Moderator: Fernando Pereira, Research Director, Google
Panelists:

Labels: discovery, enterprise, google, media, Peer39, queries, search, semantics, technology, wolfram alpha

Parsely, a semantic tool that recommends content, steers users towards content towards personalization and recommendation through their licensed content. When and how personalization really happen? A WSJ editor thought that it wouldn't be available until 2015, but Sachin Kamdar, Chief Executive Officer of Parse.ly, claims that it's here today. Parse.ly collects a little personal interest information from users, "listens" to their content habits and provides recommendations that can be embedded in any number of content applications. Market segmentation data and other demographics fall out of this information naturally. Parse.ly is available to publishers now for integration via their new P3 platform. I can't say that I haven't seen a few of these types of these plays, but it's a type of technology that seems well positioned to be just that - a technology play that is not trying to out-do publishers that can benefit from its capabilities.

Labels: parse.ly, personalization, relevance, semantic, Siia information industry summit 2010, technology

Moderator: Patrick J. Spain, Chairman & CEO, Newser LLC

Panelists:
Michael Angle, Co-Founder, President and CTO, Alacra, Inc.
Christos Moschiovitis, CEO, tmg-emedia.com
Martin Howard, Executive Directors, Transaction Advisory Services, Ernst & Young LLP

Martin: Traditionally CTO was part of management team, CTO would report to CIO. CIO was more business-oriented, but now it's strategic, responsible for I.T. function, more and more has that CTO function, more heads. Still see some confusion in those roles, one may be called the other, titles in flux.
Michael: In my case a COO, my CEO introduces me as the person in charge of everything that plugs in. For our business is incredibly important to the success of our business, not just about accounting and back-office big iron. Unlike top sales person, etc., they have their own domains of expertise, what I do spans all of those functions in the company, help to develop new products, influence how sales does there job, influence how we do social media
Christos: Looking at a transformation in the media industry, CEOs and visionaries trying to figure out the appopriate roles, the marriage between CEOs and the technology function being worked out. Starting to see the ascention at the CEO level that have substantial ownership and understanding of the technology function (COMMENT: Hmm, just like Silicon Valley has done for decades. Amazing. We're finally getting past the post World War II MBA management phenomenon and back to people who want to make products and services work).

Patrick: "Insurmountable Opportunities," what are you embracing willingly and unwillingly.

Michael: Cutbacks with "X" in the double digits, how can we help clients do that. I need to be a part of that charge, leading it if possible instead of following it. Have to have statistics on the ROI of content and services within client organizations. Unglamorous stuff, but you have to build cost control and measurement into the product.
Martin: ROI has to be on a business strategy basis as well as a cost basis. Organizations are asking CTOs and CIOs to be more strategic. Where are the very best places to spend to mitigate risk.
Christos: You bring to the table more than just technology but innovation as well, may not be an apparent savings at first. As technology has increased the size of organizations, more focus on profits and what it all means. We are seeing tremendous growth in our practice because of this reason, looking at what is most cost-effective way to bring in expertise. In each different are there are different value points. ROI is the governing driver.
Martin: Execution is also incredibly important.

Patrick: Issue of "fair use," has technology made the issue of fair use more challenging, are you more aware of what your technology can and should use?
Michael: Monitor for "bots" and scrapers, have automatic shutoff mechanisms. Sometimes you want to get scraped for business opportunities, but not every opportunity is helpful. Have to look at how it's being used.
Martin: It's a key factor for due diligence, for integration and acquisition intellectual property protection comes in very strongly. The law hasn't caught up in a neat way yet, but investors are struggling with the issues when they look at acquiring content companies. Deals can fall apart when internal protections were seen as inadequate or when the threat of its inventors walking away from the company scared off investors.

Patrick: More people contributing content, how does this impact I.T.?
Christos: First on copyright. Obviously the issue of copyright is very complex, involves legislation. If you look at it over the period of the last fifteen years, people have been running for the hills. Content has enormous value. People are doing extremely bizarre things to monetize content, yet people put it up for free to get the eyeballs. How do you think that we're going to protect it? NYT was wrong, if I go to a newsstand with the NYT, all I can do is to read the headlines (COMMENT: again, micropayments can help with this). The issue of IP protection is linked to this problem.
Martin: Content is still king, but that doesn't mean that content has to be turned by professionals. Bloggers have had a huge impact, most bloggers make money indirectly. Wikipedia hasn't put Britannica out of business but they've had to change. People aren't buying papers because they're reading Google News, good enough and free. For news, maybe that's better, reporters can be controlled. Some times people want to pay for access to the analyst for expertise.
Christos: We need to talk about the problems of the business models in a very fundamental way, the pink elephant is that the model is changing, we're going to face the came changes as the music industry has faced. Verizon is in a sweet spot, they own the last mile of connectivity, how do you translate that into the media business? Verizon "owns" Manhattan (COMMENT: well, not on an enterprise level), how does that translate into a media level? "It will go away after I am no longer president". It will always be the next generation's problem; well the next generation is here.
Martin: There is no problem with content, more than ever before, reading more than ever before, a simple problem of companies trying to make money the old-fashioned way.

Patrick: At HighBeam we created a mobile application, didn't make a penny off of it. Mobile has had such great promise, is mobile the new CD-ROM that will be surpassed, are we waiting for a good way to deliver ads?
Michael: In finance mobile is very real, many professionals have given up their desktop, how do I deliver information on a screen three inches square, how do you pull out the meaningful chunks. Need to get content on Facebook, have to look if it's appropriate to get messages on Twitter.
Martin: The technologies and methods of delivery is coming along, coming to a world where each person will have their own intranet (COMMENT: One of the more interesting comments at the conference. Compelling).
Christos: Technology offers something that was not available a year or so ago: location awareness. Can provide very specific content. The world of science fiction is becoming fact rapidly. Happened earlier with instant messaging, it's not that it can deliver quick messages, it is that you aware that you are available. It knows when you've signed in. Your phone tells me where you are and when you are available. Mobile is very real and will dominate the space.
Michael: Technologies solve the filtering and context problem, geolocation helps with that, but what if I am making a pitch to Xerox and want to close the deal? It's not so good for that specifically. For the user it's all about the filtering, for the provider it's about getting the right stuff to filter.
Christos: Now we have technology where we can sell words (hover technologies) for advertising, when you have content that's sellable to the word, how does that affect editorial and sales? The two groups need to collaborate much more closely as a result. Editorial can no longer be in an ivory tower, they are now responsible for creating community around content.

Patrick: Video is entirely new to some in the audience, if you're a content creator and distributor, do you need video or can you live without it?
Michael: Many sites include a video on the outside, more than a teaser, the thought of the day, accomodates how people see core information.
Martin: Video's best for some things, words for others, as aggregators piece them together, not sure that providers have to be all things to all people.
Christos: At the end of the day it's all about relevance, video is straightforward to produce. Can never be ignored, need to talk specifics, though.

Good panel, operational views are a challenge to present in a conference of this sort, I think that Patrick handled it very well and brought some really interesting contributors to the discussion. In Q&A, Michael Angle suggested in a tongue-in-cheek way that perhaps we need to fire everyone in I.T. over thirty. That sounds like a familiar refrain from my own youth, but with online media there's a strong ring of truth to it. The technology landscape is changing so quickly, you cannot afford to rest on your laurels on older views of how I.T. should be done and to hold back your organization. But in defense of more mature technologists, there are plenty of forward thinkers of all ages who are ready to rock with new publishing technologies.

Labels: events, management, SIIA Information Industry Summit 2009, technology

Moderator: Jim Kolleger, CEO, Genesys Partners, Inc.

Panelists:
Dan'l Lewin, Corporate VP, Microsoft, and Head, Strategic and Emerging Business Development
Neal Lipschutz, SVP and Managing Editor, Dow Jones Newswires
Steve Lohr, Senior Writer and Technology Reporter, The New York Times
Jon Miller, Founding Partner, Velocity Interactive Group, former CEO, AOL

Jim: Economy?

Steve: Federal Reserve was the lender of last resort, now the Federal government will be the spender of last resort, but it will be a targeted approach, not just shoveling potholes. Anti-trust needs to be watched, new appointee, worked on Netscape/MSFT deal, anti-competitive practices will be scrutinized.

Jon: Our consumer business means impact, as seen in our recent financials, as enterprises cut back economic impact is in the long run optimistic, scaling out of seamless computing is good, very powerful smart devices, blending content that's user-created is key.

Neal: As long as this downturn is going to be, it's hard to go back to what we had before boom times, technology growth and disruption will make some sectors like finance risk-averse, jobs creation is going to be key but it's easier said than done. Free enterprise will be less so than recently.
Dan'l: EBITDAs aren't right, Ballmer's "reset" does not mean that they are going to go back to having companies trade at old levels.

(COMMENT: It's a shame that easy money propped up the valuation of fundamentally weak publishing properties for the past several years. This kept smart money from being spent more effectively on needed transformation in the industry. That doesn't mean that a good part of that transformation hasn't happened, it's just that so much investment was thrown at failing models.)

Neal: America is going to be less important now, opportunities may be greater outside of the U.S.

Steve Lohr: Isn't it amazing how the world fell off the cliff September 15th?

Jim: Money velocity has driven information velocity, will old media dollars be even digital dimes? "A new normal."

Steve: NYT approach is to double down, selling off portion of building, hope is that you can swim to the other shore. Online model that was supposed to help change from print is changing radically.

Neal: Business models will have to rely on quality content and subscription revenues.

Steve: Can the genie go back in the bottle once everyone decided to give it away?

Dan'l: Big believer in news business, not necessarily the newsPAPER business. News is proliferating, consumption never higher, I use 20-30 sources, many do. What model to get from there to there is not known, not supporting things now. The genie does not go back in the bottle.

Jim: Political change, were you suprised about going from X-Box to Atari in White House technology?

Dan'l: They think that digital can have a big impact on recovery plan, it's a question of how you go about it.

Jim: The tools of the teenager are now in the White House (COMMENT: Gentle jab, Jim, the teenagers grew up. It's young adults, now, that are driving social media growth). Organization for America, can be a force for good, but can ricochet, microscripts may embed themselves.

Steve: Obama admin message has been top-down and consistent, stuck with message, no panic when Hillary won in PA primary, in that sense very elitist. (COMMENT: It's different in social media, not a mater of polling strangers but of listening to people with whom you have relationship).

Jon: The polling methods of McCain who was going with where the wind blew showed through.

Jim: 37 billion of stimulus coming.

Steve: Health IT was 20 billion, broadband was 6, broadband will increase. Will not just throw money at things, pay per performance with metrics will rule. We've done this on a small scale so far, will be interesting to see where it goes.

(COMMENT: Interesting to see how this year's panel is really not about gadgets, as has been Jim's usual focus. It's now about what the technologies have done to change society. See "Content Nation" for more).

Jon: Now a matter of public discussion and policy to make more open and avialable content happening.

Jim: Other technology trends impacted by these issues?

Jon: Broadband is a big deal, more recent countries coming online have more, we're falling behind.

Neal: Some major cities will not have major newspapers in print, the trend will accelerate. If the downturn is longer, the trends will accelerate.

Dan'l: Fundamental trends, end of Moore's law, virtualization is starting to happen, lot of infrastrucutre going on, action in conversations at this conference is at the application level, but the data is where there's a lot of action. CIOs looking at where they will balance their infrastructure, where will the storage be, where will the backup be. New markets forming in education, global markets where infrastructure is growing. Won't see a pause. Robotics is hot, vision, spatial, voice interfaces, all of these are evolving rapidly.

Neal: The value of content will be there no matter what the technology, delivery mechanisms will change, but targeted content still valuable, though it may not include general news.

Jim: Always a new wrinkle, what's the new wrinkle?

Jon: Most recent is video and social networking on Web, before that Yahoo and AOL, goes in four-year waves, things do change. But the stuff that rises to the top isn't every day. The industry will continue to re-create itself over time, it's not the thousand little things. (COMMENT: Disagree. Reference the Museum of Modern Betas, where there are more than 4,000 new social media tools in four years. It's the little and the big and the little that become huge).

Jim: Huge changes for the industry?

Jon: iPhone was a huge change, most revolutionary was inclusion of Safari browser in iPhone (COMMENT: Agreed, the platform will be forgotten eventually, the Web will not be forgotten).

Jim: Where does workflow fit in?

Dan'l: Where you are is becoming increasingly important, your location and context is key, what comes to you is key, location-based services are growing, those kinds of services will surface soon. Notion of location in the cloud that's yours that synchronizes with friends' devices is being investigated at Microsoft, social networking is a little out of control, is it mostly noise.

Jon: Speaking up for consumer side, at end of 2008, consumer usage of Internet surpassed enterprise usage for first time (COMMENT: The world is indeed a nation of publishers!). Consumer applications are driving much of the Web use, that will work its way back.

Steve: Where would you invest?

Jon: As a consumer-oriented business, my whole thing is what the consumer is doing. Closed on sale of Expedia from Microsoft, over 3 billion, bad week, dot-com crash ended travel, no precedents, Barry Diller said will consumers continue to travel in the future, and if so will they do more of it using online tools. Video consumption is taking off, makes perfect sense as it is. On a worldwide basis, video consumption is still early days.

Jim: Jon, you ran AOL, how do you see online game playing out?

Jon: Two big trends, consolidation and breakups, content and distribution breaking up (COMMENT: Agreed, but depends in some sectors on availability of monetization tools).

Jim: If you're a company, what do you keep your eyes on, where are the opportunities?

Dan'l: Paying attention to lots of stuff, my particualr interest is to look at entrepreneurial activity and where the money goes to support them. Pragmatic answer as to how they help them. A pretty good bead on that side of global innovation. Larger concerns are there for acquisition, too. You'll see more of the same.

Jon: Mentioned video earlier, what are people doing in mobile environments, need to understand usage contours. iPhone apps, haven't yet understood behaviors, will be profound in a lot of ways.

Steve: iPhone was not an original idea, why couldn't Microsoft do it?

Dan'l: We should have, we'll play catch up. Microsoft is a "hundred flowers bloom" approach to platform, not the tight store and service integration of Apple, historically.

Great panel as always, high-level discussions like this are not always productive but Jim manages to keep them well-focused.

Labels: events, innovation, SIIA Information Industry Summit 2009, technology

An innovative approach to events: vendors get to pitch to live clients. Charlie Terry of Marketresearch.com and Barry Bealer of Really Strategies get to listen to vendor pitches from companies who have called on them acting as fictitious buyers. I'll spare you the details of the vendor pitches but will try to provide some key points. Todd Mickelsen of FAST Search and Transfer pitched their stability, their market momentum and their ability to exceed expectations. Key question posed by Barry: how do we get legacy programmers comfortable with this new technology? Todd focuses on connectors that make it easy to integrate content from legacy systems.

Jean-Paul Chevet of Nstein Technologies pitched from the position of a small company focused primarily on helping publishing companies to be successful in electronic publishing. Put together a portal for Wolters Kluwer that allows users to build a book with just the content that they need. Jean-Paul went into the details, emphasized that the "how" of creating content matters and managing time-to-market for a solution. Audience response: do you need to work with integrators to get these types of technologies? J-P: we have an in-house team, typical implementation 2-5 months with two developers.

Debby Richman outlined the pitch for Collarity, a 2-year old startup that enables improved content discovery through developing clustered communities of interest. A sliding widget on their search interface allows a user to indicate whether they want search results that match their personal profile as well as clustered tag clouds, related content suggestions. The goal is to build natural communities out of generic Web site traffic. They don't charge for the technology, they share in ad revenues.

I am getting second-day live blogging fade, so my apologies for the abbreviated entry. A clever concept for looking at the vendor evaluation process. Overall FAST, being a large incumbent, can come in and say that they solve everything - and in some instances perhaps they can - but the pitch gets bogged down in the usual I.T. box diagrams and doesn't get to business benefits quickly enough. The Nstein pitch is compelling in presenting benefits and payback as well as their real-world expertise with publishing, but needs to tune its implementation success stories. Collarity has a very interesting tool for improving the value of search results in context, but it seems to be the typical tool-as-a-product pitch that needs to focus more on spelling out what the problem is that's being solved up front.

Labels: Collarity, FAST, Nstein, SIIA Content Forum 2007, technology

Thomas Falconer of Source Media, a veteran of engineering online transformations for traditional publishers, reflected on how IT people are very comfortable with social media technologies and other leading capabilities in ways that editorial is still beginning to adopt. SourceMedia has launched its first born-on-the-web publication called AdvisorMax for financial advisors, which has triple the growth of print corollaries. The ability to make good design choices in this new product was backed up by audience research that reflected which features and content were most important to their target audience. [NOTE: the default URL for AdvisorMax defaults over to a secure connection, important detail for security-conscious financial professionals.] Make sure you come to IT with metrics to measure success and clear requirements.

Ken Hoffman of Standard & Poor's takes content from S&P's ratings process and repurposes it for a wide variety of products and platforms for financially-oriented markets. Ken outlined the traditional development cycle - requirements gathering, have business analysts build specifications, review them with the IT group, iterate for new requirements, pass off to IT, iterate, and then launch. This leads oftentimes to the classic problems of misinterpretation, extended development, compromises to meet deadlines, missed market opportunities and "we'll put it in the next version" syndrome. Taking IT skill sets into account is a key factor in all of this, as well as their ability to provide realistic estimates based on technologies that are new to them. The need for a new product for financial advisors prodded them to use a wide range of product technologies. The solution: everyone was in the same room from "day one," which resulted in a working prototype in 3 months, a radical reduction in their development cycle. One IT person said it would take 8 years, another 22 - they are no longer with the firm.

Ben Telling of Hanley Wood reports to their CIO and is responsible for publishing systems and bespoke software development. "We're pretty much ripping out everything," with new content management, enterprise CRM. HW has 26 on-time projects and one failure - handing it off to tech is not the way to do it. Management may not understand a vision and they turn it into what they think that they need to get the job done - which means that they may envision an underengineered product. Business analysts get creative and add their own visions, and technology adds their own "special sauce." The result is expensive, failing projects that can't be supported. Poor vision definition, no drill down on needs, no clear business ownership, a lot of handing it over the wall. Must meet regularly with technology leadership and speak daily, constant communication and feedback, regular senior management updates, a cross-functional oversight team.

The problems - and solutions - that come from working with IT reflect the problems that come in publishing in general from dated command-and-control structures. These more collaborative approaches to IT projects reflect the more collaborative environment that is helping publishing in general succeed.

Labels: ABM, Best Practices, content management, Digital Velocity, events, technology