Welcome to Online Information!
Online Information is a three day international exhibition and conference designed for professionals tasked with sourcing, managing and using information for business and competitive advantage. It is the largest event of its kind in the world, drawing visitors from around the globe to Olympia in London, UK. Here we present a snapshot of Thomson Scientific's busy week at the 2006 event:

 

Day one
Day one (Tuesday November 28th 2006) and a warm welcome awaited visitors to the buzzing Thomson Scientific stand. Representatives from each part of our business were on hand to answer questions and demonstrate our latest developments such as the powerful new authorship tools in ISI Web of Knowledge^SM, EndNote® Web: the new, web-based reference organizer and writing solution, plus Derwent World Patents Index® and Dialog® enhancements.
 

Celebrating the power of ten
In 2007 Web of Science® will celebrate its 10th anniversary; we kicked off the celebrations at Online 2006 with a champagne lunch and a presentation from Jeff Clovis, Director of Customer Education and Support. He illustrated how Web of Science brings researchers over 100 years of citation data, with the powerful search and analysis tools of the innovative ISI Web of Knowledge.

Recognizing inspiring leadership
Later the same day we were pleased to present the Quantum 2 Infostar awards to information professionals whose achievements have demonstrated leadership and inspired others in their industry. This year's winners are:

• Jane List, information analyst, The Technology Partnership (Cambridge, United Kingdom)
• Carmen Pacho Guiterrez, documentalist, Repsol YPF S.A . (Madrid, Spain)
• Sonja Van der Haeghen, medical information and drug safety coordinator, Astra Zeneca (Brussels, Belgium)

 

Champagne and dinosaurs!
On Tuesday evening Thomson Scientific was pleased to welcome over 400 guests to a candlelit reception at London's Natural History Museum. Customers enjoyed champagne, canapés and lively chat under the watchful eye of a giant diplodocus, with a jazz band providing musical entertainment.
 

Chocolate fountain
The ever popular chocolate fountain was also provided for guests who felt the need for a little sugar after a hard day on the conference floor.
 

Information industry outlook
On Wednesday Dave Brown, Executive Vice President of Corporate Markets at Thomson Scientific, pulled a capacity crowd for his keynote address on the outlook for the STM information industry, generating many requests for copies of his presentation. Mr. Brown identified some major drivers for change within the industry including information overload, technology, culture, and how the world of Web 2.0 and social computing is beginning to impact STM publishing. He reviewed the status of Open Access, examining the various degrees of “openness” and the different business models currently in use. He concluded with thoughts about adapting for the future, noting the ever increasing importance of truly understanding your customers so that ongoing development of workflow solutions which integrate content and technology are fully aligned with their needs.
 

Enhancements for patent searchers
Back on the stand, we were celebrating this year’s enhancements to Derwent World Patents Index, which are now live on Dialog, STN and Questel.Orbit. These enhancements enable patent information users to spend less time searching, and more time using patent data to support critical decisions, competitive intelligence, technology review and patent prosecution.

We were also pleased to present this year’s Roger K. Summit Scholarship award for Europe, the Middle East, Asia Pacific, and Africa. This scholarship in library or information science is awarded in honor of the founder of Dialog; this year’s recipient is Liu Ying, a graduate student at Wuhan University, China.

Over in the Information Masterclass theatre Liz Blankson-Hemans, Director (International) of Information Professional Development for Thomson Scientific, presented a Quantum 2 session on “Communicating Benefits: A Process for Communicating Information Centre Value”. The session outlined a six-step process for working with functional groups throughout an organization to develop service benefit statements for communicating value propositions to key customers.

 

Celebrating a lifetime of achievement
One of the highlights of this year’s event was the International Information Industry Awards, where Dr Eugene Garfield — founder of ISI and now Chairman Emeritus of Thomson Scientific — received the Lifetime Achievement Award. After a perfectly pitched acceptance speech, and a twirl on the dance floor, Dr Garfield was approached by many well wishers keen to congratulate him on his pioneering work in citation indexing.
 

Celebrations for a pioneer
The Celebrations for Dr Garfield continued on the Thomson Scientific stand the following day. Customers were invited to join him in a glass of champagne, and he was approached by many information professionals keen to inform him of his influence on their work, or to grab the chance for a photograph with a pioneer in their field.
 

Competitive intelligence
Meanwhile in another part of the hall, Victor Camlek, Director of Business Intelligence for Thomson Scientific, spoke to a large audience on the subject of “Competitive intelligence in the age of Google”. The major theme was that CI professionals need to develop actionable information in order to succeed. They continue to need a mix of databases including professional quality research tools that enable them to pinpoint accurate, valid information that is suitable for official documents.
 

Still busy on day 3
Such was the buzz on the Thomson Scientific stand that customers were still approaching us just a few minutes before the show closed! We hope that you enjoyed the meeting as much as we did, and look forward to another busy week at Olympia in 2007.