Head of Yahoo! Research and Smithsonian Director of Web and New Media Strategy to Keynote Gilbane Boston Content Management Conference

Business Wire, Sept 18, 2008

Annual Conference to Help Attendees Address Growing Content Management Requirements Generated by Social Media Tools

BOSTON -- "Where Content Management Meets Social Media" is the focus of the fifth annual Gilbane Boston Conference (http://gilbaneboston.com/), set to take place December 2-4, 2008 at the Westin Copley Place in Boston. Produced by the Gilbane Group and Lighthouse Seminars, this year's lineup of keynote speakers will be led by the Head of Yahoo! Research, Prabhakar Raghavan and the Smithsonian Institute's Director of Web and New Media Strategy, Michael Edson. Yogesh Gupta, technology visionary and CEO of FatWire will present a keynote on how to best use the Web to drive business results and rounding out the keynote sessions are an all industry-analyst panel discussion on trends, challenges and opportunities and a panel session on Global Content Value Chain (GCVC) strategies with participants from 3M Company and Jonckers.

Gilbane Boston brings together industry experts from leading technology, enterprise IT, analyst, and consulting firms who provide attendees with the latest successful content management strategies, technologies and techniques. Topics covered at this year's event include: Web Content Management (WCM); Enterprise Search, Text Analytics, Semantic Technologies; Collaboration, Enterprise Wikis & Blogs; "Enterprise 2.0" Technologies & Social Computing; Content Globalization & Localization; Enterprise Content Management (ECM); Enterprise Rights Management (ERM); Publishing Best Practices; and XML Content Strategies.

Keynote Sessions

* The Future of Search

If search engines can make deep use of structured information about content, provided through open standards, then search engines and site owners can together bring consumers a far richer experience. We are entering a period of massive change to enable search engines to handle more complex content. Prabhakar Raghavan, head of Yahoo! Research, will address the future of search: how search engines are becoming more sophisticated, what the breakthrough point will be for semantics on the Web and what this means for developers and publishers.

* A Smithsonian Commons: Developing the Smithsonian's Web and New Media Strategy

Michael Edson, Director, Web and New Media Strategy, Office of the CIO, Smithsonian Institution presents the Smithsonian Institution's current Web and New Media strategy process and the cultural, technical, and organizational implications of the vision of a Smithsonian Commons - a critical-mass of content, services, and tools designed to fuel innovation and stimulate engagement with the world's scientific and cultural knowledge.

* Online Engagement - The Key to Success in Good Times and Bad

With powerful social networking, personalization and web content management capabilities, Web Experience Management (WEM) is the cornerstone of these engagement strategies. FatWire CEO and technology visionary Yogesh Gupta will discuss how online engagement and WEM are transforming how organizations are able to use the web to drive business results - in positive and challenging economic times.

* Keynote Industry Analyst Panel

This is an opportunity for conference attendees to hear differing opinions from a wide variety of expert sources. A second, third, fourth or fifth opinion will help attendees avoid making ill-informed decisions about critical content and information technologies or strategies. Analysts from the Gilbane Group, IDC, the 451 Group and The Burton Group will participate.

* Foundations for Global Content Value Chain Strategies

A Global Content Value Chain (GCVC) is a strategy for moving multilingual content from creation through consumption. The strategy is supported by practices in disciplines such as content management and localization/translation management. Attendees will hear how a global company, 3M Company, with a widely-recognized brand is building foundational capabilities to execute its GCVC strategies.

To view additional information on the keynotes as well as the entire conference program, visit: http://gilbaneboston.com/conference_descriptions.html

As organizations are working to get their hands around rapidly growing and increasingly diverse collections of content, new Web technologies are providing opportunities to create, manage, share, and deliver richer content more easily, sometimes cheaper, and often quicker. This does not mean organizations need to "rip and replace" existing systems - "content management" is not simply an application, but a strategy that employs a wide range of tools and practices that complement each other.

"The challenge is to figure out what works and what doesn't, and what works together," said Conference Chair Frank Gilbane. "What are the successful combinations of web content management, enterprise search, social media, infrastructure, etc? This year Gilbane Boston will focus on helping organizations move beyond the traditional mainstream content technologies to enhanced "2.0" versions."

To register visit: http://gilbaneboston.com/registration_information.html