Open Password – Freitag, den 7. Juni 2019

# 572

 

BIIA – Joachim C. Bartels – Ann Chapman – Information Professional des Jahres – Minesoft – Open Password – Erfolgsgeschichte – Christoph Aschoff – Peter Müller-Bader – Patentämter – Informationskonzerne – Patent Professionals – Retention Rates – V2 Analytics Framework – Competition – Independence – Ophir Daniel – Rahman Hyatt – Jochen Lennhof – Queen’s Award for International Trade – London Business Awards for Export Achievement, Innovation, Best Business Overall – Best Female Entrepreneur – Search Engine – Automated Translation – Landscaping Analysis – Hierarchy – Open Door Policy – Sponsoring – Staff – Minesoft Germany – Education System – Internationalisation – Digital Natives – Information Quality – IT Skills – PAT-KM – Steilvorlagen für den Unternehmenserfolg – Frankfurt Book Fair – Fortune – Digital Paywall – Morningstar – DBRS – Iress – XPlan – Springer Nature – Preprint Sharing – Directory of Open Access – Lars Bjørnshauge – Qualtrics – Experience Basecamp

BIIA

Weiter so, Joachim!

Joachim C. Bartels hat vor 14 Jahren die Business Information Industry Association (Hongkong) gegründet und ist nach wie vor ihr Geschäftsführer.

Bartels und Password verbindet eine mittlerweile langjährige Zusammenarbeit. Die BIIIA ist „International Partner“ von Open Password.

Weiter so, Joachim!

Ann Chapman (Minesoft):
 
Information Professional
des Jahres 2018/2019
für ihre Lebensleistung

An Overriding Desire to Remain Profitable
so We Could Retain Total Independence

InfoPros: Get a Strategic Seat
at the Top Table!

 Ann Chapmann, Information Professionals 2018/2019

(Br) Ann Chapman wird von Open Password für ihre Lebensleistung als Information Professional des Jahres 2018/2019 ausgezeichnet – im Besonderen dafür,

• dass sie als eine der Pionierinnen die Online-Branche in jungen Jahren an verantwortlichen Stellen vorangebracht und einiges von der Begeisterung und dem Enthusiasmus, der seinerzeit unseren Wissenschafts- und Wirtschaftsbereich kennzeichnete, in die Gegenwart rettete;
• dass sie ihre persönliche, berufliche, wirtschaftliche und institutionelle Erfolgsgeschichte über die Jahrzehnte fortgeschrieben hat und eine der besten Beispiele dafür ist, dass nachhaltige Success Stories auch in unserer Branche nach wie vor möglich sind;
• dass sie mit der Gründung von Minesoft am Küchentisch am Punkt Null begann und im Vertrauen auf die eigene Kompetenz eine Risikobereitschaft zeigte, die sie zum Vorbild auch für die heutigen Start ups werden ließ;
• dass sie in den folgenden Phasen auf sich gestellt eine “Geschichte vom Schuhputzer zum Millionär” schrieb, wie wir sie aus Deutschland nur von den GBI-Gründern Christoph Aschoff und Peter Müller-Bader kennen, dies allerdings im persönlichen Stil mit einer größeren “britischen” sachbetonten Zurückhaltung und ohne einen erkennbaren Willen, irgendwann Kasse zu machen und das eigene Unternehmen an einen der Informationskonzerne zu verkaufen;
• dass sie sich weder von den Informationskonzernen noch von den freien Angeboten der Patentämter einschüchtern ließ, vielmehr Minesoft fest in seiner Marktnische etablierte und mit einer kontinuierlichen Kette an Innovationen, die an die Frühzeit der Online-Branche erinnert, den Sektor der Patentinformationen voranbrachte und die Informationsversorgung der Patent Professionals und des Managements in Patentfragen verbesserte – Muss uns erst ein britisches Unternehmen zeigen, wie wichtig der selbstständige Mittelstand auch in der Informationsbranche ist?;
• dass sie mit der überaus weitgehenden Orientierung von Minesoft an den Wünschen der Kunden und der Etablierung einer “offenen Kultur” unter den Beschäftigten auch zu einem Leitbild für Kundenbeziehungen und Personalpolitik wurde und
• dass man mit Ann Chapman immer über alles sprechen kann und dass für sie der “Blick über den Tellerrand” eine Selbstverständlichkeit war und geblieben ist.

Nachdem ich mittlerweile mehr als vierzig Jahre immer wieder eng mit Ann Chapman zusammengearbeitet habe, die Gespräche mit ihr immer genoss und sie mir immer wieder auf eine Weise half, die weit über das hinausging, was man hätte erwarten können, gilt ihr auch mein ganz persönlicher von Herzen kommender Dank.

Im Gespräch mit Open Password nimmt die Gründerin und Geschäftsführerin von Minesoft zu ihrem persönlichen Werdegang, zu der Entwicklung des Anbieters von Patentinformationslösungen und zur Lage der Information Professionals Stellung.

Part IV
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Starting from scatch around our kitchen table.
________________________________________________________________________

How has Minesoft developed over the years? Can you distinguish between the various phases? The industry has changed so many times over the course of the 20 years Minesoft has been in business. What once would have taken a supercomputer in the ‘90s; we have now built into the base product available to all customers for no additional fees.

An example here is our newest V2 Analytics framework. This allows for advanced analytical reporting on the deepest aspects of patent data, where our competitors tend to offer more limited fields and basic excel style charts. Pulling on the 60 full-text authorities and over 105 total authorities, we can allow the analytics to enhance and empower professional searchers to become much more efficient than just a few years ago. With leading corporations, patent offices and law firms among its customers, Minesoft has come a long way from its humble beginnings. It has achieved this without taking on outside investment but instead in always being forward thinking in growing the company’s network and locating new partners.

We started from scratch, around our kitchen table and an overriding desire to remain profitable so we could retain total independence. We have grown the company every single year for 21 years and now have clients all over the globe – in every corner, but especially in advanced manufacturing countries where patenting is an important activity to secure intellectual property and sell goods abroad.  We competed from day one with much larger international corporations as well as with other smaller firms like ours that had specialized in our sector. But we managed to carve out a niche expertise and win clients over. We started off in a very small way as a supplier in some big companies, that today take our products globally and are among our largest clients.

“Never give up” is a good mantra, as well as finding ways to distinguish yourself from the more established products already in the market. And be a good partner to your clients – that is my advice.  Looking back, we can see the different phases at Minesoft but this is closely aligned to the technological developments within the Online Information Industry. What an impact the Internet had on all our products and services – as well as our marketing and PR activities. Sometimes the development seems like a continual indistinguishable line but there are definite tendencies and technology developments that we know at the time are going to be impactful. IF we manage it properly – there is always the need for that critical decision-making!

_______________________________________________________________________

Sometimes, you just have to get lucky in life! ________________________________________________________________________

Were there crisis points? Luckily, not many, but I believe every business has a few along the route. We managed to overcome them or even reach a good outcome and in fact Minesoft has grown the turnover while remaining profitable each year for 22 years. Ophir and I are very proud of that and great thanks are due to our fantastic team for this achievement. Special mention must be given to our co-Directors, Rahman Hyatt and Jochen Lennhof, for their outstanding contribution to the company. Sometimes, you just have to get lucky in life!  Along the way we have picked up Business Awards such as the Queen’s Award for International Trade, London Business Awards for Export Achievement, Innovation, Best Business Overall and in November 2018 I also won a Best Female Entrepreneur gong so was very happy with that .

________________________________________________________________________

Automating and streamlining products, adding translation, image and mining technologies.
________________________________________________________________________

Everyone is talking about Artificial Intelligence. How about Minesoft? Minesoft is in good shape and we have a great team around us to take the company further, faster, in the coming 10 years. We are developing a new Search Engine that should be released later this year and we will be working on it in the coming few years to develop some neat new functionality in areas like natural language searching and semantics. We will also develop the area of automated translations and landscaping analysis. AI is a big buzzword in the Online Publishing Industry at present and we are designing new ideas in this area to further automate and streamline our products, helping to learn from the data itself and suggest new pathways as well as add to the automatic translation, image and mining technologies. We host about 125 million patent (sci-tech) documents right now and this is increasing literally each week. Such a large body of research material needs to be made accessible to companies who are working to pioneer new solutions. Search speeds are getting exponentially faster, the computer industry and data delivery mechanisms (including the Internet) are developing themselves, alongside our company. We chose an ideal moment in “technology time” to set up Minesoft, looking back on where we started and where we are now. We foresee a great future.

_______________________________________________________________________

Relaxed informal hierarchy and close cooperation between London and Neuss.
________________________________________________________________________

How do you find the right employees and how do you ensure they remain happy and fulfilled? That is better asked of our staff but I am firmly of the opinion that we have the responsibility to be kind and helpful to those in our sphere as well as ensuring the financial rewards of the company are shared. Minesoft shares are held 100% by staff today. On the non-financial side, we have a relaxed, informal company hierarchy. Anyone can walk into my office at any time. We have an “open door” policy and the idea is to share problems as well as successes. We support local and international charities and staff can get involved here too. Last year we sponsored the Dusseldorf University Choir and Richmond Theatre as well as the Royal Academy of Art in the UK and the World Monuments Fund (archeology and architecture), In sport, we had a female team of paddleboarders go down the River Thames in London picking up plastic, culminating in a German themed Bier + Wurst reception for all the paddleboarders. This went out on Sky News. I am trying to tempt our German staff to join this year on 21st June and we have just been invited to participate in the Great River Race down the River Thames by GB Rowing.

Do you think the qualifications mix of your staff will change in the coming years? Not substantially, we have a good mix currently between product development, IT, and the Sales side of customer service, business development, marketing and PR. We may add additional expert consultants to help with product design, consulting with clients and to provide new services.  A US patent attorney joined the team 18 months ago and this is very useful for our staff, to improve internal knowledge and training as well as help define the direction of the industry and Minesoft.

What is the outlook (perspectives) for your German presence in the coming years? We will continue to grow our German presence, we have a large customer base and love working with our colleagues there, inside and outside of Minesoft. It has been growing over the years and we also have German speakers in London who are often in Germany. There is close cooperation between London and Neuss (near Dusseldorf).  We have outstanding people at Minesoft Germany and their team will expand too. It is the same story in the USA.

The Minesoft directors, Ophir Daniel, Rahmann Hyatt, Jochen Lennhof and Ann Chapman on Richmond Green, just adjacent to the Minesoft Headquarter in leafy Richmond-upon-Thames.

________________________________________________________________________

Information Professionals – The Information Industry
________________________________________________________________________

Does the British education system train information professionals properly? What, if anything, should change here?  Short answer as I am not an expert in this field – Probably not – maybe we should share more information about this with Germany and see what can be learnt from both education systems.  Historically the UK had a jump start in the online information industry world because most of the information services were in English. We had a natural advantage. When I began in this industry, the English language knowledge in Germany was far, far less than it is today, which meant less voices were heard internationally and online usage was lower. As this is no longer the case, you see executive roles across the board taken by many nationalities and there is less of an impact of Brits in the European industry development.

Having said that, our schools do get everyone using laptops or desktop PCs for all their work from the age of 11 and much use is made of the Internet and doing research. The young people we take on are very savvy and quick to pick up online tools. They have grown up with it. So their use of technology is far better but personally I think their understanding of what is going on behind the interfaces and core library/information science skills such as indexing and cataloguing may be worse today, so their understanding of QUALITY is lower and they expect to be able to Google and find information – “any information will do” kind of mentality.

We have to train our own employees but to be honest we would have to anyway in the patent world because of the complexity and unusualness of the data.

What continued professional development could Information Professionals undertake to stay competitive in their own organisations or in the marketplace?  IT skills are very important, I would learn programming if I were coming into the industry today so that I could at least have a reasonable level and understand how the data is being stored and manipulated. They need to understand and be able to use the complex search interfaces and tools so a couple of years of hard learning is essential – as it was for us too. What is important is to have a good all-round understanding of issues faced in data capturing, storing, disseminating of research information, to make a distinctive contribution to problem solving.

What should Information Professionals do, in your opinion, to make an impact on their organisations and in the wider market? I am a great believer in communicating between departments and literally, getting involved in the programmes or trying to create them. The move we see taking place in the USA, which was so often a precursor for Europe, is a more dominant position of IT. But the knowledge resident in Corporate Information Services is too important a message to be lost. If I was coming into the industry today, I would be looking for products and software solutions that will support the retrieval and dissemination of information in the corporation that would enhance the role and the standing of the information scientist. The issue is to carve yourself into the fabric of the company – to get a strategic seat at the top table.  We sit in the field of patent information and that is one thing I love about our Pat-KM product – it allows the information specialists to manage the knowledge and expertise of a wider group of important people in the company and influence the company’s patenting strategy. When one of our very big international clients launched this in their company, they were thrilled to be named as one of the top 3 innovations in that big company, worldwide, that year.  Because it was recognised as a positive achievement for the corporation. Says it all!

 

Right from the beginning you sponsored the “Steilvorlagen” Events in Germany and have also participated. What do you think of it? With luck I can attend again this year, occasionally it has clashed with events for me in Asia but I will check and hold the date for 2019.  It is an excellent event, one we are proud to be associated with. I love the idea of gathering information professionals together from different fields and sharing expert insights. The presentations are of a high level and it is not only a get together for the industry around the Frankfurt Book Fair, in the old InfoBase Messe location, but also the opportunity to develop oneself professionally and refresh with new insights. I do hope I can join you this year and exercise my German language.  Many thanks for the discussion!

Dank und Vergnügen sind ganz auf meiner Seite.

 

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Fortune magazine will be launching a digital paywall and raising its cover price in an effort to diversify its revenue stream, according to chief executive Alan Murray in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. The moves are designed to allow the publication to rely less on print advertising. They come after Meredith Corp. sold Fortune to Thai businessman Chatchaval Jiaravanon in November 2018 for $150 million in cash.

Morningstar kauft viertgrößte Kreditratingagentur. Morningstar, Inc., a provider of independent investment research, announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire DBRS, the world’s fourth-largest credit ratings agency, for a purchase price of $669 million. The combination of DBRS with Morningstar Credit Ratings’ U.S. business will expand global asset class coverage and provide an enhanced platform for providing investors with leading fixed-income analysis and research.

Polarisierung der Kunden nach automatisierter und Face-to-Face-Beratung. Financial technology company Iress has launched an upgrade to its XPlan software which, it says, will allow advisers to automate and scale their advice process. Iress also said it will allow advisers to provide simplified advice over the internet to clients who it might not be economical to provide advice to currently, while also helping advisers offer face-to-face advice to their higher-value clients.

Springer Nature für Preprint Sharing.  Springer Nature is pleased to announce an updated policy encouraging preprint sharing for Springer Nature journals. This intends to remove ambiguity on two points. First, authors may choose any licence for preprints, including Creative Commons licences. Second, the updated policy provides more information about its position on author engagement with the media in response to enquiries about preprints.

Directory of Open Access von 183 Einrichtungen und Verbünden gestützt. Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) has reached its funding target to cover its operational costs as outlined in its SCOSS application. Eight consortia and 175 institutions/organisations from 18 different countries have committed support to DOAJ. “That this many organisations have gotten behind this initiative and promised this amount of funding shows how important sustaining open access infrastructure is,” said Lars Bjørnshauge, DOAJ Managing

Lernplattform für „Experience Management“. Qualtrics announced the official launch of Experience Basecamp, an on-demand learning platform designed to help organizations rapidly build Experience Management expertise. Experience Basecamp helps users master XM products, including CustomerXM, EmployeeXM and Research Core, which measure and improve the four core experiences of business — customer, employee, product, and brand.

Quelle: Outsell

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