Friday, November 28, 2008

She's Geeky - New York City Starts Dec 5th!

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Hi my name is Daniela and i am a Geek....

A 'She Geek' that is and that is why i am helping the She's Geeky organizers with the upcoming She's Geeky - Women's Tech (Un)Conferences:

She’s Geeky events are neutral, face-to-face gathering spaces for women who like to geek out. Attendees include women involved in all aspects of technology, including those who like to use geeky tools, not just coders, programmers and engineers. You don’t even have to be from the computer industry. You just have to be a woman who identifies as a geek.

If you’re any of these things, you’re invited to come to She’s Geeky to:

  1. Exchange skills and learn from women in different fields of technology.
  2. Discuss issues that affect women in the technology industry.
  3. Connect with other women in technology, computing, entrepreneurship, funding, hardware, open source, nonprofit and any other technical geeky field.
If you want to learn more about these events, check out the faqs

HURRY the NYC event starts on Dec 5th. To register for the NYC event visit the registration page. (there is a She's Geeky bailout offer for folks who have just been laid-off or on the verge of being 'downsized'). Here is a PDF invite to send to all your east coast She Geekers!

Here is a great video montage from last years She's Geeky event in MountainView, CA- where all the She Geeks proudly proclaim their geekiness!



If you are interested in how it went down in 2007- Additional coverage from the 2007 She's Geeky event follows:

The San Francisco Bay Area event is Jan 29th-31st and i will be posting more on that event when registration opens- but if you are going to be on the West coast go ahead and put it in your calendar now!

Monday, November 24, 2008

How the Semantic Web Will Change Information Management: Three Predictions from fumsi

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[This post was originally posted on the Synaptica Central team blog]
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fumsi is a digital and print publication that provides resources and tools for people who "find, use, manage & share information" . They are part of the FreePint family of resources for professionals in the Information Management field. If you watch or subscribe to the Synaptica Central RSS feeds (right menu) you probably saw the recent pointer to the rich write-ups by James Kelway also published on fumsi on Creating User Centred Taxonomies. Jame's personal Blog User Pathways is also another must read blog if you want to learn about information management from a information architecture, interaction design, and user experience perspective which i believe is extremely important to do in today's user driven information experiences.

This Sunday morning's reading lead me to catching up on my multiple feeds and one that caught my attention was this article in fumsi by Silver Oliver who has a background in Library Science and is currently an Information Architect at the BBC titled How the Semantic Web Will Change Information Management: Three Predictions

Prediction number 1: a move from the pull to the push search paradigm, or more ‘context-aware’ applications

Today's information consumption, still starts mostly with information seeking and retrieval- processes that in today's fast moving, overloaded information companies and cost saving conscience enterprises are simply not sustainable in order to be competitive. If you happened to be a defrag this year and listened to my presentation on Pulling the Threads on User Data you heard me speaking about the need for context aware applications and standards to make data portable- ultimately leading to one of Silver's first predications that "The Semantic Web could assist in this area, by publishing data in a way that smart applications can take advantage of and so improve smart context aware recommendations. The right thing, at the right place and at the right time".

Prediction number 2: the battle of the identifiers or the age of pointing at things

Recently here on Synaptica Central, Christine Connors- Director of Semantic Technologies at Dow Jones, published a post that touched on this subject titled "Taxonomies are a Commodity " in which she ended her post with the following:
"I actually like the fact that taxonomies have become commoditized. Why? Competition drives improvement - in quality, in focus, in security and in usability. These are areas that the semantic web community needs to focus on - in my experience, security and usability need attention NOW. Good fences make good neighbors, and when we've got good fences, we can make more links and learn to trust. Icing on the cake!"

Prediction number 3: the changing role of the information professional

Silver ends this prediction with the following statement: "The skills of information professionals will be essential in populating and managing the Web of data and, to make this happen, we must make the shift from thinking repository-scale to thinking Web-scale."
Back in January 2008, i wrote a post over on my personal blog titled " Sexy Hot Trends for 2008 and Beyond- Librarians" where i highlighted some of the opportunities I saw for people with library science degrees (and no you don't need to be female and wear purple tights!- i just love that Super Librarian image!). So i obviously agree with Silver's prediction- the skill sets and experiences that information professionals can bring to the Semantic Web can be huge and I certainly hope that the Semantic Web community continues to cross-populate even more with the InfoPro communities- here at Dow Jones we are committed to doing our part to make sure that happens. Working with our InfoPro Alliance Group (headed by Anne Caputo the new SLA president ) we are looking to provide some Webinars in the new year to address Semantic Web issues that need to be addressed in Enterprise- by Information Professionals as well as other parts of the organization- so watch this space for more info as we finalize those sessions!


Image|Flickr|Leo Reynolds

Super Librarian Image above is from from the NJ State Library which includes the great Super Librarian Comic Book . You can also buy Super Librarian gear if you are so inclined.

Saturday, November 01, 2008

Synaptica Has Got Its Head in the Clouds

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This is a re-post from a post i just published on the Dow Jones Synaptica and Taxonomy Services Team Blog- Synaptica Central. It is based on real conversations i have been having with clients that they can have access to our taxonomy and metadata management tool as a service instead of a client hosted application (something i find not may are aware although it specifically states it on the bottom of our features list).

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The way companies are using software has been shifting- and if your head hasn't been in the clouds over the last few years i am sure you have noticed the shift to SaaS (Software as a Service) offerings and more services moving to the "cloud'. From The Economist's recent 14-Page Special Report on Corporate IT titled 'Let it Rise' focused on cloud computing, Microsoft's recent Azure announcement indicating an even bigger investment to moving services to the 'cloud', the recent discussions around Tim O'Reilly's post Web 2.0 and Cloud Computing , and of course discussions about the economics of cloud computing in today's world it is evident that these models- which are not really 'new'- are here to stay.




It is a little known fact- one that i am trying hard to ensure the marketplace knows, but Synaptica is available as a hosted application with complete access to most of all the features that are available (this includes access to robust Web Services). And just like the recent buzz in the marketplace, having access to Synaptica as a 'service' is something that recently we have been getting more and more requests about.

Who has interest in a Taxonomy and Metadata Management tool as a hosted model? Well it is not for everyone who has a need for a tool like ours, but for those who are interested it really varies. For example:


  • Small to Medium, Corporate libraries or Product Manager/Marketing groups who are managing various taxonomies and do not have a lot of IT resources for bringing a tool in-house but can really benefit from a centralized taxonomy management tool that can be accessed via the internet securely by their global colleagues that work on the vocabularies collaboratively

  • Companies that have an urgent need for a tool but don't have the resources to bring it in-house quickly at that specific point and chose a hosted model as a first phase to get their taxonomy development and deployment done

  • Companies that perhaps have an technology architecture that is based on the LAMP Stack that Synaptica at this point can not fit nicely into

  • Start-ups who are building a consumer service that requires a tool to manage their controlled vocabularies (e.g. product categories, navigation taxonomy etc.) but who do not have the IT infrastructure to host an application like Synaptica (e.g. most of their stuff is already in the 'cloud')


So with our hosted model, we can provide at whatever tier a company is at- an affordable and secure way to manage an important part of their business.

And the best part? Well coming in at the low-end, with access to a Synaptica hosted annual license (with full access to all editorial and administrative features including Web Services), you can basically choose to either use one of the premier taxonomy management tools in the marketplace or if you are so inclined- you can instead choose to spruce up your office by buying a Hyacinth Macaw Parrot, or perhaps you can buy one of your employees a nice baby shower gift like this blinged out Baby Pram or even update your office outside picnic patio area with the Kalamazoo Bread Breaker Two Dual-Fuel grill - yes, it really is your choice.