Speaker of the week - Hazel Hall, Reader Napier University, UK

Hazel Hall, Reader Napier University, UK. Hazel is a track speaker on day two of the conference
Day 2: Track 1 - Risk 2.0 Or opportunity 2.0 - hype or hope
Q: Which are the most important topics, for you personally, due to be discussed at the Online Information Conference 2008 and why?
Hazel: Topic: Social computing tools and their application in business to support collaborative work practice. Why: my main research interest is information sharing in online environments, in particular how to motivate people to information share. Social computing tools have great potential here.
Q: Apart from your own, which tracks would you recommend to delegates attending the conference?
Hazel: Clay Shirky's keynote (I would recommend delegates read Here comes everybody over the next few days); immediately afterwards track 1 "Web 2.0 after the buzz: Innovators under the spotlight - who stayed the distance" (to find the two Euan/Ewans simultaneously on stage together is a treat not to be missed); track 1 on Wednesday 11.45-13.00 "New ways of working: socialising, collaboration and innovation - exploiting social networks".
Q: What are you looking forward to most about participating in Online Information 2008?
Hazel: Catching up with colleagues/friends from the industry. I particularly enjoy seeing graduates from Queen Margaret and Napier University who are now in established careers. For many of them, their first ever contact with Online was to attend with me as students, and in some cases the three days in London very much influenced their later career choices. I'm hoping to see as many of the graduates as possible together this year at 15.30 on Wednesday 3rd December in the bar/café next to Theatre F.
Q: If you had to choose only one - which social network would you recommend to colleagues?
Hazel: I'm a Facebook fan.
Q: And finally, just out of interest - where are you planning to spend Christmas this year?
Hazel: On one of the big sofas at my parents' house in Northumberland, in front of the fire, with a pile of novels, a ready supply Viennese truffles and weak black tea at hand, and an eye on the window to watch out for the red squirrels scampering across the lawn.
About Hazel Hall
Dr Hazel Hall is Reader in the School of Computing at Napier University, Edinburgh. Her main research interest is information sharing in online environments. She has published widely on this theme, and most recently was involved in a project exploring risks and opportunities of the adoption (or non-adoption) of social computing tools within organisations for collaborative working from the perspective of the priorities of information and knowledge management. The main sponsor of this work was TFPL Ltd, to whom Dr Hall was seconded in 2006, supported by a grant from the Royal Academy of Engineering. As well as maintaining an active role in the external academic community, Dr Hall has worked with a number of organisations on information and knowledge management projects. These include public sector bodies such as Scottish Enterprise, large companies such as KPMG and Sun Microsystems, and small and medium-sized enterprises.
http://www.dcs.napier.ac.uk/~hazelh/esis/hazel.html
For more information, or to view the conference programme in full, please visit:
www.online-information.co.uk/conference

HMRC - one year on, are we any wiser?

It's around about 12 months since the HMRC scandal broke, and with it the floodgates for countless subsequent public sector data loss incidents. The Tories released some rather timely information at the end of last week concluding that these breaches have amounted to the equivalent of one PC lost every week since the HMRC incident, and that's not counting the 36 BlackBerries, 30 mobile phones and four memory sticks also lost.
Various reasons have been bandied about as to why the sudden deluge of stories about data loss in the last 12 months, and what is so wrong at the heart of government to have led to this situation. Well, it's fair to say that this sort of thing has been going on for years, it's just that there is more transparency and awareness now. And the experts I've spoken to about this - security vendors, security consultants and legal bods - have offered a range of opinions as to why it might have happened, but most seem to believe things have been moving in the right direction since HMRC. The problem with government though, is that it's a large, lumbering beast of an institution and any change will be slow.
Paula Barrett, a partner at law firm Eversheds, pointed out that new standards on data handling are being drawn up, but that more awareness-raising across departments needs to be made to ensure individuals know what they are. She also hinted that the Queen's speech in a few week's time could very well contain more measures aimed at forcing departments to improve their data security practices.
A more interesting comment came from Matthew Tyler of consultancy Evolution Security Systems, who told me that his company was recently involved in a government project, evaluating the feasibility of rolling out encryption technology for all USB sticks. This would seem a laudable step in the right direction, but as he added, most recent data breaches were due to individuals not following correct procedures, so surely the best approach is to design systems where sensitive data can't be taken out in the first place.

Speaker of the week - Neil Infield, Manager, The British Library

Neil Infield, Manager, The British Library, Neil is a track keynote speaker on day one of the conference.
Day 1: Track 3 - ROIP (Return on information professionals) or RIP (rest in peace). Neil will speak specifically on 'Moving from readers to customers and clients in the business and IP Centre at The British Library'
Q: Which are the most important topics, for you personally, due to be discussed at the Online Information Conference 2008 and why?
Neil: I am interested in practical applications of Web 2.0 technologies. Something we are experimenting with in the Business & IP Centre.
Q: Apart from your own, which tracks would you recommend to delegates attending the conference?
Neil: I always find Mary Ellen Bates informative, challenging and entertaining.
Q: What are you looking forward to most about participating in Online Information 2008?
Neil: A great networking opportunity with old and hopefully new contacts.
Q: If you had to choose only one - which social network would you recommend to colleagues?
Neil: Facebook is great for keeping up with friends and family. I have found blogging to be slowly addictive (although I'm not sure my readers would agree).
Q: And finally, just out of interest - where are you planning to spend Christmas this year?
Neil: I used to go skiing religiously, but after several years of terrible snow conditions I plan to stay at home and probably have to cut my winter grown lawn between rain showers.
About Neil Infield
I am the Manager of the British Library's Business & IP Centre. Until 2005 I was manager of Business Information Services (BIS) at Hermes Pensions Management (the principal fund manager for the British Telecom and Post Office pensions schemes). During my time at Hermes I developed the BIS far beyond its traditional library services. I have been active in SLA Europe for over 15 years. Having previously been President, I now edit their newsletter and manage the website.
Neil's Blog .. http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/inthroughtheoutfield
For more information, or to view the conference programme in full, please visit:
www.online-information.co.uk/conference

SharePoint on the ropes again?

It's a common problem in virtually any industry. Once you become the de-facto leader, or at least somewhere near the upper echelons, then people start having a go at you. Virgin has found it out the hard way, Channel 4 is probably discovering it to a certain degree, and, um, well the less I say about JD Wetherspoons the better, probably.
The tech world is packed full of examples, probably because technology moves at such a rate of knots, it can lead to pretty fluid movement up and down the establishment table - just look at Gartner's hype cycle and Magic Quadrants over the last few years to chart the rapid rise of firms like Google and Facebook and the sad demise of Netscape and the rest. It's been a long while since Microsoft was such a firm, back when Steve Balmer had hair and Bill Gates definitely didn't hang out with Jerry Seinfeld. But on the content management scene it is a relative newcomer.
However, Microsoft does not waste its time, and it's flagship offering in this space, SharePoint, has climbed the greasy pole in rapid time. And although there is debate over whether it is a true content management solution - which it's not, really - there's no denying the figures. According to the Wall Street Journal, by 2007 "Microsoft sold 85 million licenses to the enhanced version of SharePoint across 17,000 companies." And analyst firm Gartner reports that approximately 50 per cent of the mid-size businesses it surveyed are running some variant of SharePoint.
It's definitely one of the establishment in the content management space therefore - and so to the backlash. Enterprise provisioning firm Courion interviewed SharePoint users recently to find that the majority did not have nearly enough visibility into their SP environments and feared the exposure of sensitive data on these sites. Yes, you could probably say Courion research would conclude that, given that Courion is into enterprise provisioning, but it's still a legitimate concern.
Firms need to bring their SharePoint initiatives under the same access and identity management and data loss prevention frameworks as the other disparate technologies they're running if they want to close off this potential back door to breaches. The problem is that SharePoint is often adopted ad-hoc under the radar of IT. The first thing CIOs will need to do is make sure their IT managers get a good idea of who is using what in terms of SharePoint in the organisation. Sorry Microsoft. I guess when your products go to the head of their field, they're kind of there to get shot at.

Speaker of the week - Salvatore Reina

Salvatore Reina, Programme Manager, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLC, UK is this weeks speaker. Salv is a track keynote speaker on day one of the conference.
Day 1: Track 1 - Web 2.0 after the buzz, Innovators under the spotlight - who stayed the distance
Q: Which are the most important topics, for you personally, due to be discussed at the Online Information Conference 2008 and why?
Salv: For me it's how social tools can help businesses get the most bang for their buck as we enter more austere times. Quantifying the ROI is key where possible. The other key areas for me are both search and how social tools will affect the role of the information worker.
Q: Which tracks would you recommend to delegates attending the conference?
Salv: It would of course very much depend on what line of business you are in as to which tracks are most useful, but there are several tracks that are relevant for all. Web 2.0 - After the Buzz is a good one as it has a focus on business value and ROI. Also, Understanding Behaviours is relevant for all as it looks at Generation Y...
Q: What are you looking forward to most about participating in Online Information 2008?
Salv: First of all, it's a great opportunity to hear from a range of experts and to have a chance to discuss the latest thinking in our field. Secondly, good old fashioned web 0.0 networking! Meeting people face-to-face, sharing ideas, thoughts and creating opportunities.
Q: If you had to choose only one - which social network would you recommend to colleagues?
Salv: It would be micro-blogging. When I first saw this idea, I thought it was an irrelevance and I dismissed it. Then I started blogging internally at work and thought that the idea of mini status updates, posted to my site, could be useful. This proved true when I posted an update to say I was going on a conference. A loosely connected colleague saw this and subsequently joined me at the event as he shared an interest. I also started following others and quickly found that I had a very good sense of what key people in my network were doing.
Q: And finally, just out of interest - where are you planning to spend Christmas this year?
Salv: This year I will be at home with my family in Surrey. As well as the usual Christmas activities, we'll probably spend a bit of time wandering around the North Downs and taking in some of the winter sights in Guildford.
About Salvatore Reina
Salv has worked for PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) for 12 years in a number of technology related roles. In recent years he has specialised in Knowledge Managment (KM), seeking out opportunities to maximise the business value from KM technology implementations. He currently heads up a number of programmes aimed at making it easier for PwC people to connect with each other and to find useful knowledge.
This has led him to explore the world of social media. Salv believes that social technologies provide huge potential for organisations to help their people connect with each other more effectively. He has led the development of a number of innovative products that are testing the extent to which PwC can derive benefit for important business scenarios; scenarios that include client engagements.
Salv is also at the forefront of the User Profile work currently in progress in PwC globally (the facility for people to store and access expertise, interests, networks and etc). He is keen to develop the firm's capability in this area as he sees the strong connection this has with social media and the benefit that this linkage would give.
Salv runs an internal PwC blog in which he comments on the world of social media and profiling.
Email: salvatore.reina@uk.pwc.com
For more information, or to view the conference programme in full, please visit:
www.online-information.co.uk/conference

ID card time again

Well, it has been a few months but once again ID cards are back in the news. Or rather the National Identity Scheme, which has managed to garner more column inches in terms of stories about huge, over-budget, failing public sector IT projects as the NHS Spine. As citizens we all get very nervous about the government handling our data, storing our data or even glancing at our data for a bit and then putting it back where it was. And with good cause it seems, if you believe the story in the Times last week in which Gordon Brown was reported as admitting the government could not be trusted to ensure that our personal data is kept safe.
Well, whether we like it or not, some form of national ID card scheme is coming. Jacqui Smith, the home secretary, has released plans for compulsory identity cards for airside workers at the country's airports. London City and Manchester will blaze the trail with trials as early as autumn next year. Add to this compulsory identity cards for foreign nationals from outside the European Economic Area from the end of this month, and you sense the momentum is definitely building.
One of the more controversial ID card-related announcements last week involved the Home Office effectively announcing that it will open for tender to high street businesses the opportunity to become a "biometric enrolment centre". Wow. Do I even need to state the inherent risks in becoming one of these centres? Think about how much time and money you may be spending on PCI compliance, to ensure the secure storage of credit card information, and then double it, and then add a thousand.
Becoming one of these centres is a sure fire way to drive your compliance manager or your chief risk officer, or your chief information officer, to an early grave. Little is known about the actual details, and as we all know, that is where the devil is, especially when we're talking ID cards. But it's likely that banks, post offices, high street stores and the like which join up would be tasked with collecting biometric details from customers, such as fingerprints, and then storing them or securely transferring them to a database.
Seems to me though that the government is trying to push some of the sizeable cost and risk of the National Identity Scheme on to the private sector. You'd be mad to say yes, and the experts seem to agree. Ken Munro, director of pen testing firm Secure Test, said the security implications of this announcement had clearly not been considered. And Susan Hall, IT expert at Cobbetts LLP, argued that sub-contracting the collection of biometric data is inherently dangerous if it gets in the wrong hands, simply because these details can't be reset or altered like a password, if they are stolen.

Projecting the future of IP findability

One of the main reasons for the Information Retrieval Facility's (IRF) existence is to find workable solutions to the challenges faced by Information Retrieval specialists operating with IP data.
The 2007 event concluded by sending all those concerned on their way with the remit to come back next year with something workable. This morning the project presentations got underway.
The first project we were shown looked at Semantic Annotation for IP. Presented by one of the project leaders Valentin Tablan, research fellow at the University of Sheffield, its main goal since the project began last February was to find a way to achieve semi-automatic semantic annotation with larges scale document collections.
I won't pretend to have fully understood some of the more complex issues about Semantic Annotation nor the complex structure of the system he and his team are developing, but from what I did see it's all about applying the annotation information (the method of adding metadata to the relevant parts of a document). Thereafter this is subjected to an ontological process which will give far more related information to data through a hierarchy of relationships in the terminology of a patent filing. Therefore this will improve the accuracy of results. However the conclusion was that for something even better, a hybrid model should be adopted that utilised both semantic annotations and knowledge management technology.
Another method on show was Text Mining, the goals of Cornelis Koster's project was the development of a deep linguistic search engine and in tandem to find an accurate parser - the analysis of linguistic structure (to put it loosely) for complex documents. By combing these to processes, Koster's aim was to create a Text Mining system that was tailored for searching through IP material.
An interesting point Koster made was that patent searchers prefer to search using older technologies like Boolean over ranked search because of the transparency that Boolean offers. Its ability to offer the searcher more control and precision with results makes it the preffered choice in many cases. This he said was what his project (PHASAR) would also offer with exact matches returned rather than ranked matches. The recepetion from delegates (who i don't think are easily won over) was warm.
The final project to dazzle us with formulas came from the University of Glasgow's Leif Azzopardi. Credited with being involved in two related world-leading projects; his task in the Findability Project has been to map how easy it is to find patents depending on the retrieval systems used. This examined the success of results by comparing the differences between Exact Match and Best Match systems as well as the analysis of how retrieval systems shape the access to patent information.
The audience seemed to like what they heard with the words 'fascinating' and 'inspired being thrown around on more than one occasion during the post-presentation Q&A session.
All in all, it would seem that the ambitions of 2007 are on their way to being fulfilled if not quite there yet.

Collaborating within the organisation for better results

As Director of IP Processes and Tools development for General Electric, Keith Dilley will be as familiar with the challenges facing IR specialists as anyone. He gave assembled delegates at the Information Retrieval Facility Symposium (IRFS 2008) a handy breakdown on how to get a team working effectively in the Informatics and Analytics arena.
The premise of the collaborative interfacing sessions asked a number of questions, such as what is the information seeking behaviour in patent retrieval? What contextual factors influence their behaviour? How can a search interface support collaboration in patent retrieval? And how can we divide labour, share knowledge and resolve disagreement on relevance in patent retrieval tasks?
Historically, Dilley argued the focus has been on the tools of IR rather than the processes of it. The 'bad old days' he explained were a time when patents were asked to be checked as a product launch date loomed. Poor briefings and communication between different islands of the organisation all compounded the problems for the IR specialist.
These days however Dilley explained how he takes a different approach with his team at GE and it made some worthy points, not least of which is that the solution to better IR should also come from the way you work, the solution not always having to come from a technical angle.
The method that is used at GE involves a number of factors such as getting buy-in from senior decision makers, by involving them directly, results become 'theirs' as well, because they have been involved in the process from the start. It's a good way of spreading best practice around by agreeing what objectives are going to be with all concerned at the beginning to avoid having to go back two or three times in the analytics stage because the aims weren't clear at the get-go.
To keep facilitating this Dilley suggested sharing preliminary results and if necessary modify the search details, it was necessary to share the lessons of best practice
Perhaps a little more obvious was the suggestion not to share results in a dull spreadsheet but utilise a variety of tools to present information in interesting and unique ways
Admittedly the procedures suggested are better suited to large, resource wealthy organisations, but the lessons on offer here can use scaled back technology to apply to the smaller companies operating with a more disparate team.

Annotation and Ontologies in the context of patent retrieval

So far, the Information Retrieval Facility Symposium (IRFS) has pretty much focused on tricky issues surrounding the search of patent data, or rather from the IR specialists point of view. Approaching this issue from the other side was Pierre Buffet, Executive Vice President of Questel (and co-founder). His presentation "How NLP techniques can and should help in structuring Patent Information" aimed to explained to us how that could and should be done. For the uninitiated NLP techniques refers to Natural language processing, the relationship between how computers interact with human language.
Stressing that in order to improve IR, the structure of patent documents needs to alter. Buffet gave delegates a variety of examples of what patents are comprised of and the areas that they need to change to be more searchable.
For example the variety of language styles used between a patent disclosure and a patent claim can widely alter, patent filings with a corresponding drawing are "a nightmare to map the differences between the illustration and the description" Data held in patents in the form of tables, however small can be crucial information the researcher was hunting for. This is because it is difficult to search a table and still keep the understanding as to what it says when viewed as a standalone piece of information.
The way citations are currently applied is also a cause for concern considering that there are no standards, the example that Buffet gave us from his own organisations' files had different styles all within one page. One salient point Buffet added to this was the frequency of hyperlinks used in citations the problem of course was how long would the pages they linked to remain online? Ten years? Five years?
The classification of patent materials also received somewhat of a drubbing with Buffet offering us a reminder as to what classification is for (the arrangement of a collection of objects in a single dimensional world). This was for the purpose of storage and when needed retrieval at a later time. The problem I think he was arguing with this is that these 'one-dimensional worlds' are weak because the systems in place USCLASS, (USA) ECLA (Europe) and Japanese FI are culturally specific.
Some standardisation wouldn't go amiss I presume.
As Buffet says though, "Describing a document isn't classifying a document"
There were plenty of suggestions mooted on how to get around these problems (linking descriptive items in an illustration to the same descriptive items within the text area as well as the necessity of standardisation of data such as in the area of statistical analysis.
Critically though, few would disagree with Buffet that what the IR/IP worlds need to find is a way of deciding who takes responsibility for what.

The challenge of Multi-language Patent data

The opening sessions from the IRFS in Vienna have been dominated by the need to find workable solutions to retrieving and translating multi-language patent information. In particular that from Asia.
In the last 30 years the amount of information from the region has exploded. Originating mainly from Japan - China, Korea and Taiwan are doing their level best to catch up. In total half of all patent application filings now originate from the region.
From the limited number of options available, finding accurate patent information can be achieved in several ways, at present the options available are as follows such as manual human translation - slow and the most expensive option; automatic Machine translation is faster but besieged by the complexity of differences of language context between different global areas. A hybrid of the two methods mentioned above sees Human assisted translation as a possibility.
In his presentation Professor Jian-Yun Nie from University of Montreal outlined what he thought the ideal system should be (using the analogy of 3 cogs in a translation machine.
1) Query in English goes in, this then is automatically translated into an Asian Language,
2) The exact required information is then retrieved.
3) That information is then accessible to be read in English.
Sounds simple enough but it's a tough problem to crack because due to the many differences in language structure between the West and Asia a number of obstacles will need to be overcome such as the way different terms apply to different words and to consider this when applying the relevant technology.
In part there is the need to recognise the relationship between these different terms - but the real question seems to be how do you determine that relationship? How do you weight the terms?
As far as language structure is concerned consider for a moment that the Chinese language doesn't use spacing in it sentence structure while Korean does, albeit sporadically and not to the same rigidity as western languages. There are also marked differences in how the Chinese language in patents is applied compared to the different but related regions of Taiwan and Hong Kong. From the presentation given by Benjamin T'sou, Director of Language Information Sciences at the University of Hong Kong, taking into account the differences in just one sector (the automotive industry) between these three areas is proving to be a major headache. It illustrates well the difficulty of applying the same problems to a much different culture with its own set of languages.
The suggestion was that what seems to work effectively right now is to use machine translation to get the gist of the document and then use a human to evaluate whether its worth digging deeper and engaging the services of a professional translator. This might be good enough for now but whether that remains true is another matter.

Information Retrieval - one year on

Last year, when I first ventured to the Information Retrieval Facility's symposium the fledgling event made no bones that it didn't have all the answers to problems facing the worlds of Information Retrieval and Patent specialists, it did however promise to make inroads into attempting to solve these by opening a dialogue between the two camps. The intention was to make better use of the expertise of both professions and therefore help both cope with the deluge of complex patent information out there. There was a sense of purpose if you like.
12 months on and a bigger and better venue hosts the 2008 gathering, by my (crude) estimate the attendance has doubled - thankfully though there is also more elbowroom.
Opening proceedings, a spokesman from the Austrian Council for Research and Technology Development emphasised how the Austrian economy (alongside many others in the developed world) depends on effective patent research.
Explaining that there are now 60 million patents filed worldwide, it was not that surprising to here the industry is worth 60billion Euros. With 3,000 patent applications filed each day across the globe (at least half of which originate in Asia) the scale of information to contend with for professionals is staggering.
All our effort is being made to bring these new technologies to the forefront, "it will be worth the effort" he said
Meanwhile, John Tait, Chief Scientific Officer for the IRF outlined the challenges that still faced the industry as well as the current scenario facing the IR and IP worlds, he suggested that the IP community had not fully embraced the full scope of search technology of the last 15 years, but the purpose of the IRF was to make both practical and affordable systems available to them.
With that proceedings moved quickly on to the formidable problem of multi-lingual information search, more to follow...

Information Retrieval 2008

Regular readers may remember IWR's coverage last year from the Information Retrieval Facility Symposium in Vienna. It was all about bringing together Information Retrieval and Patent specialists in order to deal with the complex search issues that dog the industry. In part this is due to the sheer volume being generated each year, written in a variety of languages. Also, the tricky and evasive nature of how patent filings are constructed is always there in the background.
As I catch up before the symposium opens up officially, hosts, Matrixware, are currently running sessions on IP for IR and IR for IP specialists. Practice sessions to see what delegates have learnt during the day have just started. I'll be sure to ask fellow delegates what they thought having now had the chance to sit on the other side of the fence.
Proceedings kick off tomorrow at 9am with the opening sessions discussing the information retrieval challenges facing researchers in an increasingly multi-lingual patent world. More then...

Speaker of the week - Mary Ellen Bates

Mary Ellen Bates, Owner, Bates Information Services, USA
Day 1: Track 2 - Breathing new life into search
Mary is speaking on - Building and customising search engines: how you can out Google Google
Q: Which are the most important topics, for you personally, due to be discussed at the Online Information Conference 2008 and why?
Mary: Probably all the Web 2.0 topics. What's challenging for me is keeping up with all the interesting applications people have come up with to leverage the communities and networks in the collaborative web. Web 2.0 feels as game-changing now as the web did 10 years ago - we're just in the early stages of this evolution, and we're going to be seeing a lot of flashes in the pan as well as solid innovations. What I appreciate so much about the Online Information conference is that I have a chance to hear a lot of speakers with many different perspectives on how to Web 2.0-ify ourselves.
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Q: Which tracks would you recommend to delegates attending the conference?
Mary: It really depends on why you're at the conference. As I said, Web 2.0 topics are in my radar right now, so the "Web 2.0 After the Buzz" track is one I'd highly recommend, as a way to get a lot of new ideas on how to find and use Web 2.0 content most effectively. I'm particularly intrigued with the "ROI 2.0 - the evolution of the bottom line" sessions. I'm seeing a lot more attention being paid to R.O.P. - return on participation. Particularly among digital natives, the concern isn't just "what can I get out of this resource " but "what will I get back if I participate?" That means that we're starting to assume that we will be interacting with information resources, not just using them. That's a really exciting prospect.
And, as an information professional in an "alternative" career, I'm looking forward to hearing the presentations in the "Information Professionals Surviving and Thriving in the New Age". It's more and more critical that we info pros continually redefine ourselves, as the information environment changes. Thinking about this in the context of this conference means that we'll be integrating new technologies into our vision of what our roles are.
Q: What are you looking forward to most about participating in Online Information 2008?
Mary: That's a hard question! I always find the sessions thought-provoking, and the exhibit hall always has a lot of the vendors I have wanted to talk with. But what I look forward to most are the random conversations outside the conference session rooms. It's exciting to see a crowd of people all talking about information, and I always come away with new ideas and new contacts.
Q: If you had to choose only one - which social network would you recommend to colleagues?
Mary: Probably LinkedIn, but only because that is where most of my contacts hang out. I have found that it's a lot easier to find the contact I'm looking for on LinkedIn than other social network. If that's what a colleague is looking for, then LinkedIn may have the best features. If, on the other hand, I was talking with someone who wanted to create communities on a network, I would probably recommend Facebook or even a build-your-own network like Ning.
Q: And finally, just out of interest - where are you planning to spend Christmas this year?
Mary: I'm not much of a Christmas person; my main holiday is Thanksgiving here in the US. My partner and I are having both sets of families over, which will mean somewhere between 20 and 25 people. Plus two dogs. And a turkey cooked by a vegetarian. It's a wonderful holiday that focuses on family and food, and I really enjoy opening my house to lots of people I love.
About Mary Ellen Bates
Mary Ellen is the owner of Bates Information Services, providing business research to business professionals, and consulting and training services services to the information industry. She has been an online researcher since the days of keypunch cards.
Firm principal and founder Mary Ellen Bates is widely known as one of the nation's leading business researchers, with more than 25 years of experience in this discipline.
She has written hundreds of articles and white papers, conducted hundreds of speaking engagements related to research, and has provided expert comment on research topics to many media outlets including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Business Week, Forbes, National Public Radio, Wired, Computerworld, and more. Bates also routinely conducts workshops and training programs on various aspects of online and Internet research.
www.batesinfo.com
For more information, or to view the conference programme in full, please visit:
www.online-information.co.uk/conference

Collaboration 2.0

In these economically troubled times, the content management vendors have managed to jump onto something rather tangible that might help them sell more products. Basically, give your staff tools to help them collaborate better and somewhere along the line it'll benefit your bottom line. Or that's the way the story is usually told.
So we had Alfresco and RedDot launching new products last week, the latter of course in the web content management space and the former probably the best known open source ECM vendor around, which has been gaining pretty impressive adoption in the enterprise space. Although RedDot has been criticised by some of the analysts for failing to innovate at the pace required by its customers, maybe since its acquisition by ECM giant OpenText, its new Web Solutions Suite ticks most of the right boxes.
The main message behind the release seems to be to let firms harness the power of Web 2.0 tools like blogs and wikis on their internally and externally facing sites, while retaining the vital enterprise control over content that often puts companies off the brave new world of Web 2.0. So it's about encouraging collaboration on intranets and extranets but giving IT administrators vitally the final say over what content goes where, which is important for your compliance efforts.
Alfresco has released Enterprise Edition 3.0, which is focused a great deal not on the web side but on document collaboration, although it also draws heavily on Web 2.0 features and ideals. The most interesting, and judging by initial feedback on the product, the most popular, feature is Alfresco Share, which allows users to capture, share and retrieve information. It's also got handy functionality for creating virtual teams for projects, and a neat Facebook-like activity feed feature, which allows users to see who's doing what in a project and if there are any important updates.
The key, according to the firm, was to democratise the process of collaborative content management, which is I guess the holy grail for ECM vendors - putting the tools in the hands of the business end users, so that costly, timely, inefficient IT inteference is minimised. If we're getting nearer to that promised land then it's just in time for firms, as we all look to wring the most productivity we can from our existing human resources.