I’m willing to admit that I’ve never been to a virtual event before. On March 16th I’m going to try it for the first time.  The virtual event is a cool concept for interactivity.  You get to choose an avatar (no, not a big blue guy with a tail, this avatar is a cartoon version of yourself or an uploaded image) and chat with fellow participants, ask questions of experts, and download and “take home” educational materials.  The only thing missing are the free cocktails and the golf outings.  On a positive note, you don’t have to make the case to your management team to spend $2,500 plus travel and hotel time – this event is free.

If you’re a Mathcad user and a Knovel Math customer,  or if you’re thinking about trying Knovel Math, this is a great opportunity to learn more.

Register for the Mathcad Engage Virtual User Conference: the first online conference for the Mathcad community  http://events.unisfair.com/index.jsp?eid=522&seid=25 .  It’s Tuesday, March 16th from 1pm-5pm Eastern time, you will hear about the Mathcad Technology Vision and Strategy as well as our Product Update and Roadmap without leaving your desk.  I’ll be there with a few colleagues, watching the main tent presentations and would love to “see” you at the Knovel booth or at the networking lounge.

Want to check out the environment first, to see what virtual events are all about? Visit  http://www.unisfair.com/platform click the green Experience Unisfair button on the right.  I was surprised that you can really think of yourself as AT an event, rather than in a cartoon!  There are “real” booths, and the navigation is fairly easy to get the hang of

I admit it.  Last night, when I attended the 2010 SIIA CODiE Awards dinner I was thinking about having a glass or two of wine, meeting some old business acquaintances, making some new contacts, and enjoying a congenial dinner with colleagues Ross Graber and Meagan Cooke.

We were certainly thrilled to be CODiE finalists in the category of Best Online Science and Technology Service, but we weren’t primed for the win, except when Meagan who is Director of Content Strategies and I, Director of Product Management (Platform delivery) joked about going to the podium to accept the award smiling and holding hands.  During the past year, we’ve developed a symbiotic relationship; Meagan’s stellar management of Knovel’s unrivaled content, and my focus on a feature-rich technology platform combine to make Knovel the product of choice among engineers.

We were up against stiff competition in our category: UniPHY, AIP’s literature-based, professional scientific networking platform; and ChemMobi, an iPhone app from Symyx that provides mobile access to chemical reference information.  The nominees for our category were announced, and  KNOVEL appeared on the screen as Winner.  We made our way to the podium to accept the award, surprised and thrilled.  As we headed back to our seats, a microphone and camera appeared, then the question, “What does the CODiE award mean to Knovel?” Last night, I was overwhelmed, tongue-tied and surprised by the journalistic assault, so allow me to answer in the clearer light of morning.

The CODiE Award is the acknowledgment of a decade of hard work by our dedicated and visionary product development team under the direction of our fervent, zealous CEO Chris Forbes,  as well as the consistent and steadfast efforts of our active customer community and design partners who continue to partner with us to make Knovel a more powerful solution with each iteration.

I’ll admit, I’m still reeling from a 2010 product strategy meeting  yesterday morning, which was heady in itself. Because of the grand plans we’re undertaking this year, the thrill of last night’s CODiE recognition was just icing on the cake.

In a post about a month ago, I wrote that:

“The founding of YouTube in February, 2005 stands as one of the greatest moments in internet history. The implications of easily available streaming videos were boundless. Our favorite result of YouTube? Wacky science and engineering related music videos!”

While  I still wholeheartedly stand by my love of goofy music videos for entertainment, I can’t help but consider the benefit of using YouTube and streaming videos for education and training purposes.

Ensuring Knovel is accessible and easy to use is a high priority. As we continually add more features, content and functionality, it’s good to know that we can provide videos that enable our users to quickly adopt new offerings.

Before I get into Knovel’s new videos, I’d like to highlight videos produced by our users. Many information professionals have taken the time and effort to create instructional videos that raise awareness and encourage use of resources available in their libraries.

• One of the best videos that we’ve seen came courtesy of Jay Bhatt and Dana Denick of Drexel University’s Engineering Library. The video provides a quick and easy overview of Knovel’s search capabilities and interactive tools, while also providing specific information to help Drexel Engineering Students access the library. Terrific job Jay and Dana! If you have any Knovel tutorials that you’ve created, we’d love to see them! Drop your links into the comments section or send an e-mail to nschulman@knovel.com.

See this video on YouTube

With our recent spate of product updates, we at Knovel have created new tutorial videos to keep pace with the changes. I’m proud to debut our new videos, right here on K Exchange!

• First, we have a new video that demonstrates our Basic Search capabilities. The video details how the search function works and illustrates how to use Basic Search to determine the best materials to use to avoid the negative effects of weathering. Take a look!

See this video on YouTube

• Next, we have a new video that demonstrates the use of our Data Search function to develop improved liquids for cleaning the mixing vessels used in a production process.

See this video on YouTube

• Finally, we a have a new video that demonstrates our Interactive Tools. This video includes a chemistry problem in which the user needs to analyze the physical properties of ammonium compounds.

See this video on YouTube

What do you think of our new videos? Did you learn anything new about Knovel? Have you created any videos, or has anyone in your organization created a tutorial? We’d love to see them if you have!

Knovel’s newest blog, Engineering Cases, features the stories of engineers who have applied innovative theories and new technologies to both common and uncommon challenges. Whenever a new Engineering Case is posted, we will provide K Exchange readers with a link to the article.

Thermal Power Plant: Performance Improvement of Electrostatic Precipitator

by Shah M. E. Haque, M. M. K. Khan , and M. G. Rasul, Faculty of Sciences, Engineering and Health, Central Queensland University.

Electrostatic precipitators (ESPs) are the most commonly used, effective, and reliable particulate control devices; they are employed mostly in power plants and other process industries. The particle-laden flue gas from the boiler flows through the ESP before it enters the environment. The ESP works as a cleaning device, using electrical forces to separate the dust particles from the flue gas… Read More >>

Today Knovel launches a new collection, Nanotechnology. Research in this field has been exploding for years.  What’s been exciting recently is the products on the market that are enhanced or enabled with nanomaterials, from longer-lasting construction materials to stronger machinery coatings to  better performing sensors … the list goes on and on.

With more than  $147 billion worth of nano-enabled products on the market since 2007, the technology is affecting a wide range of industries and products. Knovel has focused efforts on bringing together information on the technologies and techniques in manufacturing and fabrication, and about nanotechnology applications. One of Knovel’s core strengths has always been providing information for materials selection. We’re aggregating titles about nanoscale phenomena and properties for nanoscale materials.

More content will be added quickly over the next several months, as more content is being produced by our publishing partners. Publishers included in this collection are McGraw-Hill, Wiley, World Scientific, Smithers Rapra, Woodhead and Springer.

This collection was developed in response to customer requests. We always welcome suggestions for not only new collection topics, but for content to be added to our current collections as well. What titles would you like to see in Nanotechnology?

Anyone connected to the software development world can attest that the last weeks leading up to a big release are the most stressful. Fifteen-minute daily meetings stretch into hours. Nerves are on edge. Every decision is analyzed and reanalyzed. Marketing activity escalates to a fever pitch. The team is up testing and instant messaging at 7 AM on Sunday morning while the rest of the world sleeps.

Our team has survived the long journey and we’re really excited about finally unveiling the personalization features of My Knovel. It’s the product of nearly a year of collaboration with Knovel’s team of design partners, who patiently cooperated as we observed them working, quizzed them on how they gather and store information, and asked them all sorts of questions along the way that influenced our design and style decisions.

In other words, My Knovel is a data driven response with our engineering users leading the way. The librarians and information professionals were right there too, most notably explaining that our best bet is to label features with names that are clear and unambiguous. My Knovel, which sits prominently on the new navigation bar, is where users can create folders, organize and store frequently used titles, search queries and content – including PDF sections and interactive tables. We also took the advice of users who encouraged us to clarify G.E.T. (Graphs, Equations, Tables) Search, to reflect a simple and explainable name. We reverted to Data Search, which seems to appeal to our wider audience of users.

We also listened to users who were confused by the different filter controls for Browse and Search that reflect All Knovel Content and My Subscription. We have made it a global setting to eliminate the confusion.

Last but by not least, during the past few months, a small dedicated team has been busy developing and working with our customers to upgrade them to our new authentication and reporting system. Knovel User Registration may be less flashy, but without it, we could never have brought My Knovel to fruition. Our Knovel administrators are delighted with the Self-Serve Administrator’s Toolkit and the improved organizational and reporting capabilities. We’ll keep up the pace until we have upgraded all of our accounts because we know that users are going to love the personalization features of My Knovel.

So I’d like to propose a toast to both teams tonight for a job incredibly well done! Thanks to them for all their hard work. And we know you’ll love it too.

Last week, K Exchange sat down with Irene Ash, the President of Synapse Information Resources, a publisher of information on commercial trade name and generic chemicals/materials. Synapse Information Resources is currently preparing to release an updated version of one of their biggest titles, The Handbook of Industrial Surfactants.

K Exchange: Now, as I understand it, you’re getting ready to release an updated version of The Handbook of Industrial Surfactants

Irene: Right, that’s probably one of our flagship products.

KX: I’m going to cop to the fact that I had to look up what a surfactant is.

Irene: (Laughing) Well a lot of people do. It’s basically a contraction of “SURFace ACTive AgeNT. It’s any chemical that lowers the surface tension of a liquid, increasing the contact between the liquid and another substance.  There are many factors contributing to the overall behavior which  I sometimes have to look up myself, after all, my area is information, not chemistry.

KX: So, what exactly is it that Synapse Information Resources does?

Irene: We maintain a proprietary in-house chemical database that is continuously revitalized by gathering information on trade name chemicals, generic chemicals, and their worldwide chemical manufacturers. The collected material is then put through a rigorous filtering process that results in the uniform storage of product data.

KX: You were an editor before you were publisher, correct? How did you transition into owning your own publishing company?

Irene: Well, I started as an editor at Chemical Publishing Company; helping Harry Bennett compile some of his 28-Volume Chemical Formulary Series; it’s interesting because Noyes publishing, later purchased by William Andrew Publishing, was, at the time, the only other company doing formularies as well. From this, other opportunities started to present themselves in terms of compiling references on the chemicals (trade name and generic) used as ingredients in these formulations.

Now, my husband began as a computer software engineer for an aerospace company. He left his company because they transferred him to a military weapons environment; so then we said OK, lets further develop the references we’ve been working on into a independent specialty chemical company and develop the products as software as well as book references.

KX:  As the publishers of not only this chemical book, but of Industrial Chemical Thesaurus and the Specialty Chemicals Source Book, Synapse is heavily involved in the chemical industry. What kind of trends have you seen in the industry?

Irene: Well, a lot of chemical companies are having trouble right now, and there is definite retrenchment. A lot of companies are still buying our product, but they’re cutting back on how much they’re buying, maybe from 20 or 25 users down to 1 or 2.

I spoke with someone in a corporate library and was told that our products are fairly inexpensive, compared to others out there, and that since the company has been in Chapter 11 bankruptcy since March of this year, many high-priced subscriptions have been canceled. So while they kept us, they had to get rid of similar services, it’s tough for everyone right now. We are seeing a drop-off in sales from our biggest customers, they’re still ordering, but they’re ordering less.

Irene Ash is the president of Synapse Information Resources. Synapse has several of their biggest titles available on Knovel including The Handbook of Industrial Surfactants, The Specialty Chemicals Source Book and The Handbook of Green Chemicals. The updated version of The Handbook of Industrial Surfactants is set to be released in 2010.

When something wreaks havoc on my computer, I tend to scan message boards for a solution. I know that I’m not the first person to have met with the “blue screen of death” or other unexpected program failures. I read about others’ experiences fighting the same issues, commiserate (silently) over their frustration and leverage the solutions offered by the sage (and similarly unlucky) users and applauded by the rest of the community. I’ll download the software patch, buy a different software package or try the freeware that, according to the community, will run rings around the program that has failed me.

The open web is a great place to share experiences and piggyback on the lessons others have learned. This is true in our work as well.

Today we launch Engineering Cases. This is a regular content feature with the same goal in mind – to leverage the experiences of the experts among us and to share their wisdom in the crowd of engineers.

We asked engineers to write about their success stories in solving problems and developing solutions. We specifically asked writers to highlight the process, to discuss the solutions not explored and to share unexpected lessons learned.

The topics can be far-reaching – how an engineer has developed technology to solve nagging problems, applied existing technology to new challenges, or learned rules of thumb that save time and effort. Beginning this fall, Knovel has begun publish these success stories in four topic areas

• Mechanical Engineering
• Chemical Engineering
• Sustainable Energy and Sustainable Materials
• Product Lifecycle Management

Engineering Cases will be released on an ongoing basis on Knovel. We invite you, our users, to submit case studies about the common and uncommon challenges that you’ve met your work. And we welcome feedback on the new regular content feature. Are there additional topics we should cover? Do you think there are ways we can enhance the format? As with every other aspect of Knovel, we welcome your feedback on Engineering Cases as well.

Engineering Cases will be published at http://engineeringcases.knovelblogs.com

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Today, Knovel announces the formation of an Editorial Advisory Board. The Board is composed of a multidisciplinary group of industry experts and academic luminaries who will work with us to ensure Knovel’s product development is in front of engineers’ workflow needs. All together the Board has more than one hundred years experience in engineering; Knovel only has been around for nine years. Beginning this summer, we’ve been tapping into the Board’s broad and varied experience and their keen insight to continue honing, and in many cases expanding, our content plans.

I’m pleased to act as liaison for the Board, and to work with such an exceptional group of engineers. They act as a sounding board for our ideas and keep us informed of engineering research “hot spots.” In the past six months we’ve added new content areas such as project management and signed licensing deals with leading societies such as AASHTO and ASHRAE based on their recommendations.

Of course, we’ll continue to follow up on our customer requests. We value customer feedback. But we want to be proactive. We want to publish content before it’s needed. The Editorial Advisory Board is yet another way for Knovel to keep our collective ear to the ground. Rather than ask customers, “what do you want on the website?” we’re working with industry experts to ensure that the content needed to do an engineering job is there before you have to ask.

I want to take this opportunity to welcome the Editorial Advisory Board members to the Knovel team. We’re excited you’re here.

To read the press release, click here.