I continue to be both surprised and concerned by the lack of conferences at which good practice in search and findability can be shared. This seems to be primarily because of a reluctance by enterprise search vendors to support conference and events with financial sponsorship. I would have thought that they would welcome the opportunity to understand what organisations are expecting from a search application and to gain feedback about the functionality of their solutions. There are over 50 enterprise search vendors with either a HQ or regional office in Europe.
This seems to be a feature of the enterprise search sector as the e-commerce search sector has events such as Haystack, MICES and Berlin Buzzwords. Though there is an emphasis on e-commerce in these events many of the fundamental challenges in search are common to both e-commerce and enterprise search.
For this reason, the IntraTeam Findability Event on 13/14 June 2022 in Copenhagen will be a valuable opportunity to talk about the wider issues of findability, which include the optimization of information architectures and achieving a balance between IA and search for intranet information discovery.
The full programme for 13 June is set out on the event site but let me highlight some of the speakers and topics
- Sam Marshall talking about finding people and expertise
- Chris Tubb on zero-cost fixes to improve search
- Emma Chittenden outlining good practice in navigation design
- Karolina Kettukari and Agnes Molnar with their experience of optimising Microsoft Viva
- Peter Edge on managing the disappearance and renewal of knowledge as employees leave a business and replacements arrive with career aspirations.
- Nina Martelleur and Jorun Akerburg on their experience at Lantmannen
- Ernst Decsey talking about his work at UNICEF
- Jonathan Phillips emphasizing the role of analytics in enhancing findability
- Susan Hanley on findability and discovery strategies for Microsoft 365
Susan Hanley and Agnes Molnar are bringing their expertise together in a one-day workshop on information discovery and search in Microsoft 365 on 14 June – a unique opportunity to learn from two experts, each with well over a decade of project experience.
The above list of speakers is not final yet – some gaps are still to be filled. I am also on the programme talking about the benefits and challenges of AI/ML in search and intranet discovery implementation, and how to read between the lines of enterprise search vendor marketing.
As with all IntraTeam events there will be good opportunities for networking and I’m looking forward to catching up with intranet and search managers I have not seen since March 2020.
Martin White