Metadata Management Forum

The 4th Annual Metadata Management Forum is 21-22 Apr 2008 in Melbourne. I am speaking on "The importance of metadata within a search engine context – Metadata versus Google". Other speakers include Rhonda Bradford, Australian Taxation Office on "Metadata implementation", Bala Rasaratnam,
National Australia Bank on "Managing the longevity of metadata", and Marcus Falley, Coles Group on "Using metadata to facilitate enterprise search".

Somehow I have to explain the following in 45 minutes:

• Custom software versus the web
• Improving tracking results with better search engine performance
• Understanding and weighing the importance of metadata and matching that to specific actions that would improve search engine performance
• Evaluating critical steps undertaken to align and leverage between a business/product strategy and an enterprise strategy
• Making an improvement to the underlying product development, takeup
and support through metadata interpretation, web trend analysis and campaign management.

The draft program:

Conference Programme Day One
Monday April 21st 2008

0830 Registration & coffee

0850 Welcoming address from the Chair
Mark Brannigan President
Data Warehouse Association Australia

0900 Session One – Expert Advice

Standards and uptake of metadata
• Assessing the level of uptake and implementation of metadata among Australian organisations
• Exploring the emerging standards and opportunities for integration
• Leveraging metadata to ensure a greater integration of databases to benefit businesses and consumers in the global marketplace
• Comprehending the value and role of standards
• Understanding the future directions of metadata
• Categorising metadata standards – updating your knowledge on standards: which standards and why?
• Learning from Australian government metadata initiatives to improve record keeping
• Metadata and governance, including standard deliverables
• Maintaining metadata standards and guidelines

Barbara Reed Director
Recordkeeping Innovation

0945 Session Two – Case Study

Metadata implementation – understanding the ins and
outs
• Analysing the challenges faced by businesses in their quest to implement metadata
• Ensuring quality stewardship throughout the entire metadata
implementation
• Demonstrating positive outcomes to build momentum and enthusiasm
• Integrating data, information and knowledge
• Overcoming resistance when implementing a metadata policy across your organization
• Considering the advantages of different approaches to make
integration work
• Metadata processes and how to establish common definitions

Rhonda Bradford Senior Data Architect
Australian Taxation Office

1030 Morning refreshments & networking break

1100 Session Three – International Award-Winning Keynote
Presentation

Part One

The business case for metadata – how does metadata
impact performance?
• How metadata deployment can give your organization a competitive advantage
• Weighing the benefits against the resource requirements
• Clearly defined strategies, goals and benefits of metadata as a business tool
• Business cases and performance management – where does metadata fit in?
• Identifying metadata projects that will deliver real benefits to your organisation’s business models

1145 Part Two

Managing metadata to reduce costs and aid in decisionmaking
• Implementing effective strategies that ensure your directories are populated with the most current data
• Clearly defining responsibilities for the management of diverse metadata
• Understanding how metadata can be damaging to your organisation’s integrity if it is not managed correctly
• Lowering costs for implementation and maintenance of your enterprise applications
• Demonstrating to senior managers the cost savings brought by the implementation of effective Metadata management strategies – thebest way to make your case

Ron Klein Enterprise Metadata Director
BMO Financial Group
2007 Wilshire Award-Winner for Metadata

1230 Luncheon

1330 Session Four – Expert Advice

Implementing a metadata policy for your organisation
• Understanding the need for having a Metadata policy
• Analysing winning techniques in developing metadata policy
• Selling it effectively to the relevant parties in an organisation
• Evaluating the best way to go about the implementation process

Kate Walker CEO
Records Management Association of Australia

1415 Session Five – Case Study

Managing the longevity of metadata – the importance of
quality maintenance
Implementing metadata will only get the business halfway there. It is essential that a smart strategy is in place to maintain metadata over time.

This session will offer you the opportunity to consider if you have addressed all the appropriate business requirements to ensure not only a successful uptake and integration, but also to maintain the long-term value of metadata. It is also imperative for business stakeholders to understand that metadata is not a ‘quick-win’ way of saving the business money; it is a part of the business that requires commitment over time to
yield significant ROI. This session will look at:
• Metadata management & the issues organisations face in making it real & sustainable
• Building awareness of metadata maintenance in your organisation
• Tools and capability
• Determining whether to centralise or decentralise the maintenance process
• Identifying the major stakeholders of the initiative to ensure long term success for your project

Bala Rasaratnam Data Management Lead - Enterprise Services
Technology
National Australia Bank

1500 Afternoon refreshments & networking break

1530 Session Six – Expert Advice

The importance of metadata within a search engine
context – Metadata versus Google
• Custom software versus the web
• Improving tracking results with better search engine performance
• Understanding and weighing the importance of metadata and matching that to specific actions that would improve search engine performance
• Evaluating critical steps undertaken to align and leverage between a business/product strategy and an enterprise strategy
• Making an improvement to the underlying product development, takeup and support through metadata interpretation, web trend analysis and campaign management

Tom Worthington Senior Lecturer
Australian National University

1615 Session Seven – Case Study

Maximising the role of controlled vocabularies to support
information quality
• Implementing practical thesaurus development guidelines
• Understanding a project’s thesaurus scope
• Developing an effective thesaurus structure
• Analysing business definitions, values and the role of taxonomies
• Addressing validation, data dictionaries and thesauri

Vanessa Booth Content Manager
Victoria Online - Department of Innovation, Industry and
Regional Development

1700 End of Day One

Tuesday April 22nd 2008
Conference Programme Day Two

0830 Morning coffee

0850 Opening address from the Chair

0900 Session One – Case Study

Using metadata to facilitate enterprise search
• Identifying who the searchers are
• Understanding the terms and hierarchy of the business taxonomy to
maximise effective findability
• Guidelines for building a successful taxonomy – using the KISS approach
• Categorising documents for search – a decision for governance
• Examining enterprise search architecture
• Developing best practice data processes, tools and models to strive for
metadata management maturity

Marcus Falley Senior Optimisation and Reporting Analyst
Coles Group

0945 Session Two – Case Study

From silo to single enterprise - developing a whole of
government metadata system to obtain best value out of
government information
• Valuing, describing and publishing government information assets
• Recognising the information needs of different user communities
• Examining the technical architecture
• Challenges and benefits in developing the system
• The data package - data, metadata and licence

Jenny Bopp Principal Statistician, Office of Economic and Statistical
Research
David Torpie Principal Statistician, Office of Economic and Statistical
Research
Queensland Treasury

1030 Morning refreshments & networking break

1100 Session Three – Case Study

Implementing and maintaining metadata – benefits
achieved and lessons learned at the State Records of South Australia
Over the past 2 years State Records of South Australia has implemented a records and metadata strategy to facilitate discovery of documents as well as improve staff productivity and management decision-making.
This session is a case of the implementation of that strategy and will
cover:
• Developing and implementing a metadata strategy
• Identifying the records to be captured, planning the metadata to be collected and implemented
• Implementing the capture of metadata into work practices
• Examining policies and procedures, embarking on change management
and training and maintaining the metadata

Karen Horsfall Information Management Strategist State Records of South Australia

1145 Luncheon

1300 Award-Winning International Case Study & Best Practice Workshop
Facilitated by:
Gregg Wyant Chief Architect and General Manager of IT Strategy,
Architecture & Innovation
Intel Corporation

Data quality and Service Oriented Architecture – what are
the requirements?
• Evaluating the metadata readiness of your business data, applications and technology architectures
• Implementing an enterprise architecture framework for explicitly defined assets
• Web services and the components of Service Oriented Architectures
• Specific SOA requirements as they pertain to data quality
• The specific data quality steps that should be taken to ensure success
• Business impact of information quality
• How data quality affects the bottom line
• How SOA repository improves programming productivity and increases re-use
• How to effectively architect a data integration and date warehouse strategy using an SOA data services approach to accelerate deployment, reduce risks and lower costs

Connecting metadata to information architecture
• Relationship between metadata, repository and architecture
• Metadata Tool Choices: distributed vs centralized
• Achieving buy-in from the architecture community
• Establishing authoritative sources of metadata and ownership
• Choosing between opportunistic systemic approaches to populating metadata
• Aligning architecture work products to Enterprise Architecture
• Capturing metadata services in the repository and utilising them at design time by architects

Analysing enterprise-wide benefits of metadata
• Measuring reuse of your enterprise architecture assets via metadata
• Valuing your enterprise assets – calculating business value
• Metadata governance processes and issues
• Expanding reuse valuation to all architectural assets
• Using reuse success to expand your metadata efforts
1700 Closing remarks from the Chair and end of conference


Workshop Schedule
1300 Opening and start of the workshop, Module 1
1500 Afternoon tea
1515 Workshop resumes, Module 2
1700 Close of workshop.

See also books on:

1. Information Management
2. Managing Records
3. Archives
4. Information Architecture
5. Metadata
6. Electronic Documents
7. Electronic Publishing
8. Data Mining
9. Preserving Digital Information
10. Public Sector Management
11. e-Government
12. Electronic Document Software