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.