Wednesday, May 16, 2012
8:00 a.m. - 9:00 a.m.
CONTINENTAL BREAKFAST in the Enterprise Search Showcase
9:00 a.m. - 9:30 a.m.
Making the Most of Search With SharePoint
Jeff Fried, Director, Platform Strategy & Innovation, InterSystemsMiles Kehoe, Founder & President, New Idea Engineering
SharePoint is nearly ubiquitous in the enterprise, and it is available with several different search options. Search is often one of the easiest areas to see immediate ROI from SharePoint, but it does require ongoing attention. The key to unlocking the potential of search with SharePoint starts with understanding how it works, so Fried and Kehoe cover this from content acquisition through user experience. There are also a number of techniques that are easy to apply and very effective in establishing and maintaining good search experiences. They discuss the different factors that determine relevancy in SharePoint and how to use them to make sure users are finding the content they are looking for. This session is designed for all users who want to get a better understanding about search with SharePoint and to learn techniques that don’t require any code to create a better search strategy for their organization.
9:30 a.m. - 10:00 a.m.
Myths About SharePoint and SharePoint Search
David Seuss, CEO, Northern Light
There’s an industry rumor that SharePoint was developed by a secret Microsoft team of programming tribbles. From his experiences with a multitude of companies using SharePoint, David Seuss directly confronts this rumor. If true, there would be many consequences. For example, you wouldn’t be able to share things using SharePoint and you would be able to find information with SharePoint Search. And if you could find and share things, you would have to worry about sharing inappropriately. Lastly, SharePoint would be an “end-user tool” that would break the IT department with support requests. Any of these sound familiar?
10:00 a.m. - 10:30 a.m.
The View of SharePoint From the Trenches
Daniel Webster, SharePoint Enterprise Search Architect, Summit 7 Systems, Inc.
Pouring money into enterprise search does not guarantee success! While FAST Search 2010 for SharePoint and SharePoint Search is Summit 7’s backbone experience, design considerations (and mistakes) seem to be common across all solutions. Webster shares what he has seen as major design shortcomings and shows how to overcome them to achieve success in this business solutions session.
10:30 a.m. - 11:00 a.m.
COFFEE BREAK in the Enterprise Search Showcase
11:00 a.m. - 11:45 a.m.
A201(a): Best Practice: Enterprise Search Implementation & Maintenance
Bjorn Laukli, CEO, Comperio, Inc.
Gain insight into the development, design and management of search-based applications, the common challenges faced by search implementers, as well as lessons learned from a veteran solution provider with years of experience delivering search solutions for enterprise customers all over the world.
A201(b): Infusing SharePoint with Content Intelligence
Jeremy Bentley, Head, Strategy, MarkLogic
While Microsoft SharePoint provides a solid foundation for enterprise information in an organization, it falls short of delivering a complete information management solution—especially when it comes to “findability” and control of unstructured content. “Content intelligence” turns unstructured content into actionable information.
B201: Open Source Search Card: Trumping Commercial Options
Stephen E. Arnold, Managing Director, ArnoldIT.comConstance Ard, Senior Project Manager, Arnold IT
The wild and crazy world of open source search is changing. Dozens of open source search options exist. Some have a high profile, such as Searchblox and Lucid Imagination. Others are unknown but to a few insiders. This talk focuses on several companies that warrant further discussion, companies that use Lucene as the search component, provide a server and a suite of components, and offer a simplified installation of Lucene/Solr. Each takes a different approach to the enterprise. Each firm has strong signals from the marketplace that an open search solution is needed. The challenge for proprietary search vendors will be timely bug fixes, a steady flow of new features, license issues, upgrades, and maintenance costs.
12:00 p.m. - 12:45 p.m.
A202: Solving SharePoint Issues
Paul Olenick, Senior Enterprise Search Engineer, ArcovisNicholas Bisciotti, Senior SharePoint Architect, Quantech Services, inc.
FAST isn’t always fast, and architectural challenges abound. Olenick takes a deep dive into troubleshooting FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint (FS4SP). The session is designed to demystify the platform by breaking it down into its component parts.With that backdrop, Olenick discusses methodologies for troubleshooting and diagnosing issues as well as what tools are available to support this process. Bisciotti focuses on designing intranets, collaboration portals, and business process solutions. He explains how to leverage SharePoint’s native search features in creative ways.
B202(a): Creating the Foundation for High ROI Search Applications
Mark Myers, Product and Solution Marketing Leader, IBM Watson Explorer
The key to a high ROI search application is to create the right foundation: Target a specific business function, involve stakeholders in evaluating the information needed to optimize that function, and develop metrics to prove the ROI of the final application.
B202(b): Text Analysis and Comparative Methods for Patent and Non-patent Documents
Michael P. Skinner, Manager External Analytical Tool Evaluation and Reverse Engineering, Intel
In the patent world, the volumes of data that might be relevant to any particular issue continue to explode. This session will discuss statistical issues; historical development, semantic patent analysis and current limitations of available solutions.
12:45 p.m. - 2:00 p.m.
ATTENDEE LUNCH and a Last Chance to Visit the Enterprise Search Showcase
2:00 p.m. - 2:45 p.m.
A203: Vocabulary, Metadata, and Classification, Oh My!
Evelyn L. Kent, Principal, Bacon Tree ConsultingKenn North, Senior Product Manager - Search, National InstrumentsMikhail Kotov, Product Manager, Enterprise Search, eBusiness, National Instruments
What to do with a 12-million—and growing—story archive was the challenge facing newspaper publisher McClatchy-Tribune, which wanted to use the archive for search purpos- es and to sell subsets of current stories to external clients. This search problem could be solved only if the primary problem of classifying the content was solved. Using Smartlogic’s product suite to create a rule-based approach with templates, editors could create an ontology without having to become information scientists. At National Instruments, an enrichment platform helps prototype new metadata, enrichment schemes, and navigation that enables it to get the right content to the right people. This solves the problem of multiple content repositories with widely varying metadata and recognizes that what internal teams want may not align well with customer needs.
B203(a): Designing Search to Meet Customer Expectations
Marianne Sweeny, Principal Consultant, Daedalus Information Systems
Search these days is pervasive. What do your colleagues and customers expect from search? It's not the Google Search Appliance, claims Sweeny, who sees successful enterprise search as requiring enterprise-specific data mining and user-centered design.
B203(b): How Natural Language Search can increase your conversion rate and organic website traffic
Jordi Torras, Founder & CEO, Inbenta
Semantic search is basic to ensuring that queries entered at a public-facing website return meaningful answers. We don't need documents that contain the words we typed in a search box, we need documents that answer our questions.
3:00 p.m. - 3:45 p.m.
A204(a): In Search of Findability
Ed Dale, Emerging Technology Associate Director, EY Knowledge, EY
Findability is a term that defines how easily information can be retrieved from a system through navigation or search. By improving findability, we improve the speed of retrieval for the content. learn about an ongoing process within Ernst & Young to improve findability.
A204(b): Search of Findability and Better Customer Experience
Peter Tebbenhoff, Senior Director, Knowledge Management, Oracle
Today, consumers call the shots. With globalization and the Internet providing nearly unlimited choices, power has shifted from corporations to consumers. This shift makes it difficult for companies to sustain differentiation based solely on price or product. The only option that remains is the customer experience. Learn how leveraging the RIGHT knowledge at the RIGHT time sets the tone for your customers’ experience.
B204: Open Source Search Safari
Otis Gospodnetic, Founder, Sematext International
Take an Open Source Search Safari to gain an overview of everything you need to be aware of when it comes to open source search. Drive through all key parts of the open source search landscape, with extra emphasis on those parts that are more relevant in the enterprise. The focus is on Lucene, Solr, and their new friends ElasticSearch and Sensei, with brief coverage of a couple of additional tools to keep an eye on. This talk covers all core functionality, plus noncore functionality that makes individual solutions stand out. It also addresses things such as performance and scaling capabilities. Gospodnetic doesn’t forget to go over the things that matter to businesses, such as vendor support, third-party tools, road maps, etc.
4:00 p.m. - 4:45 p.m.
ENDNOTE: Excellence in Enterprise Search
What does it take to excel at enterprise search? Our final session not only taps the expertise of some enterprise search luminaries, but also offers an interactive experience to help you reflect on what you’ve learned and where you can apply your new-found knowledge. The surprises at this endnote session involve some participation by attendees as well as some prizes. Don’t miss this exciting, innovative, and fun closing session.