For Immediate Release:

5/9/06

Contacts:
Welz & Weisel Communications
Evan Weisel, 703-323-6006
Cell: 703-628-5754
evan@w2comm.com

Cambridge, MA, May 9, 2006. The Gilbane Report and Lighthouse Seminars in cooperation with CMS Watch, today announced its analyst and end-user driven conference program for the inaugural Gilbane Conference on Content Technologies for Government taking place June 13-15 at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington DC. The conference program is divided into three tracks: Enterprise Content Management, Web Content Management and Enterprise Search & Discovery.

“We have put together a strong program that ensures every conference session leads off with a leading industry expert who can educate and provide big-picture perspectives, followed by a federal information manager explaining how they solved a particular problem,” said Tony Byrne, Conference Chair. “This way, the attendee learns both how to approach a content technology challenge as well as draw lessons from peers. And for maximum information exchange, we have avoided clogging the sessions with vendor marketing-speak. All in all, it promises to be a great learning experience for attendees.”

The following highlights several conference sessions taking place at the event:

Opening Keynote Panel: Industry Analysts Debate Current and Future Trends in Content Technologies

Government Keynote Panel: Key Issues in Federal Content Technologies

Enterprise Content Management Track

ECM and the FEA

The Federal Enterprise Architecture (FEA) comprises a collection of interrelated “reference models” designed to facilitate cross-agency analysis and the identification of duplicative investments, gaps, and opportunities for collaboration within and across federal agencies. This session will look at Enterprise Content Management in the context of the FEA. Inasmuch as there is no Content Reference Model, do the Business Reference Model (BRM) Service Reference Models (SRM) provide an adequate business framework for architecting ECM solutions? Could either taxonomy serve as an organizing principle for content in a production system?

The iECM Standard: what’s in it for you?

iECM, “Interoperable Enterprise Content Management”, is a proposed standard sponsored by industry trade group AIIM. The goal of the new standard is to produce a single set of functional requirements for process oriented web services that enable disparate enterprise content management systems, portals, and enterprise applications to interoperate – better enabling content to be exchanged, integrated, and managed securely between systems. Led by FAA enterprise architect and iECM co-chair Paul Fontaine, this session will look at how iECM can facilitate greater interoperability among content technologies within and beyond federal agencies.

Web Content Management Track

Building a successful business case for your agency CMS

Content management technology can help relieve overtaxed federal content managers and add value for the enterprise, but CMS implementations typically represent a significant, multi-year investment as well. Join a panel of federal managers who have successfully built a business case to justify the purchase of content management technology. Discussion will include business case justifications, anticipated efficiencies, and navigating the 300-B process.

Role of new media technologies in Government Part I: Blogs, Wikis, and RSS

New communications tools – blogs, wikis, and RSS – have proliferated in the past few years. In industry, many companies now employ these technologies for collaboration, knowledge management, and publishing applications, and innumerable vendors now market products based on these new technologies. Meanwhile, some government agencies have begun to experiment with these tools. Do these agencies only represent the experimental fringe, or are they early adopters of technologies that will soon be part of every agency’s bag of IT tricks? This panel will look at the actual implementation experience: when do blogs and wikis make sense, and when do they not? How do they fit into broader content architectures?

The future of the federal government web

Mired in the day-to-day operations of large, high-profile federal web properties, it’s easy to lose sight of long-term trends in government website management. In a lively look into the future of the government web, FirstGov.gov Senior Content Manager Sheila Campbel will identify key patterns and emerging norms, and leave participants with a peek at what the federal web landscape might look like 5-10 years from now.

Enterprise Search & Discovery Track

Enterprise Search: the federal experience

Google has made everyone pay more attention to search. But providing effective search capabilities across diverse enterprise information repositories represents a far more complex problem than indexing web pages and measuring link relevance. Join this panel of federal managers who have implemented different search technologies as they share lessons learned and advice for their peers.

To view the full conference program, visit: https://gilbane.com/gilbane-conference-washington-dc-2006/

About CMS Watch 

CMS Watch(TM) is an independent source of analysis and advice on content management and enterprise search. In addition to the freely-available articles on its website, CMS Watch publishes vendor-neutral technology reports that provide independent analysis and practical advice regarding web content management, records management, and enterprise search, and portal solutions. These reports help sort out the complex landscape of potential solutions so that project teams can minimize the time and effort to identify and evaluate technologies suited to their particular requirements. For more information, visit www.cmswatch.com.

About The Gilbane Group 
Gilbane Group, Inc. serves the content management community with publications, conferences and consulting services. The Gilbane Group administers the Content Technology Works(TM) case study program disseminating best practices with partners Software AG (TECdax:SOW), Sun Microsystems (NASDAQ:SUNW), Artesia Digital Media, a Division of Open Text, Astoria Software, ClearStory Systems (OTCBB:INSS), Context Media (Oracle, NASDAQ:ORCL), Convera (NASDAQ:CNVR), IBM (NYSE:IBM), Idiom, Mark Logic, Open Text Corporation (NASDAQ:OTEX), SDL International (London Stock Exchange:SDL), Vasont Systems, Vignette (NASDAQ:VIGN), and WebSideStory (NASDAQ:WSSI). https://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

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