Infotoday Blog

ITI Bloggers December 4th, 2003

If I were giving an award for artistic expression, it would have to go to H.W. Wilson. Wilson’s extremely tasteful, wrapping stand, only half of which can be seen in this shot taken just before the trade show opened today, featured art panels on the back wall that reminded me of the beautiful pieces that are hanging over in the Olympia Conference Center and which have served so beautifully as the backdrop for many of the portrait shots I included earlier in this blog. (The art in the Conference Center is, incidentally, for sale—but you don’t want to know its price.) Wilson’s stand left a very classy impression of what I know to be a very classy organization.

Dick Kaser

V.P., Content, Information Today, Inc.

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ITI Bloggers December 4th, 2003

Gale’s booth, part of a complex of Thomson booths that has served as a focal point for this show for many years, contained a beautiful serpentine header, wrapping over a line of workstations. It’s always clear that Thomson means business. Their entire complex of booths was designed to utilize the whole space for a maximum number of concurrent product demonstrations.

Dick Kaser
V.P. Content, Information Today, Inc.

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ITI Bloggers December 4th, 2003

I couldn’t help remembering the early days of online when every booth featured a Silent 700 terminal and a big black-and-white TV monitor—that I always feared would fall off its aisle-side perch and kill somebody. Today’s flat screens are a vast improvement, and they were everywhere, including at the Convera stand, where exhibit-goers could stop to hear Convera’s CTO Claude Vogel sharing his vision.

Dick Kaser
V.P., Content, Information Today, Inc.

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ITI Bloggers December 4th, 2003

An uplit OCLC stand glowed green as the last day of Online began

I’m probably not the only one attending International Online who needed to save visits with the exhibitors for the final day. Camera in hand, I went as fast as I could (and here’s where I could have used those two extra days I’ve been wishing for!)

Jeremy Causley, chairman of Lib-It, a provider of web-based information management systems for libraries and companies, summed up well an opinion that seemed fairly widely held by other exhibitors. He told me: “It’s not as many people coming through the hall as in past years, but it’s really not about the number of contacts you make at a show, but the quality. And I am not at all unhappy with the show this year.”

And for a year like this—after a year like the last couple—that’s about as upbeat as I’m afraid we can expect to get. I took it this consensus opinion as good news for the industry, that the market is starting to come back.

Dick Kaser
V.P. Content, Information Today, Inc.

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ITI Bloggers December 4th, 2003

Richard McDermott

In Q&A following his keynote (see Marydee Ojala’s notes below), Richard McDermott was asked to list his top-3 tips for those who want to set up strategic communities in their organizations.

McDermott quickly rattled off the answer:

1. Identify topics that matter to your core business.

2. Identify the leaders who will make the communities go.

3. Find ways to support your communities—get a senior manager to go on the record by saying, “This is really important. We should do this.”

Sounds like good advice to me.

Dick Kaser
V.P. Content, Information Today, Inc.

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ITI Bloggers December 4th, 2003

Delegates arriving this morning (Thursday, 4 December)

It always seems to me as if this meeting and trade show should go on for a couple more days.

There’s just never enough time to see everything, catch up with everyone, and go to every stand that was on my wish-list. But alas, what can be fitted into these three days has a finite limit. What is at the end of this day, is all there is–at least for this year.

Dick Kaser
V.P., Content, Information Today, Inc.

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ITI Bloggers December 4th, 2003

By late Thursday afternoon, almost everyone looks tired. The exhibition closed about an hour and a half ago (4 p.m. London time). I went up to the audiotorium for the wrapup session only to discover there wasn’t one. "Everybody just got up and left," said Karen Blakeman. "I think they’d absorbed all the information they could handle."

She’s probably right. It was a very intense three days.

Although several old-timers told me they thought the exhibition had many fewer visitors, Karen reported that the UKOLUG (UK Online Users Group) stand had been very busy directing visitors to the exhibit stands. And I noticed lots of contracts being signed and business meetings being conducted. So I’m convinced that most exhibitors had a profitable time in London.

Karen also told me the winners of the UKOLUG best stand awards. For large stands, the winner was TFPL. The small stand winner was FreshMinds.

Marydee Ojala
Editor, ONLINE: The Leading Magazine for Information Professionals

www.onlinemag.net

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ITI Bloggers December 4th, 2003

This morning’s keynote speech, given by Richard McDermott of McDermott Consulting, focuses on global knowledge and how to share it via communities of practice. Maybe I missed it, but in amongst his examples of communities of practice for ice cream companies, geologists, nurses, and lawyers, I never heard the phrase "information professional." It doesn’t really matter, since much of his opinions and advice are relevant to any profession and any organization. He noted that productivity for knowledge workers hasn’t improved very much, unlike manufacturing, but that service quality has probably increased. Communities of practice, as vehicles for thinking together for collaborative problem solving, certainly have the potential to create new knowledge and save companies money.

What makes a community successful? McDermott thinks that the most important component is finding people who are passionate about the topic. Plus, communities need structure and support. Too much structure and management oversight, however, will lead to failure.

Several German librarians that I spoke with following the keynote were quite enthusiastic about his talk and told me they thought their U.S. colleagues seemed further ahead in the area of knowledge management than they were in Europe.

Marydee Ojala, Editor ONLINE: The Leading Magazine for Information Professionals
www.onlinemag.net

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ITI Bloggers December 4th, 2003

The Royal Lancaster Hotel, just on the edge of London’s Hyde Park, was the site of last night’s well-planned inaugural International Information Industry Awards.

Following a glitzy wine reception and sit-down dinner, the evening’s festivities were hosted by John Suchet, a well-known author and TV news anchorman here in London. Man, could that guy could work a room. With his commanding voice and charisma, he seemed more suited for Shakepearean theatre than the ITN newsroom.

Suchet introduced the nominees and winners as if he were emceeing the Academy Awards. When the winners were finally announced after the requisite tension build-up, theme songs from bad American TV shows like “Hawaii 5-0” and “Dallas” accompanied the winners’ walks to the stage. But it wasn’t as cheesy as it sounds. It was actually quite funny, and the audience was more than enthusiastic. In fact, my own (albeit unofficial) award for Loudest Table In the Room goes to London Business Support Network Knowledge Centre.

But enough of my palaver. The following are the winners and their awards:

Arup Structural Skills Network (Innovation in Knowledge Management)

Partners Foundation/Zen Internet (Innovation in Content Management)

London Business Support Network Knowledge Centre (Best Intranet or Extranet Project)

KnowledgeBoard (User Experience)

xrefer (FreePint Award for Innovation in Customer Service)

Ernst & Young Centre for Business Knowledge Deployment Team (Best Team in a Business Environment)

Defence Science and Technology Laboratory Knowledge Agents (Best Team in a Public Sector Environment)

TechDis (Best Team in an Academic Environment)

Carol Wurcbacher, Mott MacDonald Merseyside Information Service (CILIP/Online Informational Personal Development Award)

Neil Infield, manager of business information services for Hermes Pensions Management (IWR Information Professional of the Year Award)

Sheila Corrall, director of academic services for the University of Southampton (Lifetime Achievement Award)

All in all, it was a lovely evening, and the 340 guests in attendance seemed to have a wonderful time. However, given the name “International” Information Industry Awards, perhaps some future winners might come from outside the U.K.? As was pointed out prior to the ceremony, there were info pros in attendance from all over the world. It would be great if future award ceremonies might reflect this diversity.

John Eichorn
Editor in Chief, Information Today

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ITI Bloggers December 3rd, 2003

The conference awards dinner was tonight. My colleague John Eichorn will give you the full report, but I am so excited about one award that I need to tell you about it here.

It’s the IWR information professional of the year award, sponsored by Dialog.

And the winner is

fanfare
fanfare

Neil Infield
president-elect of the SLA European chapter

Well done, Neil!

Marydee

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