[there are six news stories in this post.]
Computerworld :: HP, three other vendors, sign $500M right-to-sell deal with U.S. Army
by Linda Rosencrance
...Bruce Klein, vice president of HP Federal, said the Army is refocusing its IT vision and is looking to solve various enterprise problems through a single contract.
According to Klein, the Army has in the past used individual contracts to purchase technology, with one contract for PCs, another for low-end servers, another for higher-end servers and others for storage and even software and services.
"This is an attempt to consolidate all of those contracts into one contract ... so we can go in there and help them solve their complete mission-critical problems, and they can buy off one contract vehicle instead of multiple ones," Klein said.
He said the Army wants to move to a more agile IT operation and a concept called Network Centric Warfare. The contract is a key part of the Army's high-profile Army Knowledge Management transformation plan, aimed at moving toward a network-centric, knowledge-based force, he said...
BRW | Magazine :: The quality equation
by David James
...Toyota Motor Corporation has mastered TQM (called kaizen, or incremental improvement) and has also been effective at undertaking transformational change (called kaikaku, or radical improvement).
Kaikaku is typically attempted every seven years in Toyota, and the management strategy is to use a smorgasbord of engineering and social-science techniques. These range from the knowledge management and systems thinking ideas of Japanese thinkers Ikujiro Nonaka and Hirotaka Takeuchi, to the balanced-scorecard methods of measuring all aspects of company performance, to more engineering-based ideas of TQM and shortening of decision-making speed and cycle times.
Crucially, Toyota runs its kaizen and kaikaku programs simultaneously, implementing radical and incremental change. Innovation - a more qualitative, visionary process - is managed in conjunction with strict controls over production, which is more quantitative...
Yahoo News :: Flying J Selects Generation21 Learning Systems
...Generation21 pioneered the use of Universal Knowledge Objects -- "nuggets" of right-sized information -- and continues to enhance enterprise learning with innovations including performance support with context-based retrieval of knowledge outside of the classroom and on-the-job. Generation21 allows organizations to capture and share knowledge to generate measurable results in improved efficiency and productivity by allowing a company's knowledge base to be easily accessed by employees in diverse locations, thus allowing learning to be constant...
Yahoo News :: Nexidia to Enable Audio Search for Yahoo! NetRoadshow
...Using Nexidia's patent-pending technology and products for audio-video search, users can locate, index, and access specific passages within presentations with greater speed and precision than otherwise possible. Furthermore, users benefit from unsurpassed accuracy as the Nexidia solution is based on phonetic technology, enabling searches and mining to be conducted in a natural manner against the distinct phonemes or sound elements of human speech. This unique approach enables the identification of words, phrases and names regardless of accents, dialects, slang, recording quality, or even misspelling...
...Convergys continues its leadership in open standards speech solutions and is the first provider of outsourced speech solutions to select an open, third party service creation environment for VoiceXML. Convergys will integrate Audium's award-winning Audium 3 VoiceXML software tools into its open hosting environment for clients operating ASR applications on Convergys' outsourced SpeechPort platform...
Business Wire :: Health Language, Inc.
...Health Language, Inc., the world's leading supplier of medical vocabulary and concept-based software server technology, today announced a new relationship with the National Health Services Information Authority's National electronic Library for Health (NeLH). HLI's language engine technology LE will be used for implementing advanced terminology services, concept-based indexing and SNOMED-CT(R) support for NeLH applications and services.
The Health Language(R) Language Engine is a revolutionary technology that enables consultants, nurses, and others to interact and share medical information at a deep relational level despite varying terminologies. LE is based on a patent-pending knowledge management model and is currently the only software available to the healthcare industry that can accurately relate complex medical terminology from disparate databases of controlled medical vocabularies...
K-Collector