When businesses implement intelligent content, they usually adopt a “day forward” strategy that assures all new content is “intelligent” (i.e., is developed in XML and dynamically published), and they minimize the volume of legacy content to convert and migrate. Semiconductor equipment manufacturers – like many other capital equipment manufacturers – support products that last 30 years or more, so legacy technical content is critical to keeping that equipment up, running, and profitable for their customers.

In one such company today, that legacy content exists as monolithic manuals in PDF format that are hundreds of pages long, or as PDF renditions of engineering drawings, or as data in enterprise systems in relational databases or ERP systems. Field Service Engineers spend many hours per week searching for content across multiple systems – ERP data, content repositories, engineering websites, drawing repositories, knowledge bases, technical forums, email, personal notes – to find the procedures, drawings, reference information, and expert advice they need to effectively troubleshoot and repair customer equipment.

In the future, that information needs to be seamlessly integrated into a single-point of access that provides the Field Service Engineer with information that is relevant to their current context: the product they are working on, the customer account, the current configuration, the current problem or fault condition, the latest engineering information and best known methods – all without entering a word into a search box.

The challenge for intelligent content is simply stated: How do we get there from here?

In this presentation at the Intelligent Content conference, we’ll discuss this company’s unique pathway forward to intelligent content:

• The complexity and richness of content types and sources that must be unified through search and navigation for the end user (service engineers);
• Building a firm foundation with a sound information architecture including taxonomy and metadata;
• Taking the first steps with a modular content strategy based upon PDF documents in SharePoint, with a unified custom search experience;
• Transitioning in later phases of the project to intelligent XML content integrated with enterprise data in a seamless, task-focused interface.

Thursday October 1, 2009

1:00 – 2:30 p.m. EDT

Register here for free.

In this session, we will hear a case study from the Hartford Insurance Group about how taxonomy was applied to improving findability of Underwriting content.  We’ll also learn about the state of the insurance industry with regard to adoption of metadata standards and taxonomy practices. This is based on our research into how insurance companies are addressing challenges around content and document management efficiency and search effectiveness by applying taxonomies and metadata.

Join us to hear Seth Maislin, Senior Consultant at Earley & Associates, and Jeff Auker, Assistant Vice President at the insurance company The Hartford, discuss an enterprise taxonomy initiative for managing over 200 million documents in support of underwriting and claims processing. They will address best practices for organizing a taxonomy project, methods for gaining support from stakeholders, and operationalizing a taxonomy program for ongoing success.

Paul Wlodarczyk, Director of Solutions Consulting for Earley & Associates, will review findings of our benchmark metadata survey updated with new results specifically for the insurance industry. The goal of the study is to measure industry progress on a Metadata Maturity Model scale, a road map designed to help get practitioners started – and continuously improve – content tagging within organizations.

Topics include:

• Applying taxonomy to improving findability of information
• Case study – The Hartford
• The role of metadata and taxonomies in content reuse
• Trends in metadata maturity for the insurance industry

Register here for free.

August 05, 2009
1:00 PM EDT

An enterprise search audit will determine where you need to specifically improve search processes.  Based on actual user behavior and system results, a search audit will provide hard data for a baseline evaluation of search effectiveness.  We’ll discuss types of search audits, approaches for gathering data and ways a search audit can pinpoint the needs for improvement  in system tuning, metadata and content management processes.

Jeannine Bartlett will present Strategies for Search Auditing

What’s in a search audit, and why should you consider conducting one? We’ll look at enterprise search security audits, a framework for measuring the enterprise search “experience”, and an approach to website search SWOT analysis. We’ll wrap up with a range of ideas for interpreting and leveraging search audit results.

Avi Rappoport will present Auditing Search: The Invisible Part

The searchable index itself doesn’t get much attention, but there are very important things there (or not in there) that define the quality of the search.  Search log top query and click-through metrics can indicate missing sources and other problems.  The index may need to update more frequently, it may have security and access control problems, it may be tuned for smaller disk space requirements, and the document store may be insufficient. Essentially a Search Audit should also analyze what’s in the index, what’s not, and why.

Price: $50.00

Register here