AlacraBlog

Trends and Predictions for 2006

There’s an endless stream of 2006 predictions in blogland and one way to see many in one place is with the delicious prediction tag. Fred has his own delicious summary and a series of posts called Predicting the Future. In addition to reading Fred I recommend John Battelle, Paul Kedrosky and Jason Calacanis.  I’m looking forward to the Lee Greenhouse 2006 list; he did quite well with his 2005 list.

 I don’t have any specific business information predictions, but I have identified four trends I believe will rapidly develop in 2006:

• Wide acceptance of real-time and mobile access to information (RSS)
• Easier integration of internal and external information
• Knowledge Management returns – social software makes it happen
• Internet search expands to many different flavors

I will be posting on each over the next couple of weeks. Happy New Year from everyone at Alacra.

 

Additions and Changes to the Team

I am pleased to announce some personnel additions and promotions at Alacra:
Barry Graubart joined Alacra last week as Vice President of Product Management. Barry is pretty well known in the information industry. Prior to joining Alacra, Barry most recently served as Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer for Leadership Directories (LDI) where he was responsible for sales, marketing, product strategy and business development. Before LDI Barry spent several years a text mining leader Clearforest.  Earlier in his career he had positions at Primedia and Thomson. With more than twenty years experience in applying technology to content, Barry is a terrific addition to the Alacra team.  Email Barry at barry.graubart@alacra.com or read his blog at www.contentmatters.info.

Geoffrey Opland also joined Alacra last week as our newest software developer. Geoffrey is new to New York City, as well as Alacra, having recently arrived here from the Motor City. Prior to heading east, Geoff was working for Ford Motor Company.   Geoff will be working on the Alacra Store - The Premium Business Information Source.

Alacra veteran Software Development Manager Albert Tamayev has been promoted to the role of Vice President of Operations.  Albert is largely responsible for Alacra's successful partnerships with The Economist Intelligence Unit and American Lawyer Media Research.  Karl Kaebnick has been promoted to the role of Development Manager taking the position vacated by Albert.  Among other successful projects, Karl built  our partnership site with Datamonitor.

Kite Surfing?

I was flipping through some newspapers I had missed while away and there was a photo of Alacra friend Pierre Wolff completely relaxed on his kiteboard in the New York Times. 

Wedding Bells - Congratulations Neepa

In the nine years we've been in business there have been a bunch of Alacra babies born, but only a couple of weddings.  Yesterday Neepa Dalal, one of our wonderful account managers married Vimal Patel.  We swiped this photo from Neepa's desk; hopefully she'll let us replace it with a clearer picture when she's back in the office.  Congratulations Neepa and Vimal.

More About London Online

A few other items from online:  1) I overheard lots of complaints about the FT Aggregator Embargo.  The FT is trying to force customers who receive FT content via aggregators such as Factiva to subscribe directly to either FT.com or paper.  2) Karen Blakeman of RBA must have mentioned the AlacraWiki in her session; we had a handful of people come by and ask for marketing material covering the Wiki which we were unable to provide.  3) On the flight home I was able to finish The Search by John Batelle.  Despite the fact that there's been so much written about Google recently, the book was still both informative and interesting.  It's a quick worthwhile read. 
Pictures of the Alacra stand:

On the left, Russell Taylor is ready for early morning action.  On the right, Ajit Tharaken, Martina Satherlund, Owen Hourican and Fran Falchook.

London Online

Packing up right now to return to NYC from London Online.  The conference was well attended this year; according to show sponsor Information World Review, attendance reached the levels achieved in 2000.  We met with many customers in our three core markets - Investment Banking, Accounting and Consulting.  I'll have some pictures of the Alacra booth posted next week.  Alacra's UK team did an excellent job setting up, running the event and serving drinks.

Google had a small booth at the show where they were pitching the Search Appliance.  Their booth was consistently crowded.  D&B made a return to the conference, sharing a stand with Hoover's.  The Economist Intelligence Unit was talking about their new Foreign Direct Investment database, which we plan to load on Alacra soon.  We're also planning to load the Richmond Law and Tax Online Regulatory database to complement our new compliance initiative.

Best giveaway at the show - a rectangular red box that said "Don't Get Caught Red-Handed."  Inside?  A pair of handcuffs with red fur attached to the bracelets.  The product?  LexisNexis KYC (Know Your Customer) solutions.