Gilbane San Francisco 2007: February 2007 Archives

Premier content management event offers business and technology decision makers with strategic, technical and market opportunities in the expanding field of content management

SAN FRANCISCO--FEBRUARY 28, 2007--The Gilbane Group and Lighthouse Seminars, today announced that the Gilbane Conference San Francisco has greatly expanded its collection of educational programs, including sessions focused on web and other enterprise content management applications, enterprise search and information access technologies, publishing technology, wikis, blogs and collaboration tools, and information on globalization and translation technology. Taking place April 10-12, 2007 at the Palace Hotel, the event offers attendees an opportunity to learn about the latest information management trends and how Web 2.0 technologies can improve internal and external business operations.

With six tracks and 35 sessions to choose from, attendees have the opportunity to participate in a conference program focused on educating attendees about the latest content management technologies from experienced content management practitioners, consultants, and technologists. Many of the sessions in this unique event address the increasing importance of Web 2.0 technologies within the enterprise, such as:

Web Content Management Tools & Strategies for Marketing
Recognizing the importance of the customer experience on your site is one thing, but measuring and fine-tuning the experience to encourage customers should be an ongoing exercise. This session, moderated by Mary Laplante, Vice President Consulting, Gilbane Group, Inc. will look at both web analytics tools and strategies for guiding visitor behavior. Participants include Tony Byrne, Founder of CMS Watch, David Terry, VP of Marketing, Hot Banana Software, Jeff Cram, iSite Design, and Dion Record, IT Director, Meyer Corporation

Search and the User Experience
Usability has ruled the market success of Web search engines but users do not often have a voice in the selection of what they must use to search within the enterprise. Products with embedded search are most often selected for technical architecture and interplay with other tools. Search platforms enter the enterprise through the back door, an IT-driven process, or as an afterthought once other content systems are in place. Given that worker productivity should be a major driver for good usability we will explore how, if, and when users' needs can be part of the selection and implementation of search products to achieve great search experiences in the enterprise. This session will be moderated by Lynda Moulton, Lead Analyst, Enterprise Search, Gilbane Group. Speakers include Glen Barnett, Molecular, Erik Schwartz, Director Product Management (Enterprise), Convera, and Marco Varone, Expert System, CTO.

Enterprise Wiki CEO/CTO Panel
The Gilbane Group has covered the use of blog, wiki, and syndication technology for enterprise applications at our last five conferences and has seen the growth reach a point where the vendors are now able to point to a large number of impressive deployments at some very large companies. The use of wikis, in particular for collaborative projects, is something all organizations should be considering. In this panel we have brought together the leading suppliers to A) share the scope of enterprise adoption, and B) answer the tough questions you may have about using enterprise wikis in your own business and IT environments. This session will be moderated by Geoffrey Bock, Lead Analyst, Collaboration, Gilbane Group.

The conference program schedule, tutorial, track and session descriptions are all available on the conference site. For more information visit:

Complete conference schedule:
http://gilbanesf.com/conference_grid.html

Pre-conference tutorials:
http://gilbanesf.com/gilbane_preconference-tutorials.html

Conference session descriptions:
http://gilbanesf.com/gilbane_session_descriptions.html

Registration information:
http://gilbanesf.com/registration_information.html

About Gilbane Group, Inc.
Gilbane Group Inc. is an analyst and consulting firm that has been writing and consulting about the strategic use of information technologies since 1987. We have helped organizations of all sizes from a wide variety of industries and governments. We work with the entire community of stakeholders including investors, enterprise buyers of IT, technology suppliers, and other consultant and analyst firms. We have organized over 50 educational conferences in North America and Europe. Information about our widely-read newsletter, reports, white papers, case studies and analyst blogs is available at http://gilbane.com.

About Lighthouse Seminars
Lighthouse Seminars' events cover information technologies and “content technologies” in particular. These include content management of all types, digital asset management, document management, web content management, enterprise portals, enterprise search, web and multi-channel publishing, electronic forms, authoring, content and information integration, information architecture, and e-catalogs. http://www.lighthouseseminars.com

Contacts
Welz & Weisel Communications
Evan Weisel, 703-218-3555
Cell: 703-628-5754
evan@w2comm.com
or
Jeffrey V. Arcuri
Lighthouse Seminars
508-759-8180
jeff@lighthouseseminars.com

Posted on behalf of Tony:

The Gilbane conferences are known for closely examining the business case and potential project pitfalls in undertaking more automated content management. In short, the sessions can give you a good sense for the "why" and "what."

In my pre-conference tutorial, "Web Content Management Systems: Architectures and Products," I try to plumb the "how." How do the tools work, and specifically, what are some key architectural considerations you should understand before licensing any product? The session concludes with a critical look at various categories of Web CMS vendors in the marketplace today. Please join me in either San Francisco or Washington. Hope to see meet you then!

Navigating the Selection and Procurement of a Search Software Product, Lynda Moulton, Lead Analyst, Enterprise Search, Gilbane Group

Software procurement is a perilous business exercise and you won’t find many courses on how to make it a successful experience. From the vantage point of a twenty plus year veteran vendor (since before software was an industry), I have seen my share of bad processes but also enough successful ones to feel qualified to help you steer a better path.

You know the old adage, haste makes waste; nothing could be a more characteristic cause of software selection disasters. It isn’t so much the swiftness of the process for selection but the short cycle on several key elements that can lead to disaster. This session will help you understand where the time of a selection team is best spent and where you can short circuit some real prolonging time wasters. You will learn that the best solutions often come through:

• a streamlining of needs assessment
• a focus on a few targeted products
• a clear determination of the resources you have to implement the selected product
• identifying “drop-dead” issues
• setting realistic expectations

A good part of the session will be interactive. You will have a chance to get a lot of your questions answered and have your toughest problems addressed through dialogue with me and the rest of the participants. In the end what you need most is the confidence to be able to proceed with a process in which you, and not the vendor, are in charge of the outcome. When you begin with firm ground rules and a method for making choices decisively, you will have a much better shot at achieving solid business success.

Gilbane San Francisco pre-conference tutorials are the best way to get a serious jump start on our 3 days of education and exhibits, and on your information management project. Our instructors are the most well-known in their field, and are experienced consultants whose tutorials consistently get rave reviews from attendees.

This year's tutorials include:

Web Content Management Systems: Architectures & Products
Tony Byrne, Founder, CMS Watch, Publisher, The CMS Report

Search: Navigating the Selection and Procurement Process
Lynda Moulton, Lead Analyst, Enterprise Search, Gilbane Group

Principles of Web Operations Management (WOM)
Lisa Welchman, President, Welchman Consulting

Taxonomy Development and Implementation
Seth Earley, Earley & Associates

Complete tutorial descriptions are at:
http://gilbanesf.com/gilbane_preconference-tutorials.html

Registration information
http://gilbanesf.com/registration_information.html