AlacraBlog

Choicepoint now Westlaw

Alacra is not currently a redistributor or reseller of public records information, or any people-specifc information with the exception of what might be found in a proxy or annual report.  Given the recent problems first at Choicepoint and now at Westlaw, I'm relieved we're not in this space.  I'm certain the other players in this space - LexisNexis and Experian for sure - are going to get lots of attention now to insure that the privacy of individuals can not be easily compromised.  European privacy laws are much stronger than those in the US, and it seems that US regulators will be looking at the European model as they investigate the aggregators and re-sellers of personal information.

Off to EBIC

It's that time of year. TFPL's EBIC (European Business Information Conference) is next week in Seville, Spain.  This year I'm giving a workshop (with Heather Hooper of JP Morgan UK) on how the heightened compliance and regulatory environment is creating new opportunities for professional knowledge managers, librarians and researchers.  Some fast facts: Between $100-$300 billion will be laundered in the US this year; close to $1 trillion will be laundered globally.  Banks will spend over $2.5 billion this year on compliance-related IT.  There's a lot of opportunity - Regulation, it has been said, is the mother of invention.  When I return I'll post the presentation. 

Forrester Research

In yesterday's New York Times there was a brief interview with George Colony, the CEO of Forrester Research.  The headline was As I.T Goes, So Goes Forrester?  Earlier in the week I received a copy of the premiere issue of Forrester Magazine.  First off, I liked the magazine.  It's a small format, under 100 pages, and the articles are generally short, sort of Forbes-like.  This issue's cover story takes a look at  Google's corporate manifesto "don't be evil" and how it plays out in the rest of the corporate world.  It wasn't a long article but it was longer than the other pieces in the magazine.  Unless I'm reading The New Yorker, for me, shorter is better. In the Times interview Colony describes some of the important IT trends Forrester sees and gives some detail about the IT research business - there are two main players now, Gartner and Forrester.  I met George Colony 12 years ago +/- when I was working for Knight-Ridder and have always thought Forrester published great stuff.  The magazine and the quick interview are worth looking at.

Seven Deadly Sins

I’m a big Rich Karlgaard fan – he’s the publisher of Forbes.  On Friday he had a piece in the Wall Street Journal called Carly Fiorina's Seven Deadly Sins.  Spot-on.

More Predictions

I was reminded by David Curle that Outsell Inc. also publishes an annual set of predictions – this year it’s called Outlook 2005: Power Play In The Information Industry.  Since Outsell covers 4500 companies in all corners of the information business, the predictions are pretty broad, but they are usually pretty accurate in their analysis.

Blogging

Earlier this week I was visiting with ex-Factiva superstar Ian Kennedy, who is now Director of Sales and Partner Development at six apart, the creators of typepad.  (AlacraBlog uses typepad.)  Six apart is at the center of the Blogging phenomenon, which, according to Ian, shows no sign of abating.  Ian commented that he was a big believer in folksonomies, or the creation of tags and metadata by ordinary folk.  Given Ian’s intimate knowledge of the Factiva taxonomy process, I’m doing some folksonomy homework now.  While I was in San Francisco, Fred had this post which outlines, from his perspective, the history of Blogging and how we got to this point.

Interview With Reuters CEO Tom Glocer

John Battelle has an interesting conversation with Tom Glocer.

Valuable Free Opinions!

Alacra friend and Board member Lee Greenhouse recently posted his 10 Information Industry predictions for 2005.  I recommend reading them – Lee is spot-on with some of his observations:  increasing channels and customers for pay-per-view content; greater market segmentation for content; improved search results due to better tagging and metadata; the continued decline of corporate libraries.  The challenge for the market is adding enough value to monetize the understanding of these trends.

In a much longer and equally compelling piece, John Blossom and the team from Shore Communications offer up their Content Industry Outlook 2005: Models for Success.  Shore focuses on 4 “C”s for the content space: Cooperation, Commercialization, Containerization and Consolidation.  The report wraps up with recommendations for Content Vendors, Technology Vendors and Institutions.  Although the recommendations are insightful, if market players are just getting around to heeding them now they’re going to be late to the game.

2005 Alacra Sales Conference

Just wrapping up our 2005 Sales Conference, the annual get together for our UK and US sales and support teams.  In addition to product and sales planning, we had a number of guests speakers:  Marty Cullen and Rob LePre from Lehman Brothers, Beverly Westle and Peter Petas from CreditSights and Alacra Board member Fred Wilson.  The highlight was our keen competition at Chelsea Piers, where rock-climbing was a big thrill.  Below are photos of Alacra-ites Matt Amory, Fran Falchook, Kathy Lynch and Carol Ann Thomas and Neepa Dalal up on the wall.