What is the first round review?

For the first round review, two judges review each product in each category. For example, products nominated in two categories will be assigned four judges. During this first round, judges participate in product demonstration s given by the nominees. Two options are available for the products demonstrations:

– Live product demonstration: Nominations walk through their product webinar-style with the judges participating as they do the walk-through

– Recorded product demonstration: Nominees may already have a video product demo that can be sent to the judges to watch.

We recommend that the nominees keep the demos to under an hour. If it is a live demo, remember to leave time for Q&A with the judges.

The first round review also includes product access. It’s beneficial for the judges to get a feel for the product on their own, as a supplement to the guided demo. Product access can happen in several forms, including temporary online login information or by sending the physical product to the judge.

I also suggest sending as much additional information as you would like to the judges. This can be additional links to PDF’s, videos, news releases, etc.

Who are the judges?

We take great care in selecting the industry experts who volunteer as judges. Each division reviews every judge application to determine if he/she is qualified. We want to ensure there are no conflicts of interest.

For our software and content categories, the judges consist of industry executives and analysts, members of the media, bloggers, investors, and even some customers.
For our education categories, we use educators and administrators as our judges. They are the users of these products and can best determine what products may work the best in their classrooms.

Judging is a great experience because it gives the customers a chance to review the products and provide feedback that the companies can use to make improvements.

How can you help?

We are still looking for judges in several of our categories in Content, Software, and Education. If you are interested in judging or can recommend a colleague please complete our brief judge application.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

Wendy Tanner is CODiE Awards Coordinator. Follow the CODiE Awards on Twitter @CODiEAwards

The information industry is in a time of tremendous change, but this new reality presents extraordinary opportunities for companies to develop new products and services and to find new markets and customers. As the industry is changing, so is our event – in 2013 we will present a new, unique, and compelling program for industry executives. Our goal is to challenge even the most established information businesses with fresh ideas, innovations, and strategies. IIS 2013 promises to be one of the most important gatherings for forward-thinking information industry executives.

The 2013 Summit will draw leaders from media, publishing, and information services companies as well as the technology and private equity organizations that serve them.

Discussions at IIS 2013 will be led by industry thought leaders including:

• Keynotes by George Colony, Forrester CEO; Brewster Kahle, Internet Archive Co-Founder; Nicholas Thompson, Senior Editor, The New Yorker; and Terry McGraw, Chairman, President and CEO, The McGraw Hill Companies
• Key discussions with individuals including David Kirkpatrick, Senior Technology & Internet Editor, Fortune; David Reimer, CEO, Merryck & Co.; Andy Prozes, Senior Advisor, Warburg Pincus; Denzil Rankine, Executive Chairman, AMR International; Scott Peters, Co-President, The Jordan, Edmiston Group, Inc.; and more
• “Breakthrough Talks” by James Peck, CEO, LexisNexis Risk Solutions; John Yemma, Editor, The Christian Science Monitor; Donal Toole, Finance & Strategy Director, The Christian Science Monitor; Jeff Shelstad, CEO, Flatworld; Steven Kuyan, Executive Director, NYU Poly Incubator; and Jeff Giesea, CEO & Founder, Best Vendor

The conference will also include a number of special events and activities, including:

• The SIIA Content CODiE Awards, which honor the best products and services in the information industry. This year, the CODiE’s will feature a showcase during IIS 2013 of all Content CODiE Award finalists, in addition to the annual award ceremony.
• The  SIIA Previews Competition, which showcases emerging content and content-technology companies.  This year, Previews will cross the 100th presenting company mark;
• The second annual Peter E. Jackson Innovation Award, which honors the late Thomson Reuters Vice President and Chief Scientist, and his profound impact on the B2B publishing industry. Dr. Jackson was an active board member of the SIIA Content Division. Keynoter Brewster Kahle was this first recipient of this award.

Finally, SIIA is especially pleased to announce its partnership with host sponsors Connotate, ProQuest, and The Jordan, Edmiston Group, all working with SIIA to create what is sure to be the year’s most compelling conference for the leadership of the media, publishing, and information services industries.

For more details about IIS and to register online, visit www.siia.net/iis/2013.

Kathy Greenler Sexton is Vice President and General Manager of the SIIA Content Division. Contact Kathy at kgsexton@siia.net.

DataContent 2012, produced in partnership with the InfoCommerce Group, is the only conference devoted solely to producers of commercial data products. For the complete schedule of events, visit http://www.siia.net/datacontent/2012/schedule.asp.  For more information or to register for the conference, members of the media should contact Beth Dozier at bethdozier@rational360.com.

The following Models of Excellence companies will be recognized  throughout DataContent 2012 and honored during a special dinner on October 10.  Each company has set new standards for innovation in developing and applying data-driven business models.

• Bundle  is a true pioneer in turning Big Data into a high-value data product. By turning anonymous credit transactions into unbiased reviews of retail establishments, Bundle helps consumers make smart buying decisions based on objective analysis. They’ve made an impressive start to bringing hard data to the business of business reviews.
• CapLinked leapfrogs the existing virtual data room services by providing a platform that is social, viral, mobile, affordable, and easy to use. CapLinked equips small- to medium-size companies with the same ability to raise capital, manage M&A transactions, and handle investor reporting that was once only available to big players. They have grown 6,000% in the last year and are assembling a community that represents the economic powerhouses of the future.
• eGordian - eGordian represents a disruptive new entrant into the field of construction price data, all based on data collected in the course of its other business activities. As it builds out community-driven features that will let users provide feedback on various materials and suppliers, offer advice, share plans and designs, suggest industry methods and use tools developed through partnerships with other companies, it will become a central industry resource. And that is the sweet spot for any b2b publisher.
• GovTrak addresses an increasingly important and complex challenge: finding, understanding, and tracking government legislation. GovTrak is a well-executed example of how the combination of data, tools, and analytics can deliver power to those who are seeking the truth.
• InfoArmy revolutionizes how a content company is built by marshaling two of the industry’s most powerful trends: crowdsourcing and community. Success is participatory, self-managed and self-reinforcing. InfoArmy is a true example of content unbound – non-bureaucratic, collaborative and exponential.
• Reachable does amazing things with graph technology and mashups of various contact lists enabling what it calls “social proximity selling,” where sales people can use identified “connection paths” to reach specific prospects. It is particularly powerful for larger organizations as a tool for co-workers to leverage each other’s connections. Reachable is a very distinctive offering with its own specialized functionality and value proposition.
• RedBeacon has reset the bar on lead generation by investing lots of effort to customize the negotiating and selecting experience, providing a highly-secure bid process, and even accommodating non-standard service requests. The real product RedBeacon has produced is trust, and they reap the rewards by keeping themselves firmly in the middle of all transactions.
• Speakerfile goes beyond a passive database by matching relevant speakers and events, and offers a private communications platform to keep communications out of its users’ cluttered inboxes. Speakerfile organizes a formerly fractured and inefficient business activity by combining a marketplace model with strong content management and workflow functionality to create a useful, high-value service.

Kathy Greenler Sexton is Vice President and General Manager of the SIIA Content Division. Contact Kathy at kgsexton@siia.net.

Gordon Anderson, VP, Content, InsideView

Gordon Anderson

 “The opportunities presented by the rise of Big Data are both vast and inexorable. But for all the chatter about zettabytes and petabytes, Hadoop and Hive, an obvious fact is often overlooked: Bad data doesn’t become good just by becoming Big. As processing information becomes easier and cheaper, data accuracy will become more difficult and more valuable.

In fact, the same factors that have led to the rise of Big Data are also accelerating the pace of data decay. As the capacity of systems to process data expands, the range of data that is processed will grow in lockstep. At every point in that cycle, errors in the underlying content sets will be magnified.

The challenge of Big Data, then, is not just to harness greater processing power, but also to address the limitations and deficiencies of content creation and maintenance. The challenge of Big Data, in other words, is a question of Right and Wrong.”

Steve Connolly

Steve Connolly, Lattice Engines

“Much is said about the proliferation of content and the incredible growth in the amount of the knowledge that is available to people and professionals. Advances in technologies in medicine allow physicians to understand cure rates and treatment plans. The legal industry has been benefiting from big data advances since allowing for pre-trial “eDiscovery” to occur. And finally, big data for sales is quickly gaining traction, but there’s still a long way to go. A recent CSO Insights survey revealed that 89 percent of reps miss opportunities because they still can’t keep up with information. That’s going to change and it’s going to happen in part by identifying the relationships that exist in content that reside within their CRM, marketing automation system, financial systems, in the social selling sphere, in press releases, and in public or proprietary collections. As the users become more accustomed to working with big data and achieve success, the questions will no longer be focused on which data sets need to be used, but instead on how to easily identify and understand the relationships between data sets that will allow reps to be successful. It’s this challenge and this value that generates excitement here at Lattice Engines.”

Jeff Cutler, EVP & GM, Vitals

Jeff Cutler

• professional, personal and social interactions, anything we want to buy, rent, lease or transact, and any decision we make including how to choose the best medical provider”

Jim Fowler, CEO, InfoArmy

 “In the business information industry the value isn’t in the data. The value is in understanding the change in the data.”

Sharon Gillenwater

“Ten lessons I have learned since 2009:

Sharon Gillenwater, CEO, Boardroom Insiders

1. There are no silver bullets–for anything
2. Business model/pricing is the biggest challenge and needs constant tweaking.
3. Failure is not bad–it just means you can cross that tactic off your list and stop wondering “What If?”
4. SEO is the smartest marketing investment you can make.
5. Google AdWords is a waste of money for B2B publishers with limited budget.
6. The best editorial model is offshore researchers + onshore analysts/editors + automated tools.
7. Best business model is subscription plus custom…but keep the custom simple and for subscribers.
8. Keep your product and offer simple. Complexity = sales obstacles.
9. Own your customer relationships. Channel partners (content aggregators) are nice to haves–not must haves.
    
10. Scale doesn’t matter. Customers are discovering that quality trumps quantity.” 

Eric Jackson

Eric Jackson, CEO, CapLinked

“The age of firewalls, onsite servers, and implementation teams is coming to an end. Enterprise software is moving into the cloud, and with it we’re seeing a whole new way of doing business. As this transition occurs, it’s no longer sufficient for software merely to protect data. It must also enhance the sharing of it. As the world shrinks and collaboration becomes more important, businesses must utilize technology that lets them curate the distribution of information to their partners, customers, and stakeholders.

CapLinked is taking advantage of this shift by enabling complex business transactions to happen in the cloud. Whether it’s a negotiation between two companies (like an M&A deal or business development agreement) or a transaction involving many parties (like a capital raise), CapLinked’s centralized, dynamic environment helps manage what can otherwise be an unwieldy and data-intensive process. And unlike the legacy virtual data room services—which charge companies more every time they need to open a new room—CapLinked’s subscription model empowers companies to work on as many transactions as they need. The economics of software aren’t the same as the economics of sausage, so there’s no reason to sell it by the pound.”

Frank Russo, CEO, Fabricating.com

The recent flap over the outsourcing of US Olympic team uniforms to Chinese manufacturers was echoed in a survey by the Alliance for American Manufacturing, which reported that the vast majority of respondents say that manufacturing is the key to America’s strength and bringing manufacturing back to the US should be a national priority.

At fabrciating.com we’re taking a positive step in that direction by making sure that OEM manufacturers have critical data necessary to not only identify US-based contract manufacturers but to assess their capability and capacity, quickly and easily, and to enable the complex communication necessary to specify custom manufactured parts and components so that more of the manufacturing needs of the US can be done by the US.”

Gretchen Teichgraeber

“Delivering more than just high-quality information – delivering high-functioning and useful software – is now a necessity for leading companies in our industry. Sophisticated users want data that can flow seamlessly to their other applications, or for their information product to include features and functionality that replace the need for an external application.”

This year, we’ve got a razor-sharp focus of putting together an agenda that serves the needs of the C-Suite executives of the publishing, media, and information industry. So we’re looking forward to an audience of industry leaders representing the companies that create, publish, and deliver content across all online, mobile, and digital platforms, as well as the companies that produce content-focused software applications and tools, develop enabling technologies, and offer services focused on the content industry.

Another reason for my excitement: driven by the goal of providing as much value as possible in exchange for your sponsorship investment, we’ve completely re-vamped our sponsorship packages.

This is a good time to note that we purposely use the word investment instead of ‘sponsorship fee’. We believe your sponsorship dollars are given in return for value received. You invest in us and it’s our top priority to deliver considerable value to maximize on your investment spend.

To help us meet this objective, each of our sponsorship packages has been designed to align your organization with a specific element of the conference. So, in addition to gaining visibility and value through our regular, ongoing sponsorship promotions, this year you’ll also take advantage of specific marketing and communications around the element of the conference you own, including an Executive Dinner, our CODiE Awards Luncheon, Previews Showcase, and DealMaker program.

Many of our sponsorships also provide podium time and it’s important to us that you take this opportunity to explain the value proposition (in a very brief, high-level overview) that your organization offers attendees. This way, they understand why you’re sponsoring and, we hope, you drive more leads your way.

We also want to make sure our sponsors only pay for the benefits they really value. For instance, we know that not all sponsors are interested in exhibiting, as they’d prefer to send a team of executives to participate in the conference i.e. attend sessions, network, etc. As such, we’ve removed the cost of an exhibit from each of our sponsorships, so the packages are priced to meet even the most frugal of budgets. That said, an exhibit space is available for a low-priced upgrade. (More on leveraging your exhibit at IIS 2013: Breakthrough, as well as taking full advantage of your sponsorship investment, in a future blog.)

Finally, if it’s all about the company you keep, then you’ll be pleased to join our Host Sponsors Connotate, ProQuest, and The Jordan, Edmiston Group, Inc. We are very grateful for their valuable support as they partner with us to help create what is sure to be THE flagship conference for leaders of the publishing, media, and information industry.

After you review the IIS 2013: Breakthrough sponsorship packages, please contact me with any questions you may have, to discuss a custom package, or to finalize the details of your participation. I will be especially interested in hearing about your sponsorship objectives so I can help advise on a package that best meets your needs.

Brian Rosenberg is Senior Vice President for Sales & Marketing at SIIA. He’s been managing conference and event sponsorships for twenty years. Follow Brian on Twitter at @SIIA_BRosenberg, and connect with him on LinkedIn.

During the webinar we covered:

• How to nominate
• What happens during the first-round judging process
• The complete CODiE Awards timeline
• Content categories
• Our all-new Buyer Review program

We were especially pleased to have two guests join us for the webinar: Michael Bird, President of NetProspex, a 2012 SIIA CODiE Award winner, as well as longtime CODiE Awards judge Angus Robertson, Media Consultant for Robinson Advisors.
Michael provided invaluable information on how NetProspex has been able to leverage their CODiE Award win (very interesting stuff, so more on that in a future blog post!). But what I want to focus on here is the great advice and tips both Michael and Angus provided to help you prepare for your first-round review, including:

• As soon as you receive judge assignments, reach out to them immediately to select a date that best suits their schedules for your product demo.
• Do your best to arrange for a live demo versus a pre-recorded version.
• Remember, your demo is not a sales pitch, but a product demo.
• Have your most knowledgeable person conduct the demo i.e. someone from the product team.
• Use the SIIA judging criteria to help structure your demo.

Watch the webinar to hear everything that Michael and Angus had to say, in addition to the information we provided. And remember, nominations for the Content categories must be submitted by Friday, September 28.

DataContent 2012 will focus on why the data business is the hottest segment of the information industry and identify the most profitable trends to help executives pinpoint new business opportunities. Conference highlights include:

Keynote from Jim Swift, President and CEO of Cortera
Swift will discuss the evolution of community-based content, which has transformed a wide range of industries, and what the future community-based assets will look like and achieve.

Executive Panels on Data Trends & Innovations
DataContent 2012 will also include a number of executive panels about the increasing role of commercial data – both Big Data and small, specialized datasets, known as “Little Data” – as well as emerging innovations in data analytics that are driving business growth for many publishers.

Model of Excellence Awards
This exclusive awards program honors leading database producers that are revolutionizing the industry and bringing data to life. Throughout the conference, DataContent 2012 will spotlight this year’s honorees as well as past winners.

Register online or view the complete schedule of events.

Kathy Greenler Sexton is Vice President and General Manager of the SIIA Content Division. Contact Kathy at kgsexton@siia.net.

What was the best part about winning?

To compete effectively as a product marketing manager, I need to identify our competitive differentiators. With the LexisNexis Client Center, our competitive advantage is inherent in the product itself, but we also need independent third-party validation to promote that value. That is what we achieved with our CODiE Award win. It’s not only the award itself–it’s the substance of the organization that backs the CODiE Awards that made it so attractive.

Keep in mind that participating requires a level of investment. It’s not only the fee, it’s actually the time and effort preparing the nomination and presentation, and then performing the demonstration. There is a lot of internal coordination. For a solution as complex as LexisNexis® Client Center, a number of different product managers are involved.

The value that we get is really the independent third-party validation from an organization of the caliber of SIIA. This is very important for us. SIIA has strong brand recognition. You folks also differentiate yourself with the way you structure and organize the competition, from the caliber of the judges, to the very fact that the judging is done on site or over web conference. It’s actually a live judging and demonstration. As someone who is participating, it gives you a reassurance that it is a sound judging process. If you are going to take the time to participate in a competition, it’s important to know that it is a fair and sound judging process. I can’t say enough about the quality of the judges. We had two judges who understood the unique challenges of the legal vertical, as well as the knowledge of the technology. They had a good base of knowledge to effectively and fairly judge the solution.

How did you announce and promote your company’s CODiE Award win?

I map out a whole project plan, just like I would for a product launch or a feature launch. It’s a major project if our award wins, so we create a basic project plan, and map out how we are going to promote and communicate it internally and externally. Internally, it’s a big morale booster. It’s a competitive industry, and everyone has their heads down, working very hard toward the same goal, so this recognition is rewarding. Externally, we issued a press release through a wire service and we posted a blog about it. Because this specific solution is a feature in multiple products, we revised all of our product brochures and sales presentations. We made it available through the iPad and PowerPoint versions of sales presentation and featured it on our website. We made sure we got that extra marketing cache that comes along with the SIIA brand and the CODiE Awards brand.

What advice would you give to a company nominating for a CODiE Award for the first time?

Listen to Wendy! (laughs) I remember that there was a best practices webinar. I enter several competitions for various products and features, and I don’t see organizers taking the time to provide the webinar like you guys did. It provided a forum where we could ask questions, and getting that first person instruction was very helpful. It answered a lot of questions I might have had, and made the nominations much easier.

Also, make sure you have a presenter who is charismatic and also understands the vertical and the benefits that the solution provides, not just the features. The presenter should understand the solution’s place in the market, and its reason for being. We take time to research our market and develop products that solve problems, and you need someone who is familiar with that whole product development cycle, someone who can articulate why your solution is great and what needs it serves. If you want to make a connection with the judges, it’s more than just the features–you really have to understand the benefits.

Lastly, I would say invest in your demo. This is something you can use for marketing in the future. With LexisNexis Client Center, we have a nice demo that we put on our YouTube channel and our website for sales enablement. Invest in a demonstration that you can send as a video to the judges, and that you can repurpose in your marketing.

Why do you think your product won?

One of the big reasons why I think it won (and it seems really obvious) is the legal-vertical specificity. We have been developing website solutions for more than a decade now, and the company as a whole has been in the legal industry for more than 100 years. We really understand the legal vertical. There are many cloud solutions out there for document sharing and data storage, but the legal vertical has higher standards when it comes to securely sharing documents. We understand the needs of the legal vertical, which is why we created an online document sharing solution, an extranet that is built into every LexisNexis Web Visibility website we offer. It’s created for the changing needs of legal professionals to provide a secure, real-time online portal that is built in. It puts everything you need to manage clients, cases, and matter in one place. It’s a simple tool that helps attorneys access the most pertinent information on their website and share it securely with their clients. We focus on the small law firms and solo practitioners, and it’s something that gives them a competitive edge.

Wendy Tanner is CODiE Awards Coordinator. Follow the CODiE Awards on Twitter @CODiEAwards

This year’s Model of Excellence recipients:

• Bundle is a true pioneer in turning Big Data into a high-value data product. By turning anonymous credit transactions into unbiased reviews of retail establishments, Bundle helps consumers make smart buying decisions based on objective analysis. They’ve made an impressive start to bringing hard data to the business of business reviews.
• Caplinked leapfrogs the existing virtual data room services by providing a platform that is social, viral, mobile, affordable, and easy to use. Caplinked equips small- to medium-size companies with the same ability to raise capital, manage M&A transactions, and handle investor reporting that was once only available to big players. They have grown 6,000% in the last year and are assembling a community that represents the economic powerhouses of the future.
• GovTrak addresses an increasingly important and complex challenge: finding, understanding, and tracking government legislation. GovTrak is a well-executed example of how the combination of data, tools, and analytics can deliver power to those who are seeking the truth.
• InfoArmy revolutionizes how a content company is built by marshaling two of the industry’s most powerful trends: crowdsourcing and community. Success is participatory, self-managed and self-re-enforcing. InfoArmy is a true example of content unbound – non-bureaucratic, collaborative and exponential.
• Reachable does amazing things with graph technology and mashups of various contact lists enabling what it calls “social proximity selling,” where sales people can use identified “connection paths” to reach specific prospects. It is particularly powerful for larger organizations as a tool for co-workers to leverage each other’s connections. Reachable is a very distinctive offering with its own specialized functionality and value proposition.
• Speakerfile transforms the way companies connect their experts to the global market by combining a marketplace model with a dynamic visual search experience, as well as strong content management and workflow functionality. The expert visibility platform helps thousands of event organizers, media, and potential customers discover, evaluate, and connect with thought leaders around the world. Speakerfile has created a useful, high-value service for organizations to help achieve or maintain eminence in their industries.
• RedBeacon has reset the bar on lead generation by investing lots of effort to customize the negotiating and selecting experience, providing a highly-secure bid process, and even accommodating non-standard service requests. The real product RedBeacon has produced is trust, and they reap the rewards by keeping themselves firmly in the middle of all transactions.

Don’t miss the Models of Excellence Dinner, and the complete DataContent conference. Register now to join us as we explore the intersection of Data, Communities, and Markets. (You’ll save with early-bird rates, but only through Monday, September 10.)

Steve Davis, President, SRDS Inc.

Though a 20 year veteran of the media and marketing industry, Steve does not believe in resting on his laurels. So who better to chart the progress of SRDS since we awarded it a Model of Excellence in 2004? Back then we hailed the company as a leader in infocommerce for its Media Planning Service, which firmly placed the company in the middle of its customers’ workflow.

What we found especially noteworthy was the amount of innovation coming from a 90+ year old company. Four years later it was acquired by Kantar Media, and Steve became responsible for integrating the business and continuing its transformation. Given where the company is today, he’s done a stellar job. Now President, he’s particularly excited by the opportunity in tablets. Magazines, he says, are now on the right side of technology because their content is a perfect for this new medium. In the Excellence Revisited session, Steve will tell us where SRDS is headed and what transformative data publishers should focus on now.

“I find it ironic that those of us with successful information businesses, who can most afford to test and experiment new approaches, are usually the most hesitant to try. We all know it’s dangerous to assume that what has worked in the past will work well in the future; yet too often we let our pre-existing business model calcify our innovation.”

Join Steve and close to 200 data producers gathering at DataContent to explore the intersection of Data, Communities, and Markets.

At DataContent, you’ll get a clear understanding of where data fits in your future. Most importantly, you’ll leave with an understanding of the trends that are the most profitable AND the contacts and know-how to incorporate them into your own business.

Our sessions go beyond the data hype—we’re assembling the people advancing, transforming, and disrupting the industry to give you straight talk on why the data business is the hottest segment of the information industry and why it will continue to grow.

Attend DataContent Oct. 9-11, 2012
Register today

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