Enterprise Search Europe 2014 will take place on 29-30 April at the Park Plaza Hotel, close to Victoria Station in central London. The main theme in 2014 is showing how search can make a difference to business performance. The opening speaker is Dale Roberts, co- author of Decision Sourcing, who will be talking about making good decisions when there are multiple streams of information flowing around the organisation and decisions are being made on a collaborative basis. The following day Professor Elaine Toms from the iSchool at Sheffield University will be talking about the benefits of a task-based approach to search implementation, based on a substantial amount of research that she has been undertaking.
The Call for Papers and for workshops has now been released, with the deadline for receipt of proposals being 22 November. The main themes in 2014 will be
- Ensuring that search investment is matched to business requirements
- The relationship between enterprise search and big data
- Increasing adoption of open-source search applications
- SharePoint 2013 search implementation
- Enhancing website search performance
- Identifying and meeting user requirements
- Improving search performance
- Using search to support collaborative working
The panel session at the close of the opening day of the conference will be a Search Clinic that will give delegates a chance to ask an experienced panel of search practitioners for advice on any aspect of search technology, implementation and management. The panel at the close of the conference will provide a roadmap of developments in search that are likely to have an impact on organisations in 2014 and 2015.
The conference Advisory Board has been expanded to bring a wider range of experience to the development of the programme and the review of submitted papers. The new members of the Board are Susan Farrell (University College London), Agnes Molnar, Kristian Norling and Paul Cavanagh (Barclays Bank). The change in conference venue will give more flexibility with room layouts and of course the venue is only around an hour away from the baggage carousels at Gatwick Airport. News about speakers, workshops and networking opportunities will be announced on the website as soon as they are finalised, with the full programme being available early in 2014.
Martin White – Conference Chairman