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Visit
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Conference Program |
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Monday, May
10, 2004
PreConference Workshops (separately priced)
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Metadata
Strategies
9:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
Joseph A. Busch, Taxonomy Strategies
All the pundits agree on the important role of
a taxonomy for a search and retrieval implementation and
of user testing. But what is a taxonomy, how do you get
one, and how does it really make a difference? How do
you organize user tests and apply the results in a search
and retrieval implementation? This tutorial covers the
basics of metadata and taxonomies, how metadata drives
search functions, what taxonomies are, and how they show
up in site search.
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Building
Taxonomies
1:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.
Joseph A. Busch,
Taxonomy Strategies
This tutorial takes a deeper look at the specific role
of metadata and taxonomies in enabling site search to
provide answers to hard questions about enterprise content
architecture strategies. What does every content manager
need to know about taxonomies, metadata, and required
fields? How can a taxonomy and metadata model drive successful
search, workflow, content re-use, and the automation of
content production processes? What are the critical elements
of a business case for a content architecture? What are
the essential do’s and don’ts of designing
a metadata and taxonomy model? The tutorial concludes
by looking at how to test a taxonomy’s effectiveness
with users. |
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Enterprise
Search Primer
1:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.
Avi Rappoport,
Search Tools Consulting, Inc.
Learn the fundamentals about how enterprise search engines
differ from public Web search engines and how they are
the same. Acquire a solid grounding on how search engines
work, from indexing to the actual search to the results
display, using real-world examples, so that you can make
the most of the intensive, in-depth sessions at Enterprise
Search Summit. This workshop will cover robot spiders,
general index structures, simple query parsing, retrieval,
relevance ranking, and designing usable search interfaces.
It will explore the three core aspects of enterprise search:
search functionality, content searchability, and interface.
There will be some time to discuss attendees’ experiences
with enterprise search and to suggest directions for improvement. |
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Tuesday,
May 11, 2004
General Conference
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The
Case for Search
9:00 a.m. – 9:30 a.m.
Martin White,
Intranet Focus, Ltd.
Search is ubiquitous. The ability to search for anything,
anywhere is assumed in today’s workplace. Yet, the
perception is not the reality. Despite the explosion of
digital content and the popular use of search engines
on the Web, successfully finding information that is located
in internal and external data repositories is one of the
major challenges of today’s business organizations.
Martin White will define enterprise search and discuss
how you can establish search and findability as key elements
in your content management and integration strategy. |
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How
Search Engines Work
9:30 a.m. – 10:30 a.m.
Avi Rappoport,
Search Tools Consulting, Inc.
This briefing on how site search engines work provides
a foundation for the next 2 days of intensive instruction.
It introduces the technical functions of enterprise search
engines and what they can — and cannot do —
and how metadata and classification fit in the picture.
Elements include the special issues of user-facing search
versus intranets, robots and other content gathering,
index structures, query processing, free-text retrieval,
faceted metadata search, relevance ranking, user interfaces,
APIs, and log analysis. |
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Coffee
Break — Visit the Enterprise Search Showcase
10:30 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.
The Enterprise Search Showcase features tabletop displays
and demonstrations by leading enterprise search software
and solutions vendors. Attendees are invited to browse
the displays and compare the features of the different
products by talking with knowledgeable support staff from
each company. |
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Enterprise
Search Clinic: FAST, Northern Light
11:00 a.m. – 11:40 a.m.
Comparing industrial-strength search engines and their
advanced features is difficult unless you can see them
in action. During Enterprise Search Summit, the Enterprise
Search Clinics will present in-depth tutorials and demos
of eight enterprise search engines and tools taught by
product experts from the sponsoring companies. Attendees
will gain a basic understanding of how each works and
their key features and capabilities. |
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Inside
the Enterprise: The Decision Process
(Case Study)
11:45 a.m. – 12:15 p.m.
Mary Moulton, Margaret Rischel & Bruce Blanar,
Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.
In this firsthand example, find out how one company made
the enterprise search engine decision. Get behind the
scenes and understand how they put together a project
team, set the strategy, determined their requirements
for search functionality, and evaluated the options. Learn
their decision points and the facets of putting it all
together, all the way to implementation and deployment.
Get a sneak peek at their next steps as they explore how
to enhance and improve their search solution with metadata
and classification initiatives.
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Attendee
Lunch & Table Topics (Sponsored by Entopia)
12:15 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.
Join your colleagues and the Enterprise Search Summit
instructors and sponsors for lunch and thought provoking
discussions. Table topics and hosts will help you meet
and interact with others who have similar interests. Share
questions, experiences, and problems, and maybe find some
answers while you enjoy a delicious lunch. |
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Making
Your Buy Decision: How to Choose a Search Engine
1:30 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.
Martin White,
Intranet Focus, Ltd.
It’s a complex decision! How do you determine which
search engine is best suited to handle your content? Which
of the myriad of products can meet your needs, both for
today and as your organization grows? Shopping is difficult,
one size doesn’t fit all, and there are no return
policies. In this practical session, learn how to determine
your requirements and develop an RFP that will help you
make the right choice. Get an overview of the enterprise
search engine marketplace and learn which products excel
for which types of applications and which ones specialize
in searching certain kinds of content. Martin White will
compare and contrast features, analyze strengths and weaknesses,
and discuss the pros and cons of enterprise search engine
software products on the market today, creating a helpful
set of guidelines for working through this challenging
selection process. |
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Break
— Visit the Enterprise Search Showcase
3:00 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. |
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Enterprise
Search Clinic: Verity, Open Text, Convera
3:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. |
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Pace-Setter
Search Solutions
4:30 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Stephen E. Arnold,
Arnold Information Technology (AIT)
Using case studies and snapshot examples, Steve Arnold
will profile pace-setter search solutions and share the
principal findings of a recent analytical report on enterprise
search systems. The report identifies best-of-breed enterprise
search solutions that are especially appropriate for large-scale
commercial enterprises. All share a number of “must
have” features that will serve as checkpoints to
guide any enterprise search selection process. |
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Reception
& Enterprise Search Showcase
(Sponsored by FAST)
5:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.
Learn more about how to make search engines work effectively
by networking with your colleagues and the Enterprise
Search Summit faculty and sponsors. Take advantage of
the chance to ask questions and find out what’s
new and what’s in the pipeline, and build new relationships
by continuing some of the discussions that began during
the day’s sessions. |
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Wednesday,
May 12, 2004
General Conference
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Continental
Breakfast & Enterprise Search Showcase
(Sponsored by FAST)
7:45 a.m. – 8:30 a.m. |
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Information
Infrastructure: Putting Search in Context
8:30 a.m. – 9:15 a.m.
Susan
Feldman, Research Vice President, Content Management &
Retrieval Software, IDC
Today’s information-centric businesses are demanding
a single point of access to all internal, and even some
external, information. Portal and content management software
have made strides in this direction, but lack the necessary
infrastructure to pull together unstructured content and
structured data from diverse sources. This thought-provoking
session explores the emergence of a new information infrastructure
or middleware layer that contains modules to acquire,
manage, analyze, and create access to all kinds of information.
Today, we throw a search engine or database at every information
task and then mourn the fact that we can’t find
what we need. Sue Feldman will discuss how an information
infrastructure can change how we handle information within
the organization and what this means for search. |
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Information
Architecture: Integrating Search
9:15 a.m. – 10:00 a.m.
Peter Morville,
Semantic Studios
Just as interface stands on the shoulders of infrastructure,
effective search relies on a foundation of information
architecture. A positive user experience depends upon
the intelligent integration of the search engine, search
and results interfaces, content, metadata, controlled
vocabularies, and relevance ranking and clustering algorithms.
In this fast-paced session, Peter Morville draws upon
case studies, best-in-class examples, and proven strategies
to describe how to build a successful information architecture
and search system within the challenging environment of
a large distributed enterprise. |
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Break
— Visit the Enterprise Search Showcase
10:00 a.m. – 10:30 a.m. |
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Building
Blocks for Enhanced Search: Metadata, Classification &
Taxonomies
10:30 a.m. – 11:30 a.m.
Joseph
A. Busch, Taxonomy Strategies
A lot of mumbo-jumbo is thrown around today to describe
how to manage so-called unstructured content such as business
documents, Web site pages, and old-fashioned technical
reports and articles. On the one hand, we need to remember
what we already know about how to create a useful core
catalog record to describe a content object so it can
be found again later. On the other hand, we need to get
beyond some bad habits and obsolete ideas like inverted
file indexes. In this experienced-based session, Joe Busch
describes what he has seen in dozens of applied information
management projects over the past few years, and how you
can take advantage of what you already know to solve big
problems like these in your own organization. |
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Enterprise
Search Clinic: Inxight, Endeca, Google
11:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. |
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Attendee
Lunch
12:30 p.m. – 1:45 p.m. |
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Making
Value-Based Metadata Decisions
1:45 p.m. – 2:15 p.m.
Tom Reamy, KAPS Group
Adding metadata can be difficult and costly, and documents
merit different levels of content description, depending
on a variety of criteria such as authority, strategic
value, popularity, and re-usability. This thought-provoking
session explores strategies for balancing the level of
content description with business demands for ROI. Drawing
on practical examples, learn how to develop a strategic
perspective on metadata implementation that balances your
investment
in time, money, and effort with the full range of business
value of your content. |
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Search
& Your CMS
2:15 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.
Tony Byrne, Editor,
CMSWatch.com
Learn how a CMS impacts your site search functionality,
and vice versa. Tony Byrne, a well-known content management
guru, discusses how to integrate your content management
system with search, enhancing enterprise-wide performance
and ROI. He will cover practical issues, including what
search software may be bundled with your content management
system and whether it can do the job, content retrieval
within your content management system versus site search,
and dynamic versus static content management models and
their impact on search. |
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Break
— Visit the Enterprise Search Showcase
3:00 p.m. – 3:15 p.m.
Take advantage of this last chance to talk with experts
from the leading enterprise search software companies,
pick up some materials, and learn how their products might
meet your needs. |
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Why
Search Fails—and How to Fix It!
3:15 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Avi Rappoport,
Search Tools Consulting, Inc.
Implementing a search engine is never trivial and often
complex. Avi Rappoport’s top 10 reasons why search
fails will help you avoid the most common problems. According
to Pareto’s Principal (the 80/20 rule), she shows
how simple search solutions, decent interfaces, and good
integration with information architecture and content
management systems can solve many information access requirements—saving
sophisticated search functions and classifications for
complex situations where better answers make a significant
difference to the enterprise. |
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The
Enterprise Search Outlook
4:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Eric
Woods, Research Director, Ovum
Hear the outlook for the enterprise search industry and
peer into the future with Ovum analyst Eric Woods. Go
beyond today’s tactical search issues and gain an
insight into the technologies that are redefining how
people search and navigate through large volumes of structured
and unstructured information. Woods will look at key areas
of innovation that are reshaping search, including dynamic
taxonomies, expertise location and collaboration, multilingual
support, search analytics, visualization, and more. He
will argue, however, that the real transformation will
come from the integration of these innovations, establishing
advanced search and discovery technologies as core elements
of the corporate infrastructure. At the conclusion of
his remarks, a panel of Enterprise Search Summit faculty
will join Woods for a discussion and questions from the
audience. |
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