xml-dev - ANNOUNCE: Infoloom Topic Map Workshop in Chicago

[Michel Biezunski <mb@infoloom.com>]

The InfoLoom Hands On Topic Map Workshop
First Edition: Chicago, 3-4 October 2000
======================================================== 

If you want to know ... 
- What potential topic maps may have for your enterprise, 
- How other people have implemented topic maps, 
- How easy it is to make and use topic maps, 
- Who in your company you should ask to help you deploy topic maps, 
- How to be comfortable with topic map software, 
- Where the topic maps initiatives are going, 
You've come to the right place; this workshop is for you.

InfoLoom, Inc. is offering a unique and mind-boggling two-day workshop:

- hands-on. You'll be using topic map software that you'll take home
with you; you will be amazed to see how easy it is to use.

- authoritative. One of the instructors is co-editor of and primarily
technical contributor to the ISO Topic Maps standard. You'll get the
answers to all your questions, and more.  

Why you should care 
======================================================== 
The more online information we have available to us, the more
difficult it is to find what we're looking for, even if we know it's
somewhere on our own hard disk. On the World Wide Web, the situation
is even worse: keyword and full-text searches often return an
impracticably large number of hits, and, even so, important resources
are overlooked because data, rather than information, is what is being
searched.

"Topic Maps" is an emerging information technology that provides a
standard, interchangeable navigation layer above diverse information
sources. Topic Maps enable us to organize and retrieve information
maps for the Web, our Intranets, etc. -- even print materials.

Topic Maps enable their users to retain the value of their indexes,
catalogs, thesauri, etc. even when they replace or upgrade their
computer systems; Topic Maps are interchangeable. For their owners,
Topic Maps are highly exploitable assets. Investments made in creating
and maintaining topic maps can pay significant dividends when they are
easily reused, merged with other topic maps, etc., independently of
the software used to produce and maintain them. This opens huge
business opportunities for anyone who owns, maintains, or uses (or who
needs to own, maintain, or use) almost any kind of information finding
aid, for almost any corpus of information.

What you will learn
======================================================== 
You will start by creating your own topic maps, directly. Once you
have become familiar with the fundamentals, you will learn to use
additional, easy-to-use features of the paradigm for creating simple
but powerful topic maps.

You will learn how the Topic Maps paradigm is being applied in
commercial Web-based applications.

You will learn how the examples relate to the ISO standard. 

The issues involved in the creation and maintenance of distributed
corporate memories, and the usefulness of topic maps in facilitating
productive corporate mergers, acquisitions, and "virtual corporations"
will be discussed. You will be impressed by the breadth and variety of
the scenarios in which Topic Maps can make a significant and unique
contribution.

Finally, you will receive an overview of the features of the ISO Topic
Maps standard, and you will learn how the standard relates to other
families of information interchange standards. You will see how topic
maps integrate with the ontologies, vocabularies, thesauri, and
classification schemas used by various communities (including
yours). You will learn how the XTM specification tailors topic maps to
fit the World Wide Web environment.

Workshop Overview In Brief
======================================================== 
The InfoLoom Hands On Topic Map Workshop includes:

- Create your own topics 
- Associate topics 
- Refine your topic map. 
- Examples and demonstrations of working topic map applications 
- Go public with your topic maps 
- Scenarios of use 
- Overview of the Topic Map standard. 
- Merging topic maps 
- Relation to other standards (languages and ontologies) 
- News about the XTM activity (XML Topic Maps) 

About the Instructors: The workshop will be instructed by two leading
consultants in the XML Industry:

Michel Biezunski, co-editor of the ISO/IEC 13250 Topic Maps standard,
and co-chair of the XTM specification, founding partner of InfoLoom, Inc.

Dianne Kennedy, chair of the GCA XML Conferences, leading XML industry
consultant, founding partner of InfoLoom, Inc.

Duration: This is a 2 day workshop.

Price: $2,000.00 per person

Schedule: October 3-4, Chicago, Illinois

To register: Send email to sales@infoloom.com 

==========================================
Michel Biezunski, InfoLoom, Inc.
Tel +33 1 44 59 84 29 Cell +33 6 03 99 25 29
Email: mb@infoloom.com  Web: www.infoloom.com
==========================================