldIT.com and J Boye created an award to recognize the best presentations at the Boye 08 Conference held in Aarhus, Denmark. The conference attracted more than 260 attendees and featured more than 40 speakers from around the world.
The winner of the Overflight Award for Excellence was Caroline Coetzee from Cambridge University Hospitals in the UK. Caroline did a very interesting and relevant talk on The business case game (or is a website really more important than a maternity unit?) which explained how to get senior management support in the first place. An honorable mention went to Niklas Sinander from EUMETSAT in Germany, who did a popular talk on Wiki from theory to practice. The winner and runner up received a Lucite trophy with the award logo. The winner received 500 euros.
Left to right, Stephen Arnold, ArnoldIT.com, Niklkas Sinander, EUMETSAT, runner up, Caroline Coetzee, Cambridge University Hospitals, and Janus Boye, JBoye.com.
Janus Boye and Stephen Arnold created the award to permit the community attending the conference to identify presentations that met the following criteria:
- Information that would be useful to delegates upon returning to work
- Research supporting the presentation
- Quality of the delivery and examples
- Importance of the speakers’ topics at the time of the conference.
A panel of distinguished attendees and information practitioners had the task of assessing the presentations and determining the winners. The judges were:
- Andrew Fix, Shell
- Volker Grünauer, Wienerberger
- Magnus Børnes Hellevik, The Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration
- Ove Kristiansen, Region Syddanmark
- Pernilla Webber, Alfa Laval.
The Overflight Award will become a permanent feature of the conferences organized by Janus Boye. A happy quack to the winners and to the judges who made the selection for this award.
Stephen Arnold, November 10, 2008
Google: A Powerful Mental Eraser
October 23, 2008
Earlier today I learned that a person who listened to my 20 minute talk at a small conference in London, England, heard one thing only–Google. I won’t mention the name of this person, who has an advanced degree and is sufficiently motivated to attend a technical conference.
What amazed me were these points:
- The attendee thought I was selling Google’s eDiscovery services
- I did not explain that organizations require predictive services, not historical search services
- I failed to mention other products in my talk.
I looked at the PowerPoint deck I used to check my memory. At age 64, I have a tough time remembering where I parked my car. Here’s what I learned from my slide deck.
Mention Google and some people in the audience lose the ability to listen and “erase” any recollection of other companies mentioned or any suggestion that Google is not flawless. Source: http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/ii215/Katieluvr01/eraser-2.jpg.
First, I began with a chart created by an SAS Institute professional. I told the audience the source of the chart and pointed out the bright red portion of the chart. This segment of the chart identifies the emergence of the predictive analytics era. Yep, that’s the era we are now entering.
Second, I reviewed the excellent search enabled eDiscovery system from Clearwell Systems. I showed six screen shots of the service and its outputs. I pointed out that attorneys pay big sums for the Clearwell System because it creates an audit trail so queries can be rerun at any time. It generates an email thread so an attorney can see who wrote whom when and what was said. It creates outputs that can be submitted to a court without requiring a human to rekey data. In short, I gave Clearwell a grade of “A” and urged the audience to look at this system for competitive intelligence, not just eDiscovery. Oh, I pointed out that email comprises a larger percentage of content in eDiscovery than it has in previous years.
Dataspaces in Denmark: The 2008 Boye Conference
October 22, 2008
Earlier this year, the engaging Janus Boye asked me to give a talk and offer a tutorial at his content management and information access conference. The program is located here, and you will see a line up that tackles some of the most pressing issues facing organizations today. The conference is held in Arhus, Denmark. My first visit was a delight. I could walk to a restaurant and connect. Arhus may be one of the most wired and wireless savvy cities I’ve visited.
About a year ago, before Google decided I was Kentucky vermin, I discovered in the open source literature, a reference to a technology with which I was not familiar. In the last year, I have pulled this information thread. After much work, I believe I have discovered the basics of one of Google’s most interesting and least known technology initiatives.
Source: http://www.lohninger.com/helpcsuite/img/kohonen1.gif
Unlike some of the other innovations I have described in my 2005 The Google Legacy and my 2007 Google Version 2.0 reports. Those documents relied extensively on Google’s own patent documents. This most recent discovery reports information in Bell Labs’s patents, various presentations by Google researchers, and published journal articles with unusual names; for example, “Information Manifold”. The research also pointed to work at Stanford University and a professor who, I believe, has been involved to some degree with Google’s team leader. I also learned of a Google acquisition in 2006, which does not appear in the Wikipedia list of Google acquisitions. Although the deal was reported in several Web logs, no one dug into the company’s technology or its now-dark classified ad site.
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