*** Early Bird Registration ends: 16th of September ***

SEARCH SOLUTIONS 2009

Thursday 1st October
BCS London HQ, Covent Garden

Search Solutions is a special one-day event dedicated to the latest innovations
in web & enterprise search. In contrast to other major industry events, Search
Solutions aims to be highly interactive and collegial, with attendance limited
to 60-80 delegates.

The high quality technical programme includes presentations, panels and case
studies in which delegates present and share opinions, insight and expertise.

The event should appeal to designers, developers, end users or indeed anyone
interested in the latest developments in web and enterprise search.

Provisional programme:

09:30 - 10:00 Registration and coffee

Session 1: (Chair: Tony Russell-Rose)
. 10:00 Introduction - Alan Pollard, BCS President
. 10:10 "Thoughts on Learning to Rank" - Mike Taylor, Microsoft
. 10:35 "Accessing Digital Memory: Yahoo! Search Pad" - Vivian Lin Dufour, Yahoo
. 11:00 "How Google Ads Work" - Richard Russell, Google

11:25 - 11:45 COFFEE BREAK

Session 2: (Chair: Andy MacFarlane)
. 11:45 "Location-based services: Positioning, Geocontent and Location-aware
Applications" - Dave Mountain, Placr
. 12:10 "Librarians, metadata, and search" - Alan Oliver, Ex Libris
. 12:35 "UI Design Patterns for Search & Information Discovery" - Tony
Russell-Rose, Endeca

13:00 - 14:15 LUNCH

Session 3: (Chair: Leif Azzopardi)
. 14:15 "Search-Based Applications: the Maturation of Search" - Greg
Grefenstette, Exalead
. 14:40 "How and why you need to calculate the true value of page 1 natural
search engine positions" - Gary Jennings, WebOptimiser
. 15:05 "Search as a service with Xapian" - Richard Boulton, Lemur Consulting

15:30 - 16:00 TEA BREAK

Session 4: (Chair: Alex Bailey)
. 16:00 "The Benefits of Taxonomy in Content Management", Andrew Maisey, Unified
Solutions
. 16:25 Panel: "Interactive Information Retrieval"

It has been widely reported that the "Google Generation" is changing our
expectations of online information-seeking behaviour, and that impatience in
search and navigation and zero tolerance for delay in satisfying information
needs are becoming the norm. But should simple keyword search remain the
dominant paradigm for information seeking behaviour in the future? Should we not
be encouraging users to employ more sophisticated search techniques than simply
entering keywords and relying on best-first ranked retrieval algorithms? What
prospects are there for developing a more meaningful interaction with end users,
providing a constructive dialogue that supports and facilitates search and
information discovery in its widest sense?

17:00 - 19:00 DRINKS RECEPTION

The event will also be followed by the IRSG AGM (timing TBD).

Search Solutions is organised by the Information Retrieval Specialist Group of
the BCS (British Computer Society), and is held at the BCS Central London
Office:

BCS, 1st Floor
The Davidson Building
5 Southampton Street
London, WC2E 7HA
http://www.bcs.org/server.php?show=nav.8404

For further details, see
http://irsg.bcs.org/SearchSolutions/2009/sse2009.php

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Tony Russell-Rose PhD MBCS CITP
Vice-chair, BCS IRSG
Chair, Ergonomics Society HCI Group
http://www.information-interaction.net/