judith meskill's knowledge notes...

Hummingbird's Webinar Series...

Hummingbird Announces Web Seminar Series for Government Sector. This four-part series is designed to address the unique information management challenges facing all levels of government departments and agencies worldwide.

Here's a description of each day's schedule:

January 11, 2005
- Applying Enterprise Content Management Principles to Freedom of Information Requirements. Government agencies from federal, state/provincial and local jurisdictions are subject to legislative responsibilities to ensure compliance with Freedom of Information (FOI) requirements. This presentation will demonstrate how Hummingbird Enterprise can provide knowledge workers and compliance officers with a single point of access to critical agency data, assuring accurate responses and protecting sensitive data from disclosure.

January 13, 2005
- E-mail: A Risk Or An Asset? State and Local Agencies Address the Issue of Critical Communication. E-mail is the most critical communication channel for most government agencies but e-mail messages are not widely considered business records. With virtually every government organization using e-mail for business purposes there is an increasing requirement for defined policies, best practices and guidelines. Attendees will learn how Hummingbird Enterprise captures, manages, preserves and leverages e-mail, addressing the requirements for managing electronic records to meet compliance, record-keeping, and knowledge management best practices.

January 18, 2005
- Correspondence Tracking: Putting Enterprise Information Management to Work. Government departments and agencies receive an enormous amount of correspondence, both electronic and paper on a daily basis and managing this information is a major challenge that they face. The presentation will focus on the Hummingbird solution for correspondence management that allows senior government officials to receive, handle, track and store critical correspondence from their constituents and stakeholders.

January 25, 2005
- Information Lifecycle Management Framework for Hummingbird Enterprise Application Implementations. Using a large, highly distributed and complex US Defense Hummingbird DM/RM/WM-based installation case study during the presentation, attendees will learn about the essential elements for implementing an enterprise-wide Electronic Document and Records Management System (EDRMS) across a technically savvy and highly visible organization. The session will be presented by Jim Schneider, COTS Integration Engineer, Defense and C31 Business Systems from SRA International, Inc. - a valued Hummingbird partner.

These complimentary, online events will run from 2:00PM - 3:00PM Eastern Time (US & Canada) and include a short question and answer period at the end of each session. If you want to participate, please register here: Hummingbird Web Seminars.

knowledge.works...

Do you use 'knowledge-based' software solutions? Like Cipher Systems' Knowledge.Works?

Cipher self describes 'Knowledge.Works' as 'Competitive Intelligence Software'.

IFLA now has Knowledge Management Section...

Wow. Did you see that the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) now has a Knowledge Management Section?

The IFLA also has an 'International Reader on Knowledge Management': Knowledge Management : Libraries and Librarians Taking Up the Challenge, Ed. by Hans-Christoph Hobohm. München: Saur, 2004 and Contributors:

Larry Prusak / Tom Davenport
Rainer Kuhlen
Rafael Capurro
Irene Wormell
Susan Henczel
Michael Koenig
James Matarazzo

Eedo KnowledeSync...

Eedo KnowledgeSync Revolutionizes Rich Media Delivery according to a press release today.

"...Eedo KnowledgeSync, a dynamic content delivery platform that resides on a personal computer, allowing a rich offline or low bandwidth learning experience equivalent in quality to learners connected using broadband access to the Web. Offline users throughout the enterprise have access to the same quality of learning experience, custom learning content, documents, and knowledge-sharing capabilities anytime and anywhere.
The unique features of Eedo KnowledgeSync ensure that learning content is always current and that user data is automatically uploaded and synchronized. KnowledgeSync is "self-aware". Content updates, modifications and tracking data are reconciled and concurrency is maintained between the central repository and any remote locations and users..."

federal government goes rigid...

A recent press release announces that The Federal Government Partners With RIGID Systems.

An excerpt from this press release:

SAN RAMON, Calif./EWORLDWIRE/Nov. 1, 2004 --- The federal government is spending its money wisely as it partners with RIGID Systems of Columbia, Md. RIGID Systems has worked in a variety of federal government departments, including the U.S. Census Bureau, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Bureau of Engraving and Printing, Internal Revenue Service and the U.S. House of Representatives. RIGID Systems develops and implements applications built on the Remedy(R) Service Process Management platform, Action Request System from BMC Software. RIGID Systems' involvement in these projects enables the federal government to work more efficiently and ultimately save taxpayers money.

RIGID Systems and BMC Software entered into a Systems Integration Partnership for the federal government market this past week. "We have worked diligently with BMC Software and our federal government clients to build our business and reputation as a valued technology partner," stated Bruce Tyler, president of RIGID Systems. "We are delighted to be recognized as one of the federal government Systems Integration Alliance Partners for Remedy solutions," Tyler continued.

the army and km...

There is a press release today on a partnership between Internosis and Quest Software designed to deliver world class Microsoft services and solutions.

According to this press release:

"...U.S. Army Project Manager, Defense Communications and Army Switched Systems / Enterprise Business Integration Center (PM DCASS / EBIC) contracted with the Internosis and Quest team to plan and execute the USFK Active Directory forest implementation and user migration to Windows Server 2003 and Exchange 2003, as well as associated server consolidation. A secondary objective was to establish an interim data recovery capability that provides backup and restores user data. The team successfully migrated more than 23,000 user accounts and more than 18,000 workstations within budget and in less than 12 weeks..."

are you an 'idea practitioner'?...

Thomas H. Davenport and Laurence Prusak have written a book--What’s the Big Idea: Creating and Capitalizing on the Best Management Thinking (Harvard Business School Press). Babson Insight has an article--
The Practice of Ideas: Identifying, Advocating and Making It Happen by Davenport and Prusak, that expounds on some of the concepts put forth in their book.

Here is an excerpt on 'Idea practitioners':

"...Idea practitioners are the most important players in the entire process of importing and implementing new business and management ideas into organizations. They are the link between ideas and action. Without them, new ideas would remain on the periphery of organizations, and never get embedded into practice. Furthermore, the ideas wouldn't be nearly as useful. These managers aren't passive recipients of fully-shaped ideas. The good idea practitioners all filter out, add to, or subtract from the ideas they implement, "fitting" them to fit their organizations' specific needs. In many cases, it's from these individuals and their organizations that the gurus actually get their ideas and case examples.

We define idea practitioners as individuals who use business improvement ideas to bring about change in organizations. At some point in their careers they may have had managerial responsibility for achieving this objective. They may become consultants or academics at some point in their lives, but they have always worked for "real" companies or government agencies as well. Even when they are pontificating or generating new ideas themselves, it's usually on the basis of their own experience..."

more on km and best practices...

KnowNow Wins the KM World Promise Award. The KM Promise Award recognizes an organization that delivers on its promise to provide customers with innovative technology solutions for integrating Knowledge Management best practices into their business processes.

km and internal best practices...

Best Practices, LLC announces Knowledge Management: Managing Intellectual Assets Helps Reduce Costs. A list of the table of contents of this $1,000 benchmark is also available.

public knowledge and the government...

David Skyrme, a KM expert, writes a report--Public Sector - Public Knowledge - The KM Contribution to Better Government that is available on Research and Markets. This document explores the current and future developments in public-sector Knowledge Management and provides examples of good practices from around the world.

Jerry Ash, chief executive, Association of Knowledgework (AOK), says: "An excellent report... The surveys and case histories tell wonderful stories about the positive things that are happening in the public sector and powerfully demonstrate the value of knowledge-based strategies and implementations. The Key Lessons and Action Checklists provide practical advice on incorporating similar knowledge strategies into the initiatives of the reader's own organisation. I am particularly pleased to see that these lessons are expressed in terms of heuristics or ba rather than prescriptions to be replicated. Quotes from the experts provide even greater motivation."

According to the Research and Markets website, the report is available for $516.00.

Communitelligence.com...

Another portal.

This Communitelligence.com WebWire claims that Communitelligence is: "...the first global knowledge-sharing portal aimed at improving organizational and human communication. The site is being built and supported by global communication leaders, associations, schools and businesses linked to the common goals of elevating the profession and sharing best practices that can make all forms of communication more effective..."

of counterterrorism portals and knowledge management...

As I've been reflecting here in my 'knowledge notes', fairly regularly, the US government is 'into' knowledge management across its many agencies. Today there is a PR Newswire: Intellisophic and DFI Partner to Create Counterterrorism Portal.

A Counterterrorism Portal? Have you seen this one Bill Ives?

Here's a brief excerpt:

"...By leveraging the concept signatures contained within the reference material of highly sensitive subjects, patterns of similar concepts can be matched to content contained in potentially threatening information sources..."

atg and primus...

Back in August ATG announced their plans to acquire Primus Knowledge Solutions, Inc. Today Hiawatha Bray, a Boston Globe Staff reporter writes--Investor group aims to halt buyout by Art Technology.

According to Hiawatha:

"...ATG shareholders, Mitchell-Wright Technology Group, a Cincinnati capital management firm that owns 5.9 percent of ATG's stock, is rallying other institutional investors to oppose the deal when it comes up for a vote next Friday..."

on meta data and knowledge management...

And if you 'grok', and find enjoyment in, the more technical aspects of meta data repositories and environments, then feast your eyes on David Marco's--Business intelligence, data warehousing and analytics editorial which is Part 6 of A Complete Walk-Through on Meta Data & Knowledge Management: Managed Meta Data Environment from DMReview.

(This column is adapted from the book Universal Meta Data Models by David Marco & Michael Jennings (John Wiley & Sons).)

Here is an excerpt:

"...In the last several columns, I presented the six major components of a managed meta data environment (MME): meta data sourcing layer, meta data integration layer, meta data repository, meta data management layer, meta data marts and meta data delivery layer. This installment will discuss the MME's fourth component, the meta data management layer..."

km = old fashioned know-how?...

Andy Shaw writes for ITBusiness.ca--Knowledge management promises huge returns on even smalll investments.

A great article on reducing 'knowledge management' to single syllable speak. Andy supplies a simple explanation of how eGain is helping its clients to improve service by utilizing KM techniques.

Here's an excerpt:

"...Today, thanks to computers, we can manage our knowledge much better. At best, knowledge management is not just a technology but a whole strategy complete with a set of best practices. And when embraced by an organization there's a remarkable ROI. For instance, in a typical call centre operation, reports eGain, repeat calls and incorrect transfers drop 30 per cent; training of new operators takes 80 per cent less time; and the number of complaint calls that get "first time fixes" rises by 24 per cent.

What's more, when your call centre people know how your Web portal works, the overall volume of incoming calls tends to drop dramatically.

If only we had a better term for knowledge management -- so more of us can first know what it means and then figure out how to reap its benefits.

My suggestion? We could think of knowledge management simply as a modern day version of old fashioned know-how..."

caci int'l and the us government...

I was surprised to find this press release in my news reader today--CACI Awarded $266 Million in Previously Unannounced Contracts to Support National Security and Intelligence.

Here is a brief excerpt:

"...ARLINGTON, Va., Oct. 12 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- CACI International Inc announced today that it has won approximately $266 million in contracts to support national security and intelligence activities for clients in the federal government. The awards call for CACI to provide network services, systems integration, knowledge management, and intelligence support, among other solutions. All the contracts were awarded in CACI's first fiscal year 2005 quarter, which ended September 30, 2004. Approximately 60 percent of the $266 million is new work for CACI. The significant increase in the value of these awards confirms CACI's continued successful expansion of its core offerings for national security and intelligence solutions..."

What form of 'knowledge management' does CACI supply to the USA government in Iraq?

I performed a Google 'News' search on--CACI at Abu Ghraib--and found the number three--out of 88--news story on this topic to be:

Middle East Editorial Weblog: CACI Int'l v. NewStandard: Goliath Stirs, POSTED BY: Brian Dominick, BLOGGING: Abuse, Torture and Rape Reported at Unlisted U.S.-run Prisons in Iraq.

By the way, among the standard 'forward-looking' statements that appear at the end of the CACI press release I cited above:

"...The factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated include, but are not limited to, the following: ... the results of government investigations into allegations of improper actions related to the provision of services in support of U.S. military operations in Iraq; the results of the appeal of CACI International Inc ASBCA No. 53058;..."

knowledge management, how?...

Heather B. Hayes writes an article for Federal Computer Week on Firsthand knowledge that takes a look at the challenges ahead for the Department of Homeland Security, as well as many other agencies.

One of the people she interviews for this article is Carl Frappaolo, executive vice president and co-founder of the Delphi Group.

Carl recommends that "Quite simply, ignorance will kill us," and that:

"...Managers should ask and answer some pertinent questions: What knowledge is available? Are there unknowns that could be answered? Is it better to fill that gap or to rely on information already available? What are agency officials doing right with regard to knowledge management, and what are they doing wrong? Does the agency have cultural obstacles to sharing information?..."

Heather B. Hayes continues with:

"...knowledge management is a discipline that is not easily defined, and it needs to incorporate technology, data, people and processes to truly be effective. Cultural challenges abound, including ingrained resistance to sharing information, distrust of other agencies and security issues."

I have found knowledge sharing initiatives to be fraught with numerous challenges--the largest are normally at the 'cultural' level.

As we all surely know by now, successful knowledge sharing solutions are never just about tools.

I believe that Bob Buckman, and Buckman Labs, present an outstanding proof that knowledge sharing and/or management cannot be something an organization just 'talks' about--we have a 'knowledge management' system, we have 'knowledge management' components, we have 'knowledge management' processes--but instead the organization must embody and live. When one has a healthy heart, one has no need to constantly walk about expounding on the beating of one's heart--it is simply autonomic.

In Bob Buckman's view "...the climate of trust that fosters proactive knowledge sharing within the company is the same climate that we want to create with our customers."

Bob Buckman also believes (from AOK: Preparing for Conversations with Bob Buckman): "If you can't maximize the power of the individual, you haven't done anything. If you expand the ability of individual members of the organization, you expand the ability of the organization."

Simple, elegant, and yet difficult beyond measure in organizations that do not value and/or empower the individual to get the job done by affording them immediate access to the greatest amount of appropriate information with the least amount of resistance.

When I speak at conferences and workshops on knowledge sharing, I find that people still look to technology to cover a number of their 'cultural' impediments to successful implementation of knowledge sharing efforts in their organizations.

On this technology note, Heather concludes her article with some prognostications regarding "What's ahead in KM" from a technology perspective:

"...Knowledge management may be a relatively mature discipline, but the technologies that support it are continuing to evolve.

Expect the next knowledge management products to have the following features:

Tighter integration -- Many knowledge management tools typically come as separate solutions, and integrating them is not always easy. Newer products are trying to offer more integrated capabilities. For example, users of some new systems can receive automatic e-mail notification when something of interest has been added to the knowledge management system. Some systems also automatically save newly created content from office applications to a specialized knowledge repository for easier identification and retrieval.

Graceful escalation -- Future products will take advantage of the trend toward closer integration of knowledge management tools and collaboration technologies. For example, employees can take simple interactions, such as an instant message, to a richer and more complex experience, such as a Web conference that features application and document sharing with audio and video capabilities.

Standards support -- Knowledge management tools that use Extensible Markup Language and other Web standards will not only enable an easier exchange of information but also allow a larger variety of systems to work with one another with fewer interoperability issues..."

knowledge management for mac os x...

ITManagementNews reports: Enhancements to Mac OS X Knowledge Management System for Near-Time's Flow Suite of products.

An excerpt from the press release:

"...Flow 1.1 adds Weblog publishing capabilities with APIs for Blogger and MetaWeblog and the ability to quickly post any page or selected text to a Weblog no matter where it is stored in Flow. Flow adds an option for users to customize their output, allowing them to integrate documents from Flow with other applications, including existing content and knowledge management systems. Customizable stylesheets enable users to gain more control over output published from Flow into HTML.. Version 1.1 also adds SSL-level security and enables full use of the Near-Time Relay collaboration server...

"...Near-Time Flow is designed to improve people's connection with the information lifecycle," said Reid Conrad, president and CEO of Near-Time, Inc. "Our new releases help broaden that connection. Flow 1.1 extends the depth of output that Flow provides, making it an excellent choice for web designers and bloggers. And with Relay, enterprises can have their teams work together within their firewall and fully control the Flow experience..."

rationalizing data for knowledge management...

Dan Sussman for MSI Magazine says: Knowledge is power.

In the main, he is talking about National Semiconductor's endeavors to find easy answers to their customer problems with a comprehensive knowledge management platform.

This article highlights that:

"...One indication of the growing importance of knowledge management systems is the recent entree into the space by industry giants IBM and SAP. IBM moved into the market last March by acquiring four-year-old PIM vendor Trigo. In July, SAP purchased a company called a2i, which specializes in enterprisewide product content management and cross-media catalog publishing.

In addition to raising awareness about knowledge management, these acquisitions should make companies that have not yet selected a system think about the age-old single-vendor versus best-of-breed question. This issue is especially important in the knowledge management arena because integration of both applications and data is crucial to the success of any knowledge management program.

Where data is concerned, no knowledge management program can function effectively unless all the data being funneled to a Web site or user interface has been properly rationalized. Functionality for rationalizing data was the main attraction for IBM and SAP in their acquisitions of Trigo and a2i, respectively..."

on knowledge portals...

Colin White, the president of BI Research writes for DMReview: Building the Smart Business: The Evolution of the Enterprise Portal, wherein he discusses his perception of trends in the adoption of enterprise portals and their relationship to enterprise knowledge management strategies.

Skipping forward to the conclusion of this article, Colin White writes:

"...we can see two key trends. The first is that portal is a hot technology that is evolving from supporting knowledge management to the more complex world of providing a single interface to enterprise-wide content including corporate applications. The second is that as portal projects become more complex, care is required when developing the business case and in selecting products..."

And then he invites:

"...To find out more about these topics, join me at the December DCI Portals, Collaboration and Content Management conference in Orlando..."

knowledge management by blog?...

Jimmy Guterman, over at Business 2.0 writes: Barely Managing :: Management by Blog?

In this article on the benefits of internal and/or external corporate weblogging, Jimmy writes that:

"...Biz Stone predicted that "blogging in the business community is about to be a big deal. When Google bought Blogger, a record skipped, the music stopped, and business folks turned their heads toward the blogging phenomenon." Stone says he thinks the most immediate uses of blogging in corporations will be in the area of knowledge management: "Companies are going to want to capture people's experiences so when they leave the company they don't take everything with them."

Stone acknowledges that these systems are not in place, but he maintains that they're inevitable. "It's only a matter of time before we have a blogging system that's able to measure the intellectual climate of employees, that can get at the sorts of questions that managers need to know the answers to. What do people think of the new parking garage? What are smart people talking about? What's on their minds? It's a great, nonintrusive way of seeing what is happening in your organization..."

webinar on 'securing regulatory compliance'...

ZyLAB and Federal Computer Week are going to Host a Webinar on: 'Securing Regulatory Compliance Through Affordable Knowledge Management Solutions'.

According to the PR Newswire:

MCLEAN, Va., Sept. 27 /PRNewswire/ -- The following is being issued by ZyLAB:

Join Federal Computer Week, IDC and ZyLAB to hear Knowledge Management (KM) experts discuss topics such as records and data management, staying compliant with anti-fraud legislation, long-term usability factors, and lost- cost IT solutions that are available to support these issues. This FREE Web event provides participants with valuable insight into the best way to manage information according to regulatory guidelines.
Participants will learn about:
* Ways that the right KM solution can optimize ROI, save on insurance and
legal costs, secure in-house knowledge, and maximize the overall
usability of their information
* Compliance issues as they relate to KM and governmental organizations
* "Disruptive" trends and scaleable, low-cost KM technologies
* Innovative KM solutions that organizations such as the FBI, the SEC,
and Amtrak OIG are currently using to improve internal and external
information sharing and retention
* New integrated technologies for easy integration with existing systems
and organizational processes.

WHEN:
October 19th at 2:00 p.m. EDT

WHO:
* John Stein Monroe, Editor, Federal Computer Week (moderator)
* Julie Rahal, Research Analyst, IDC
* Dr. Johannes C. Scholtes, President and CEO, ZyLAB Technologies

TO REGISTER:
Go to: Event Registration (EVENT: 8838)

CONTACT: Evan Weisel at 703-323-6006 or evan@w2comm.com

knowledge management and the law...

Legal librarians are commanding salaries between £45,000-100,000 according to a Press Association report at Scotsman.com: IT Skills Pushing Up Law Librarians' Pay.

Jitendra Valera, director of Sweet and Maxwell Legal Online, said: "Knowledge management is now at the very core of law firms, and because of this, senior legal librarians are now increasingly important within their firms.

"Lawyers are increasingly dependent on their knowledge management skills.

"Increasingly lawyers base their reputation on delivering the best researched and most robust legal solutions in a timely manner to their clients--the modern legal librarians' role is central to this.

"The old perception of legal librarians working away in small, dusty libraries, searching through volumes of legal texts is completely divorced from reality."

sveiby knowledge management...

Old news to many but quite possibly new news to some--here is a link for your KM Library.

Karl Erik Sveiby--the principal of a global network of consultants, and a professor in Knowledge Management at the Swedish Business School Hanken in Helsinki--very generously supplies an online library of his earlier works, many of which are out of print.

This library also contains some of his favorite articles by other authors.

Check out the 90+ well-organized links available in his Sveiby Knowledge Management library.

federal knowledge management spending...

Federal Knowledge Management Spending to Increase 29 Percent by 2009, according to a Business Wire press release regarding INPUT's Federal Knowledge Management MarketView Summary.

Here is an excerpt from the press release:

RESTON, Va. --(Business Wire)-- Sept. 22, 2004 -- Broadened Agency Adoption, Homeland Security Initiatives, and Consolidation of Redundant Systems Drive Steady Growth over the Next Five Years

The federal market for knowledge management solutions will grow from $850 million in FY 2004 to almost $1.1 billion in FY 2009, a 29 percent increase in spending, according to a report released today by INPUT, the leading provider of government market intelligence. The projected increase is driven by heightened pressures to eliminate redundancies between agencies, to improve information sharing among agencies for improved homeland security purposes, and to improve overall agency performance by leveraging a broader, inter-agency knowledge base.

solving 'rubric's' cube...

Forrester Analyst Laurie M. Orlov posits that we are still herding cats with KM in: When You Say 'KM,' What Do You Mean?, for CIO Magazine.

In this article Laurie Orlov states that there are six questions that a firm needs to ask itself before it sets off on a KM crusade:

"...Does your firm need to do a better job of:

Sharing solutions to customer problems in a call center?...
Helping groups or teams collaborate and share work?...
Locate people with specific skills or create communities?...
Managing unstructured content repositories?...
Providing customized access to existing information?...
Documenting, modeling and executing business processes?..."

2004 european MAKE winners...

Teleos Names Europe's Most Admired Knowledge Enterprises

LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 21, 2004--Organizations dedicated to growth through innovation and knowledge management add value five times faster than their competitors, according to Teleos' new "2004 European Most Admired Knowledge Enterprises (MAKE) Study."

The winners of the 2004 European MAKE study, conducted by Teleos in association with The KNOW Network, are (in alphabetical order):

-- ABN AMRO (Netherlands)
-- BP (UK)
-- Capgemini (France)
-- DaimlerChrysler (Germany)
-- Ericsson (Sweden)
-- IRIZAR (Spain)
-- Nokia (Finland)
-- Norsk Tipping (Norway)
-- Renault (France)
-- Rolls-Royce (UK)
-- Royal Dutch/Shell (Netherlands/UK)
-- Siemens (Germany)
-- UBS (Switzerland)
-- Unilever (Netherlands/UK)

For the second year in a row, Siemens ranked first in the European MAKE study. BP and Nokia are previous overall European MAKE Winners. Britain leads the 2004 list with four winners -- followed by the Netherlands, France and Germany.

A panel of European Fortune 500 senior executives and internationally recognized knowledge management experts selected the 2004 European MAKE Winners. The panel rated organizations against a framework of eight key knowledge performance dimensions which are the visible drivers of competitive advantage.

The 2004 European MAKE Winners have been recognized as leaders in:

-- creating a corporate knowledge-driven culture
-- developing knowledge leaders
-- delivering superior knowledge-based products/services
-- maximizing enterprise intellectual capital
-- creating a collaborative enterprise environment
-- creating a learning organization
-- delivering value based on customer knowledge
-- transforming enterprise knowledge into shareholder value

This year's 14 European MAKE Winners accounted for 10% of the total added value created by Europe's top 600 companies. The 2004 European MAKE Winners also are recognized for delivering superior Returns on Assets and Revenues.

of knowledge and its management...

In News Today, South India's leading English evening newspaper: Of knowledge and its management.

The following is an excerpt:

"...Knowledge management should exist in all levels of the organisation and not only at the top level, C Vairavel, general manager, Ford India Limited, has said.

A press release quoted him as saying this while speaking at the inaugural session of a one-day national-level management meet - MANFEST 2004 at Sri Sairam Engineering College in Chennai recently. Vairavel dwelt on knowledge management and emphasised that knowledge is power only when it is shared..."

charlie isaacs joins kana...

As I continue to do some catch-up on publishing my 'knowledge notes', I find that--Charles Isaacs Joins KANA as CTO. I have had the pleasure of meeting this gentleman and am pleased to say that Charlie Isaacs is one smart cookie--KANA is lucky to have him!

Here's an excerpt from the press release on Charlie:

Mr. Isaacs has more than 20 years of experience in the industry, and was most recently CTO at Primus Knowledge Solutions, a knowledge management solution provider. While at Primus, Mr. Isaacs was responsible for the technology vision and direction of the company's knowledge management and self-service solutions. Mr. Isaacs was CTO of Broad Daylight, prior to its acquisition by Primus. At Broad Daylight, he led the development of the industry's first entirely Java-based knowledge management and Web self-service solution. Under his leadership, the company received industry accolades and analysts consistently recognized the company as one of the greatest innovators in the space. Mr. Issacs' visionary thinking and extensive industry experience will provide significant value to KANA and its customer base.

knowledgebase.net...

So I thought that centralized knowledge bases were Knowledge Management Version 1.0. And I thought that we were well into 2.0 by now, but... In a RealMarket CRM News Release I found--Knowledge Base Solutions.

Here's an excerpt:

LOS ANGELES, Calif. -- Sept. 13, 2004 -- : KnowledgeBase Solutions Inc., a leading provider of hosted and onsite knowledge management solutions for customer support and self-service, announced today that the University of West Florida successfully completed the first phase implementation of KnowledgeBase.net v4.0 Hosted Edition. When finalized, the deployment of this award-winning knowledge management solution will provide technical support for the university population of 12,000 students, staff and faculty. Students and employees now have instant answers to their questions through a central knowledgebase that is accessible through the university's intranet system, 'Argus.' The first phase of the KnowledgeBase.net implementation was successfully completed and augments the efforts of the IT help desk, which offers 24/7 assistance to students and employees.

knowledge management in south africa...

Mike Fisher, Managing Director, HCMT writes for allAfrica.com--South Africa: Labour Relations Market Lags in Workflow, Knowledge Management.

"...Employee labour relation procedures in SA still run by and large on manual paper-based systems. These manual systems are in part the reason for so many employee disputes.

Small to medium-sized companies lose more than 60% of the cases arbitrated by the CCMA, and over 80% of these cases are based on unfair dismissals.

The majority of employee complaints are around non-complaint procedures and favouritism. Employees complain that some employees receive harsher treatment than others. Consistency is what employees, unions and the law demand. But non-compliance is often due to both ignorance and a lack of proper procedures.

In large organisations, the situation is somewhat different. Procedures are in place, but systems are still manual and these systems generate huge amounts of paperwork which are difficult to manage.

Of the companies we evaluated in corporate SA, not a single organisation could boast having an electronic, workflow-based document management solution..."

pivia's teamtheme weblog...

According to a press release--Pivia Launches First 'Distributed Workplace' Blog. First guest is David Weinberger--excellent. Is this really the "First 'distributed workplace' weblog though? And, what exactly is a 'distributed workplace' weblog? There is a description of this service, as well as an invitation to submit your name as a potential contributor at: Pivia TeamTheme.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

CUPERTINO, Calif., Sept. 13 /PRNewswire/ -- Pivia(TM) Inc., the leader in Web Application Delivery and Optimization, today launches the first corporate Weblog to include a customer-centric interactive space called 'TeamTheme,' designed to provide business professionals with online expert and practitioner insight and encourage discussion around cutting-edge ideas and best practices for running efficient distributed enterprise teams. Pivia has invited David Weinberger, an expert on 'The Hyperlinked Organization,' to be the first guest to participate in Pivia's TeamTheme.

Mr. Weinberger will be available from September 13-17, 2004 to answer questions from the web community on the topic of The Hyperlinked Organization. Mr. Weinberger is a Harvard Law School Berkman Institute for Internet & Society Fellow. He is the author of 'Small Pieces Loosely Joined' and co-author of the highly influential, 'The Cluetrain Manifesto,' which launched the 'markets are conversations' movement and shaped thinking on participatory media including blogs. Mr. Weinberger also writes a monthly column for KMWorld, the leading information provider serving the Knowledge Management systems market, and edits the Journal of the Hyperlinked Organization...

knowledge management at the british council...

Over on PublicTechnology.net, which publishes e-Government & public sector IT news, there is a report--British Council pilots a knowledge management platform, globally.

Here is an excerpt:

British Council, the UK's public diplomacy and cultural organisation, is piloting a knowledge management platform across its global regions.

The resulting deployment will fulfil an immediate requirement for a knowledge management and collaborative working platform and will support the business in its shift to regionalisation over the coming years.

British Council selected Microsoft Office 2003 and SharePoint 2003 as its knowledge management platform and has undertaken six pilots to assess its capabilities.

Trinity Expert Systems will partner with the British Council to pilot the SharePoint solution. Specifically, Trinity will design the architecture, configure and set up the required infrastructure and will customise SharePoint features and graphics to meet the British Council's requirements. The solution will potentially be used for a deployment to 7000 British Council staff across 120 countries.

army knowledge management awards...

Dawn S. Onley, for Government Computer News (GCN) daily news, reports--Army salutes knowledge management projects.

Dawn reports the following winners:

The Future Combat Systems Advanced Collaborative Environment, developed by Boeing Co. and Science Applications International Corp. as the lead systems integrator, won in the E-Army category. ACE is the digital environment that enables the design, development, test, production and support of the 18 individual weapon systems that will make up FCS.

Other Army Knowledge Award recipients:

Knowledge Transformation Initiative--Battle Command Sustainment Support System (BCS3), Army Combined Arms Support Command

Enterprise Solution--Strategic Readiness System, Army headquarters G-3 (Collective Training Division)

Cross-Functional Solution--Electronic Judge Advocate Warfighting System Resource Digital Library, U.S. Army Legal Services Agency

Community of Practice--Army Knowledge Online Information Operations Communities of Practice, Combined Arms Center, U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command

E-Learning Initiative--Lifelong Learning, U.S. Army Signal Center and Fort Gordon, Ga.

Battlefield Application Award--1st Infantry Division Artillery Portal.

100 companies that matter...

KMWorld announces their annual--100 Companies that Matter. Instead of fielding the 100 or so press releases generated by this exercise, this year I will publish the entire list of companies.

According to KMWorld: "This year, we avoided what could appear to be flash-in-the-pan offerings. Instead, we've focused on those technologies and companies that provide--in our opinion, anyway--true business solutions, not thin veneers of technology."

And, here they are:

80-20 Software, Adobe, Anacubis, Arbortext, AskMe, Autonomy, AWD:DST Technologies, BroadVision, Butterworth-Heinemann, Captiva, ClearForest, Cognos, Computer Associates, Convera, Copernic Technologies, eiStream Identitech, eManage, EMC/Documentum/LEGATO, empolis, Endeca, Entopia, Entrieva, ePeople, Exact Software, EXSYS, Factiva, Fast Search &  Transfer, FatWire Software, FileNet, Fios, Fiserv, Fujitsu Software, Google, Hoovers, Hummingbird, Hyland Software, Hyperwave, IBM, IMR, Information Builders, Inmagic, InSystems Technologies, Integrify, Intelliseek, Interwoven, Inxight Software, Inc., iPhrase, ISYS Search Software, Kamoon, KMtechnologies,  Inc, Kofax, KVS, LexisNexis, Lionbridge, Merant, Metastorm, Microsoft, Mobius, Noetix Corporation, Northern Light, nStein, OneSource, Open Text Corp., Oracle, PensEra, PeopleSoft, Percussion Software, Plumtree, Primus Knowledge Solutions,  Inc., Recommind, Inc., RedDot Solutions Corp., Results Engineering, SAP, SAS, Selectica, SER Solutions, Inc., ServiceWare Technologies, Inc., SiteScape, Inc., Smead Software, Sony, Sopheon, Stellent, Stratify, Inc., Sun Microsystems, SupportSoft, Tacit, Talisma, TheBrain Technologies Corp., TimeVision, Inc., Tower Software, TripleHop Technologies, Inc, Ultimus, Venetica, Verity, Inc., Vignette/TOWER Tech/Intraspect, Vivisimo, West Group/ Thomson Elite, YourAmigo.

Consultants, analysts and integrators that matter in 2004


Accenture, Basex, Bearing Point, Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, CSC, Delphi Group, Doculabs, Forrester Research/GIGA, Fujitsu Consulting, Gartner, IBM Global Services, IDC, Meta Group, Ovum, Perot Systems, PricewaterhouseCoopers, The 451 Group, ZenSar.

knowledge management and outsourcing...

In the Contact Centers section of CRM News there is a story--Contact Center Knowledge Management: New Relevance.

According to this article, knowledge management is key to a successful outsourcing strategy, providing a number of leverage points for contract negotiation:

"...Knowledge management can increase the odds of outsourcing success by reducing the need for agent training, guiding agents to the right information and answers -- all within a corporate policy and interaction compliance framework.

In fact, a knowledge-powered outsourcing model can drive service efficiencies and allow you to negotiate lower prices for outsourced services, making its ROI even more compelling..."

the army and the semantic web...

Dawn S. Onley, GCN Staff, writes for Government Computer News: Army seeks to use semantic Web to improve knowledge management.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla.--To make the massive amounts of data it collects useful to warfighters, the Army is moving to use a version of the World Wide Web that presents information in a machine-readable format.

Lt. Gen. Steven W. Boutelle, CIO of the Army, said the service must move away from the current Web environment and turn to the semantic Web, which will help military users improve their knowledge management.

"This is the next step ... to really get knowledge out of terabytes of information,"? Boutelle said yesterday in a keynote speech at the Army's 2004 Directories of Information Management conference.

With the flow of information into Army networks growing daily, the service is expanding its use of Extensible Markup Language and improving security, he said.

Boutelle said the Army needs industry's help to defend military networks from the increasing threat posed by intrusions and attacks.

"Information is our jewel,"? Boutelle said. "We've got to protect it, yet make it readily available to the right person."

km as an intranet trend...

In Intranet Trends to Watch For Line56.com contributer, Shiv Singh identifies eight trends. I've excerpted the 5th:

5. The new killer app -- the knowledge management tool

Intranets need killer applications to survive and grow. The killer applications that replace the corporate telephone directory and the cafeteria menu will be knowledge management tools. Irrespective of your organization type, employees will perceive knowledge as a key mechanism to stay competitive with their peers and competitors. Effective knowledge management initiatives delivered via the intranet will take advantage of this trend. Furthermore, CEOs will treat employee productivity and knowledge levels as their only surviving competitive advantages as they attempt to limit the damage done by off shoring. Knowledge management tools will gain more prominence in this business environment and the corporate intranet will be the natural place to house them.

army gets in the groove...

Brad Grimes, Staff Writer for Washington Technology writes:

Groove to ink deals for knowledge management software.

"The Battle Command Knowledge System is being built to give the Army an online tool for collecting and sharing experiences and lessons learned. Groove Virtual Office will be used to support the Army's virtual action teams; Tomoye Simplify is for structured professional forums.

"The Army's strategy to support teams and capture knowledge at the edges of the organization and then accelerate the transfer of that information throughout the organization is highly advanced,"? said David Scult, Groove Networks' senior vice president of sales.

Beverly, Mass.-based Groove Networks recently released version 3 of its Virtual Office software. The application is a major component of the Homeland Security Information Network."

intelligent awards...

The Intelligent Enterprise Magazine: Readers' Choice Awards results are in and in the category of Knowledge Management, Microsoft wins with:

SharePoint Portal Server 2003
% overall vote: 25.6%
% vote, Large Enterprises: 21.4%
% vote, SMEs: 29.7%
Satisfaction Rating: 77%

Runner-up:
IBM
IBM Lotus Workplace Messaging
% overall vote: 18.2%

Here's a link to the overall 2004 Readers Choice Awards Product Information.

km europe 5th anniversary...

Managing Information News reports: KM Europe Celebrates 5th Birthday.

...The speaker line-up consists of John Seely Brown, Leif Edvinsson, Dave Snowden, Karl Wiig, Karl-Erik Sveiby, Richard Cross and Dan Holtshouse.

On the importance of KM Europe, Dave Snowden of the Cynefin Centre said, "It is hard to overstate the importance of this industry event and the impact it has on countless KM professionals around the globe"?.

As with previous years, entry to the majority of the show is free of charge. Keynote presentations are available for E90/£60 each and masterclasses at E560/£375 each

KM Europe takes place at the Amsterdam RAI, The Netherlands from 8-10th November 2004. For more information, including testimonials, please visit www.kmeurope.com...

more km and legal news...

Knowledge Management is alive and well and living in the hallowed halls of legal research. Today: Hummingbird Announces Integration with LexisNexis(R) Total Search

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

ORONTO, ON, and LAWNET, PHOENIX, AZ, Aug. 25 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ - Hummingbird Ltd. (NASDAQ: HUMC, TSX: HUM), a leading global provider of integrated enterprise content management (ECM) solutions, and LexisNexis®, a leader in comprehensive and authoritative legal, news and business information, today announced the integration of Hummingbird Enterprise(TM) and LexisNexis® Total Search V.2. The combined technologies will provide increased flexibility and improve knowledge sharing capabilities for legal professionals.

LexisNexis Total Search, a Web browser-based application, allows legal professionals to search the lexis.com® service while simultaneously searching the law firm's internal work product stored in the Hummingbird DM repositories. Legal teams can fully utilize the intellectual property and collective expertise already residing within the firm and deliver the highest quality work product to colleagues and clients more efficiently...

km and the legal profession...

In 'Managing Information News': Solcara's Knowledge Management Solution Attracting Legal Professions.

"...Solcara's SolSearch technology supports integrated searching of all of a firm's information resources, including internal sources such as Document Management, Know How, and Library systems as well as supporting searching of online subscription services and free sources of information such as government and public body web sites..."

knowledge management and world peace...

Dr. M.A. Hannan Feroz writes about a Need for uniform knowledge management for world peace.

A brief excerpt:

...If the last century was considered as the era of industrialisation, this century is slated, to represent globalisation, knowledge - based society, educational reform all culminating in a knowledge management society. Proper knowledge management is a key to the competitive edge of any organisation including universities...

km + crm...

On TMC Net today--InStranet Wins Best of Show Award at 2004 ICCM Conference.

CHICAGO --(Business Wire)-- Aug. 19, 2004 --Contact Centers In-Line(TM) Named Best Call Center-Knowledge Management System

InStranet, Inc., the leader in knowledge-based applications for the enterprise contact center, today announced that it received the 2004 Best of Show Award at the 16th Annual International Call Center Management (ICCM) Conference and Exposition, for its Contact Centers In-Line (CCIL) application in the Best Knowledge Management System category.

atg acquires primus...

From CBS MarketWatch in Investor's Business Daily--ATG buying software developer Primus.

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS.MW) - Software developer ATG has agreed to buy rival Primus Knowledge Solutions in a deal valued at $30 million to $33 million, the companies said late Tuesday.

knowledge footprints...

A recent press release announces--Penn State University's Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology Department Selects FootPrints Service Desk Software to Centralize and Manage its IT Help Desk.

EDISON, N.J. --(Business Wire)-- Aug. 10, 2004 -- UniPress Software, Inc., a leading provider of web-based service desk automation software, today announced that the Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology (AERS) Department at Penn State University has selected FootPrints(R) to centralize its IT support operations. Through the use of FootPrints, the IT center at AERS established a centralized service desk to effectively support faculty and staff members and graduate students within the department, which studies the agricultural industry using the latest technology and statistical analysis.

FootPrints is a 100% web-based service desk used by nearly 2,000 organizations to centrally track and manage help desk and customer service requests, and control all aspects of the problem-resolution lifecycle. The easy-to-use system includes a broad range of features and functionality such as self-service online, two-way email management, knowledge management, and powerful reporting.

sec plans for km and collaboration...

Steven Marlin reports for InformationWeek--SEC Outlines Its Five-Year IT Plan. According to Steven, collaborative technologies, knowledge management, and workflow automation are all on the agenda for implementation at the SEC over the next five years.

Here's an excerpt:

"The plan, which was approved in July and posted on the SEC's Web site Thursday, also calls for enhancing personal productivity through automation and collaborative technologies to facilitate "workforce virtualization," deployment of knowledge-management tools that capture the expertise of staff, and Web-based forms and workflow automation tools to automate internal business processes."

regulators and information flow...

In IT-Director.com Bob McDowall reports--The demands of regulators drive information policy.

Bob McDowall asks the question: "Can corporations and institutions, which have culture of management of information, "a proper knowledge management programme", within their operating and administrating units, the place where information is or at least should be used and understood, address current and future demands of governments and regulators?"

And then gives a bit of an aswer himself: "It is contended that such a culture exists, the demands of governments and regulators will drive corporate information policies.

Is it the case that, if information policy and implementation is driven by business leaders, departmental heads, CIOs, IT managers, who, at best, have only a broad view of the use of information, there will be a constant change. They will continue incessantly to seek to satisfy the widening demands of governments and regulators."

bubbling business blogs...

Linda Rosencrance, Computerworld (US), originally wrote: Blogs bubble into business, back in the end of January for Computerworld here in the US. But this article just 'bubbled' into my newsreader with a new publishing date of 2 August - 6 September for Computerworld Malaysia. Everything old is new again. (-:=

Since this article speaks at the intersection of weblogs and knowledge management, and also makes positive mention of using the blogging feature of Socialtext, I thought it quotable here today:

"Jacob Crossman, a software engineer at Soar Technology in Ann Arbor, Michigan, uses blogging tools from Palo Alto, California-based Socialtext to keep an up-to-date engineering notebook on his ideas about a particular project that can be accessed by other project participants.

"One of the disadvantages of a paper-based engineering notebook is that it's hard to find things unless you want to go through it manually," Crossman says. "So I decided to use the blog feature of Socialtext's software to keep track of my ideas. I would type them in, and then they're immediately searchable using another feature of the software." He is also able to link to other documents about the project using the blog entry.

Crossman is not alone. Recently, weblogs, or blogs, which let anyone with a web browser and some easy-to-use software publish a personalised diary online, have started to emerge as valuable knowledge management and communication tools in companies."

asia unplugged...

Howard Rheingold writes about Asia Unplugged -- New Book.

Howard endorses this new book: "I met and corresponded with Madanmohan Rao, co-editor of ASIA UNPLUGGED: Learning from the Wireless and Mobile Media Boom in the Asia-Pacific, while he was compiling the book, and have reason to believe it's a very useful resource."

I noticed that in Part I of Asia Unplugged there is a chapter on Knowledge management and business intelligence by Madanmohan Rao. Looks like an interesting read.

Found the following quote attributed to Madanmohan Rao in a powerpoint presentation at:
http://journalism.utexas.edu/onlinejournalism/madan.ppt

"In the 21st century, every business is a publisher, every Internet or mobile user is a reporter, and every citizen is an editor." Madanmohan Rao, Austin, TX, April 17, 2004.

“In the 21st century, every business is a publisher, every Internet or mobile user is a reporter, and every citizen is an editor.”
Madanmohan Rao
Austin, TX
April 17, 2004

egain and wipro align...

eGain Announces Strategic Global Alliance With Wipro Technologies

SUNNYVALE, CA and PUNE, INDIA -- (MARKET WIRE) -- 07/29/2004 -- eGain Communications Corp. (OTC BB: EGAN), a leading provider of customer service and contact center software, today announced a strategic global partnership with Wipro Technologies, the global IT services division of Wipro Limited (NYSE: WIT), one of the world's fastest growing global IT services organizations. The new global alliance combines Wipro's world leadership in the system integration arena with eGain's best-in-class multi-channel customer service and contact center software to create persuasive value for customers.

Wipro will offer system integration services around eGain's entire product suite, eGain Service - which is available as an in-house or an on-demand hosted solution. The suite includes integrated, best-in-class applications for email management, knowledge management, web self-service, virtual agent customer service, chat and co-browsing.

knowledge management in pittsburgh...

In the Pittsburgh Post Gazette today there is a Business calendar announcement for a summer KM social:

Pittsburgh Regional Knowledge Management Consortium, summer social, 6 p.m., Hard Rock Cafe, Station Square. Call Shawn McNeils at 412-366-7562.

saic, teratext, and hp...

I have been on the road a fair amount lately and have barely had the time to leave these notes for both my good readers and myself. Please bear with me as I continue to bore you with yet another PR Newswire. This one is regarding: SAIC's TeraText(TM) Solutions Signs Strategic Alliance Agreement with HP.

MCLEAN, Va., July 23 /PRNewswire/ -- TeraText(TM) Solutions, a division of Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), announced today that it has entered into a strategic alliance agreement with HP. Under the terms of the agreement, HP will provide its federal sales organization with information on SAIC's TeraText Database Systems (DBS) and how it works with or complements HP's current solutions and services including HP Integrity servers featuring the Intel Itanium processor, running Linux.

...TeraText technology was developed at Melbourne-based RMIT University, one of Australia's largest multi-level universities. In 1993, TeraText was first released as a commercial product and since has been adopted by government and commercial customers. In July 2001, SAIC entered into an exclusive agreement with RMIT University to develop and commercialize TeraText technology in North America and Europe. The TeraText DBS is sold as part of customized, integrated solutions developed and maintained by SAIC systems specialists. Leading applications include intelligence gathering, technical documentation, legislation management, publishing and knowledge management.

self help groups in india...

An article by Jospeh Vackayil in The Financial Express cautions that: SHGs (Self Help Groups) Need To Shed Their Gender-specific Image.

Here's an excerpt:

Says M S Swaminathan, chairman of the MS Swamin-athan Research Foundation (MSSRF), and chairman of the National Farmers' Commission: "The self-help group model has been identified as a potential pathway to alleviating poverty. The number of poor women and men who are enrolling in SHGs all over rural India has been increasing remarkably. They are not only active in thrift and credit management but are also taking up other activities, such as natural resource management and development work, literacy, knowledge management, nutritional security etc. SHGs lay the foundation for self- reliance through building up of institutions, which have the capacity to generate employment opportunities for the rural poor, and the poorest, and lead to job-led economic growth."

denham grey on knowledge management...

Denham Grey receives a mention in The Cincinnati Post today:

METS hosts forum

ERLANGER, Ky. - The Northern Kentucky University METS Center for Corporate Learning has agreed to host and provide support for a fledgling Tri-State Knowledge Management Association.

A forum on Wednesday, "Knowledge Management -- Winning Practices of Today and Tomorrow," will be facilitated by Denham Grey, an Indianapolis resident and expert in knowledge management. Grey was one of the founders of the Indianapolis Knowledge Management Association.

An inaugural meeting of the association is slated to be held immediately after the 7:15 a.m. breakfast forum.

knowledge management and financial services...

In a press release today from Dublin, Ireland: Research and Markets: Growth in the Use of Knowledge Management in the Financial Services Sector.

DUBLIN, Ireland--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 19, 2004--Research and Markets has announced the addition of Knowledge Management in Financial Services to their offering.

The current and future role of knowledge management (KM) in the financial services industry, like every other management paradigm, depends upon its ability to contribute to stakeholder value. There is not yet available a great deal of substantive data on how managing something as intangible as knowledge directly impacts the bottom line of a company.

Objectives of the report

Knowledge management is only now becoming a recognised management paradigm (as opposed to a management fad). For anyone who is new to the subject, the task of coming to grips with this expanding field of thought and practice seems quite daunting. The objective of this report is therefore not to be exhaustive in its treatment of knowledge management, but rather to help the reader along the KM learning curve.

With this in mind this report presents some of the key concepts and practices in the field that demonstrate the variety of ways knowledge management can be applied in the financial services industry. The report looks in detail at some of the KM projects and strategies under way in 14 international organisations - projects and strategies which have been designed and implemented by some of the world's leading practitioners and thinkers in this area.

Microsoft Executive Circle Webcast...

For your calendar:

On Thursday, August 12, 2004 9:00 AM (GMT-08:00) Pacific Time (US & Canada), Microsoft will host a one hour webcast on: Integrating Project Management, Portfolio Management, and Knowledge Management.

Here is the description of this webcast event as it appears on Microsoft's website:

Integrating project management, portfolio management and knowledge management has been demonstrated to significantly improve business performance. Join this webcast to see the latest industry-leading solutions available to comprehensively address the challenges of IT project delivery and help guarantee successful outcomes.

Presenter: Gus Cicala, President & CEO, Project Assistants

Mr. Augustus (Gus) Cicala is the President, CEO, and co-founder of Project Assistants, Inc. In 1996 he started Project Assistants, a successful full-services project management consulting firm that provides consulting services, custom development, education and products that form the foundation of enterprise project management solutions. Mr. Cicala has over twenty years of experience and leadership in project management and information technology development. He has worked with a broad range of clients throughout the US and Western Europe.

knowledge management and intellectual assets...

The following is an excerpt from a Business Wire press released yesterday on Knowledge Management: Managing Intellectual Assets Helps Reduce Costs.

CHAPEL HILL, N.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 16, 2004--To efficiently manage intellectual assets, leading companies embed knowledge management activities in their corporate strategy. According to a study by research and consulting firm Best Practices, LLC, identifying and sharing internal best practices enables organizations to gain market position and drive long-term growth. While some companies lay off employees to cut costs in a slow economy, leading companies utilize employees' valuable knowledge reduce expenses.

"Knowledge Management of Internal Best Practices," available at Benchmarking Report: Knowledge Management of Internal Best Practices (where you can download a free excerpt), reveals the importance of employing effective management of intellectual capital technique. Examples from the study include:

-- A leading chemical company outlined a specific procedure for the implementation of its knowledge management system. The system bolstered profits immediately: the company saved more than $1 million within the first 18 months after implementing its six-step system.

-- One benchmarked company determined that an increasing percentage of companies' assets are intangible, approximately 62% for industrial organizations. Managing ideas, concepts, best practices and talents of employees is critical to both near-term competitive advantage and to the preparation for future success.

security and knowledge management...

Judging by the number of news stories and press releases that I have been finding in my news filter--it seems that the 'knowledge management' concept is still quite alive.

In a press release today: Frost & Sullivan Presents Its 2004 Customer Value Enhancement Award for the Security Industry to Lenel Systems International. Here's an excerpt:

BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 15, 2004--Market and growth consulting firm Frost & Sullivan has named Lenel Systems International the recipient of its 2004 Customer Value Enhancement Award, in recognition of Lenel's achievements in the integrated security systems industry. The award was presented at the Customer Value Enhancement Awards Banquet in Boston, Mass., on July 14.

...Historically, security systems have been proprietary, hardware-focused and highly specialized in scope. Lenel has transformed the market by creating a solution that brings all the diverse components of the security environment together into a single, seamlessly integrated system, using open architecture design standards and offering centralized administration and management. Lenel's flagship OnGuard(R) Total Security Knowledge Management Solution(TM) is a comprehensive yet ever-expanding suite of applications encompassing facility access control, IP digital video surveillance and management, intrusion detection, alarm monitoring, employee ID management systems, identity/credential management, smart card applications, integration of a full set of biometric devices, physical asset management, visitor management and integration with third-party systems.

aerospace and knowledge management...

In a press release today: THINQ Strengthens Aerospace/Defense Market Leadership Position.

BALTIMORE, July 13 /PRNewswire/ -- THINQ Learning Solutions, Inc. today announced that it has added General Dynamics to its aerospace/defense client roster, which includes Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Rolls Royce, Pratt & Whitney and others. THINQ is the clear, preferred learning technology provider for the aerospace/defense industry, working closely with its customers to ensure that their employees and partners are equipped with workforce development tools that streamline knowledge management, enhance productivity and allow them to deliver against their business goals.

So, what do you THINQ? I wonder how many LMS solutions each one of these aerospace/defense giants use in each of their organizations?

knowledge management...

Tomorrow I fly off to Nice, France to deliver the keynote address at a conference there, and to take a few days of vacation.

As I was performing catch-up posting on my 'knowledge notes' this evening, I noticed that today was quite a newsy day on all things 'knowledge management'.

From:

Holme Roberts & Owen LLP Expanding Its Knowledge Management Capabilities With LexisNexis(R) Total Search;

to an exclusive, invitation only panel on Building the 21st Century Searchable Organization at The Forbes Magazine Galleries with Dr. Larry Harris, Chairman and Chief Scientist, EasyAsk Inc., Michael Smith, VP & GM of Operations, Forbes.com, and Dr. Bill Ives, IT consultant;

to Groove Networks' announcement of their launch of Groove Virtual Office v3.0 For Secure Cross-Agency Communications In Public Sector;

to Cassidy Cataloguing Services' selection of STAR for CassidyCat Online Public Access Catalog, Serials, and Acquisitions;

to Jones, Walker, Waechter, Poitevent, Carrere & Denegre's enhancement of their Knowledge Management Capabilities With LexisNexis(R) Portal, Powered by Plumtree;

all in all a busy knowledge management news day.

About eight months ago Seb Paquet asked me if I could break my multi-storied posts out into individual posts. Gee Seb, I haven't done a multi-storied post here on knowledge notes in quite some time. Hope you don't mind this one... (-:=.

seamless communication...

If I had an acre for every mention of 'seamless' in press releases, product descriptions, and/or software 'market'-techtures -- (In this press release alone: "Tools Seamlessly Integrate", "provide seamless communication", "clients become true-believers when they see how seamless", "make collaboration seamless") -- I would have a fairly large piece of property by now... (-:=

PRESS RELEASE: MedValue's Web-based Collaboration Tools Seamlessly Integrate Medical Billing Companies with India Operations

Chicago, IL (PRWEB) July 9, 2004 -- MedValue, the leading provider of offshore billing talent and services to America's Medical Billing companies, announced the rollout of its groundbreaking MedValue Workflow Management System (WMS), a proprietary web-based management tool designed to provide seamless communication, knowledge management, management reporting and issues tracking between its client's US-based Staff and MedValue's India operations...

government knowledge management...

In another press release today--ZyLAB Hosts Federal Government User Day July 27th 'Knowledge Management Solutions Under 25K!'

WASHINGTON, July 7 /PRNewswire/ -- ZyLAB, a leader in providing affordable Knowledge Management (KM) solutions to agencies throughout the Federal government, is hosting its annual Federal government user day at the Ronald Reagan building on July 27th from 8:30 a.m. to noon. This event provides existing and potential ZyLAB government customers with demonstrations on the latest affordable KM solutions -- solutions under 25K!
Schedule:
8:30 am - 9:30 am: Continental breakfast
10:00 am - noon: Individual product demonstrations to
include:

-- Case management solutions
-- Knowledge Management Visualization solutions
-- Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft Outlook e-mail archiving
solutions
-- Document Management System
-- FOIA solutions
-- E-Clearance solutions
-- DoD 5015.2 Records Management solutions

WHEN: July 27th 8:30 am - Noon

WHERE: Ronald Reagan Building, Hemisphere A
The Federal Triangle metro stop (blue and orange lines)

REGISTER: Judy Oelschlager at judy@zylab.com or 866-995-2262

patenting knowledge management...

In a Business Wire yesterday--Kanisa Issues Patent for Core Knowledge Management Automation Technology; Patented Technology Automates Knowledge Management Through Process-Based Auto-Classification and Tagging

CUPERTINO, Calif. --(Business Wire)-- July 5, 2004 -- Kanisa Inc., the leading provider of knowledge-empowered customer service applications, announced today it has been issued U.S. Patent # 6,711,585 entitled "System and method for implementing a knowledge management system" by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

The patent, awarded to Kanisa for its knowledge management technology, protects its multi-dimensional representation of knowledge, enabling effective searching for knowledge within a complex information space.

The newly patented technique classifies knowledge objects such as documents, web pages, products, people, organizations, products, and links to applications into multiple distinct taxonomies. This allows for a rich multi-dimensional search and enables the full context of the query to affect the relevancy of results.

personal knowledge management...

Cathleen Moore, for InfoWorld, writes--KM tools put users in control.

The two products that Ms. Moore writes about are Near-Time's Flow and Learning Management Solutions' KnowledgeWorkshop (which I posted about last week).

Does 'peer-to-peer content managment' = 'personal knowledge management'?

data into knowledge?...

William Welsh writes for Washington Technology--KeyLogic captures two EPA contracts.

Mr. Welsh writes: "KeyLogic Systems Inc. has won two contracts totaling $6.1 million from the Environmental Protection Agency, the company announced today.

...Under a two-year, $2 million contract, KeyLogic will continue to transform data into knowledge with the eFacts Knowledge Management System.

...Previously, the agency could produce only 12 reports per month on the Superfund program, but with eFacts it can produce as many as 1.5 million reports per month with 75 percent fewer man hours, the company said..."

Who will read the 1.5 million reports/month? And, data into knowledge? One can only dream... (-:=

collaboration and knowledge management...

Matthew Clapp, an independent consultant, submits an opinion piece on CMS Watch--Collaboration First, Then Knowledge Management--wherein he opines, rants, and comments on the growing expense of large team face to face meetings, the need for 'practical' collaboration environments, the wisdom of pilot projects, and the importance of "a seamless integration path with any content repository."

I am a 'virtual' knowledge worker. I have a home office, an office in Princeton, and offices at my clients' workplaces. This week, I've been on the west coast attending Supernova2004, and visiting with clients and friends.

While here on the west coast I am staying in Berkeley at the home of a friend who is an awesome 'virtual' knowledge worker--working for a large global enterprise and providing invaluable services in conjuction with his work team. My friend works harder and longer than most large enterprise employees--and he is exceedingly effective at what he does. His home office is a model of a successful 'enterprise' virtual workplace.

search and knowledge management...

An article in The Business Times | Singapore--Information service will save time and money for firms--interviews Factiva president and CEO Clare Hart regarding the willingness of businesses to pay for search services. Ms. Hart points out that more than 60 per cent of Factiva's 9,000 sources are not freely available on the Internet.

According to this article Clare Hart recognizes a different trend among Singapore clients:

But in Singapore, things are moving in the right direction. The government here sets a good example with its emphasis on knowledge management, says Ms Hart. In fact, government agencies make up a large portion of Factiva's Singapore customer base. Ms Hart expects the field of knowledge management to keep growing and she expects to be 'right in the thick of things'.

personal knowledge networking software...

In a Yahoo press release today: Prominent e-Learning Experts Launch Startup to Commercialize Breakthrough Personal Knowledge Networking Software.

STATE COLLEGE, Pa., June 28 /PRNewswire/ -- Graham Glynn, PhD, a neuroscientist and director at the Center for Learning & Academic Technologies at Penn State University, has joined with other e-learning experts to found Learning Management Solutions, a developer of personal knowledge management and personal knowledge networking software. The company's first product, KnowledgeWorkshop, allows computer users to create, manage, share and publish knowledge bases covering all aspects of their personal and professional lives.

"KnowledgeWorkshop is the glue that integrates all computer-based information sources, such as Web pages, news groups and personal computer files, into one simple personal knowledge management system," said Dr. Glynn. "KnowledgeWorkshop tackles knowledge management from the user's perspective, enabling users to categorize, structure and share information in a personally relevant way with online Web page highlighting, embedded notes and bi-directional linking. Traditional learning and knowledge management systems fall short because they're rigid, monolithic and impersonal, and focus on accessing institutionalized knowledge as opposed to creating and sharing personal knowledge."

...KnowledgeWorkshop begins shipping today, with pricing starting at $29.00 for KnowledgeWorkshop Personal and $189.00 for KnowledgeWorkshop Professional. Both versions are available for free trial download at Learning Management Solutions...

a knowledge compass...

Scott Shemwell, President & CEO, Strategic Decision Sciences, writes an article for EnergyPulse on: The Emergence of Knowledge as an Ecology.

The following is a brief excerpt on knowledge as a 'compass':

Knowledge must be directed. Focused towards a specific direction that builds upon the base and capitalizes on the possible. If knowledge management is a poorly defined framework with expectations that "best practices" across many industries will add value, "failure becomes an option".

By definition, unless this framework is well defined and aligned with the business model there is no knowledge. In fact, learning obtained in such an environment might even be considered anti-knowledge because decisions taken from this foundation are unlikely to add value and may even detract.

The equivalent of an individual's moral compass, the organization's knowledge framework must be aligned with and contribute its culture. Always pointing north, knowledge capital helps the firm remains on course despite the normal course adjustments required by everyday challenges.

net-centric knowledge management...

More government sponsored knowledge management news today in a Business Wire that announces: Hyperwave KMINCE Initiative to Participate in Quantum Leap-2 Demonstration of the FY 04 DoD Horizontal Fusion Portfolio. Here's a partial excerpt:

WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 25, 2004--Hyperwave, a leading provider of Collaborative Enterprise Content Management solutions, is the core technology for the Knowledge Management and Collaboration in a Net-Centric Environment Initiative, which will participate in the Horizontal Fusion Portfolio Quantum Leap (QL-2) demonstration to be held 11 August 2004 at distributed sites. QL-2 expands on the 27 August 2003 Quantum Leap-1 Demonstration, which demonstrated operational readiness of Net-Centric capabilities.

The Horizontal Fusion Portfolio Initiative is a critical component of the DoD goal of Net-Centric Transformation to provide access to vital capabilities and trusted information for Warfighters and other essential stakeholders across the battlespace. Horizontal Fusion is sponsored and directed by the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Networks and Information Technology (ODS/NII), and is not a single program, but a Portfolio of Net-Centric Initiatives begun in FY 2003 to show that Net-Centric operations were within the reach of DoD. Hyperwave provides collaboration and content management capabilities to support the Portfolio.

This year, Hyperwave is collaborating with 30 other initiatives in the FY 2004 Portfolio as a partner in the Knowledge Management and Collaboration in a Net-Centric Environment (KMINCE) Initiative. Using a common architecture and integration process, Portfolio initiatives are woven into a Secret-level DoD information environment called the Collateral Space, which provides content and capabilities to exploit the Global Information Grid Bandwidth Expansion (GIG-BE). KMINCE has contributed to expand Warfighter access to time-sensitive, trusted, and vital information through Horizontal Fusion's MARS and other portals into the Collateral Space.

binary knowledge management and the army...

Today in Silicon Valley Biz Ink: Binary Consulting to Provide IT and Knowledge Management Policies and Planning Supporting the US Army

BETHESDA, Md., June 24 /PRNewswire/ -- The US Army has awarded a support services contract to Binary Consulting, Inc., of Bethesda, Md., to lead a team of four businesses that will provide information technology planning, development, and program management support for the Army's Chief Information Officer/G6 Enterprise Integration Directorate, headquartered in Arlington, Va. The five-year contract is valued at $21 million.

knowledge management in the army...

In a press release today--U.S. Army Deploys Autonomy for Army Knowledge Online Portal.

SAN FRANCISCO, June 21 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Autonomy Corporation plc (Nasdaq: AUTN; LSE: AU.), a global leader in infrastructure software for the enterprise, today announced that the U.S. Army has selected Autonomy's IDOL Server(TM) to enable intelligent information retrieval, categorization and personalization through the Army Knowledge Online (AKO) portal.

AKO is the U.S. Army's single sanctioned entryway to agency-wide information and the largest corporate intranet portal known in the world. Autonomy enables 1.67 million active duty, reserve and National Guard personnel as well as family and selected guests of the Army, worldwide, to retrieve relevant data from across AKO. Global collaboration, in support of mission-critical projects and initiatives, with colleagues and subject-matter experts ranging from battlefield communications, training, tactical and operational Army programs and administrative processes, are all part of Autonomy's role in support of the AKO portal.

knowledge management wiki...

In an eMediaWire press release--Atlassian announces Confluence 1.1 - The Professional Wiki Gets Better.

Sydney, Australia (PRWEB) June 17, 2004--Today, Atlassian Software Systems announced the first major update to their knowledge management product, Confluence - the professional J2EE wiki. Confluence 1.1 is faster, more reliable, and packed with new features including vastly improved macro management, better attachment searching, attachment versioning, page locking, more robust PDF exports, superior administration capabilities and much more.

"Confluence 1.1, our first major update, leverages the tremendous feedback we've received from our customers without digressing from the essential and powerful simplicity of the wiki. Confluence 1.1 makes it even easier for teams to share information with each other and with the world", Mike Cannon-Brookes (Atlassian's CEO and co-founder) said...

collaboration at sea...

News From USJFCOM: Collaboration at sea program helping to build a better battle rhythm

(ONBOARD USS MOUNT WHITNEY -- June 16, 2004) - How does a combined joint task force (CJTF) commander engaged in a war exercise ensure that more than 28,000 personnel from the U.S. and other allies quickly and efficiently manage information in a dynamic environment?

For Vice Adm. Gary Roughead, commander, Joint Task Force (CJTF) 950 - coordinator of Combined Joint Training Force Exercise (CJTFEX) 04-2, the answer is Collaboration at Sea (CAS).

...Joint commanders at sea need a broad spectrum of knowledge to manage the battle space and maintain an effective battle rhythm.

For commander, Second Fleet/NATO Striking Fleet Atlantic, knowledge management (KM) is big business. His role as a CJTF commander offers a unique challenge: to give multi-national personnel from Canada and the United Kingdom the ability to electronically move information across domains as seamlessly as possible.

...KWEB is a software application that operates under CAS. It is intended to facilitate group interaction and enhance the decision-making abilities of senior staff members. It does this by allowing staff members to publish information to and distribute it on the web.

...Having information move in a consistent flow across domains and down to the unit level allows for a constant situational awareness. "We are creating a coordinated battle rhythm through knowledge management," Lovering said.

Another added value of the CAS-KWEB combination is the ability to create a coalition network. "We are introducing Navy technology to a joint area," said Burke. "With the addition of all those collaborators, the growth of knowledge is exponential."

knowledge management and peoplesoft...

In a recent press release PeopleSoft announced: Enterprise CRM 8.9 Delivers CRM Best Practices, Unmatched Usability to Workforce Management.

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 16, 2004--Today at its 2004 spring CRM Customer Summit, PeopleSoft(R), Inc. (Nasdaq:PSFT) announced that new releases of its help desk solutions for information technology (IT) and human resources (HR) departments will ship June 23. PeopleSoft HelpDesk, designed for IT operations, and PeopleSoft HelpDesk for Human Resources now incorporate breakthrough CRM analytics, comprehensive service level management functionality, and enhanced usability and configurability.

...New functionality delivered with PeopleSoft Enterprise CRM 8.9 HelpDesk for HR includes:

-- Knowledge Management: The new release provides employees and service providers with a number of tools that streamline service delivery by increasing information search accuracy. Embedded tools include a thesaurus, an advanced spell-checker, and the ability to access external content from web sites or file systems. Companies can also increase help desk automation by leveraging integration with the iPhrase Contact Classification Server (formerly Banter Server), available through PeopleSoft's partnership with iPhrase Technologies, Inc. This industry-leading Natural Language Processing (NLP) technology understands the content of documents, emails, and chat messages, providing self-service users with access to information and significantly increasing service providers' ability to quickly and accurately respond to workforce inquiries...

knowledge management and innovation...

Denver Post Staff Writer, Kelly Pate Dwyer, writes about Banking knowledge at Sun Microsystems, Coors Brewing Co., and Denver Health.

The following is an excerpt from Kelly's coverage of Sun Microsystems' "innovation repository":

...A staff of six in Sun Microsystems' knowledge services unit has spent eight months crafting ways to bring employees' ideas to light, ideas that otherwise might be forgotten over a casual lunch or a quick meeting on an unrelated topic.

"Somebody may find something interesting on a Web page. Or, it's serendipity," said Chuck Ferguson, Sun's knowledge strategist. "The innovation repository is just a way of putting some framework around it ... where you might see value from the idea."...

lockheed adopts tacit's activenet...

InformationWeek's Thomas Claburn writes: Lockheed Finds A Way To Connect Questions With Answers.

..."We're a highly distributed technology company and the result of many, many mergers," says Ron Remy, deputy CIO for Lockheed Martin Space Systems. "We probably have 30 or 40 operating units within the corporation. The question really is, how do you collaborate if you don't know with whom you want to collaborate?"

Spira suggests that terms such as knowledge management, expertise location, and document management have largely blurred. Based on what he hears from clients, confusion about these terms can result in over-investment in tools that provide similar capabilities. "And you know what happens to CIOs who over-invest significantly," he says. "They write their resume."...

CACI, Intelligence and KM

CACI International Inc normally provides IT and network solutions for defense, intelligence, and e-government. Their services are usually in systems integration, managed network solutions, knowledge management, engineering, simulation, and information assurance.

CACI's proported involvement in the recent prisoner abuse scandal in Iraq has cast a pall over their organization. In the interest of 'setting the record straight' CACI have released the following press release: CACI Continues to Inform Investment Community and Public at Large About CACI's Business in Iraq.

...While we provide services around the world that support the U.S. government, our work in Iraq recently has drawn attention in relation to interrogation activities at the Abu Gharib prison near Baghdad. Nonetheless various media and press reports have mistakenly included false, distorted or inaccurate information, which we seek to correct...

The press release is a rather long read, and concludes with this point:

...We have an active corporate compliance program and conduct active reviews of our systems of controls. In connection with inquiries into our operations in Iraq we have been assured that our employees had no involvement in any inappropriate activity. Our own active investigation of the matter through independent counsel and our repeated requests to our military customers and other government agencies involved, has resulted in no confirmation of the allegations that appeared in the illegally "leaked" (SECRET/NOFORN) report of Major General Anthony M. Taguba, USA, in April 2004...

Additional information is available on CACI's website.

more on pharma and km...

Two pharma 'electronic notebook' posts in just a few days. Interesting.

Content Wire :: Drug Discovery Knowledge Management

Tripos and Crown Partners announced the formation of a strategic relationship combining Crown Partners' enterprise-scale content management solution with Tripos' electronic notebook offering.

The relationship strengthens the Tripos Electronic Notebook solution by including best-of-breed workflow, collaboration and content management technologies from Documentum, and provides the electronic notebook with comprehensive support for intellectual property issues involved in the research and development life cycle.

..."Laboratory informatics technologies must seamlessly align with an organization's overall knowledge management strategy, especially enterprisewide systems like electronic notebooks," said Dr. Trevor Heritage, senior vice president and general manager of Discovery Informatics at Tripos. "Crown Partners' exclusive status as a Documentum Signature Partner provides Tripos' clients with a unique combination of strength in e-notebooks and content management technologies."

km consultants and gsa stars project...

PRESS RELEASE: Buan Consulting, Inc. Receives GSA's STARS Contract Award, $15 Billion Ceiling

Annapolis, MD (PRWEB) June 11, 2004 -- Buan Consulting, Inc. today announces that it has received a contract award for GSA's Section 8(a) Streamlined Technology Acquisition Resources for Services contract, known as STARS. It is an indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity (IDIQ), five-year contract with options, government-wide acquisitions contract, with a valued ceiling of $15 billion over a 7-year period. Under the terms of the contract, Buan Consulting will sell IT services to all federal government agencies.

Buan Consulting will provide government agencies with access to Computer Programming Services to support GSA and other federal government agencies in accomplishing their mission.

"Buan Consulting is committed to bringing the highest quality in IT services to the federal government by being an active partner on the GSA STARS program, " said Dan Buan, President of Buan Consulting.

"Buan Consulting has always provided quality services to the government; now with the GSA STARS contract, they will be able to provide the same high-quality services wrapped into an efficient government-wide acquisition contract," said Pamela Wilson, SBA Business Opportunity Specialist.

pharmaceuticals and knowledge management...

An excerpt from a press release in The T Sector :: Everything Tech San Diego: EKM Merger Will Pave Way for Vital Data Management Tools for Science.

Thursday, June 10, 2004 - 11:28 AM PST--San Diego-based knowledge solutions supplier EKM Corporation has announced a merger with software and services firm, AVATAR Consulting, creator of the popular LABTrack electronic notebook. Financial terms of the merger were not disclosed.

...EKM initially invested in AVATAR LABTrack software in Jan. 2003, when the two companies began jointly developing an enterprise version of the technology. Stember, who spent 19 years working with Laboratory Information Management Systems (LIMS), came up with LABTrack after seeing a need for an IP protective, digital replacement for scientific paper notebooks.

He said more companies are realizing the significant benefits of implementing electronic lab notebooks like LABTrack, including being able to bring new products to the market faster...

nasa and xerox collaborate on knowledge tools...

Sarita Chourey writes for Federal Computer Week that--NASA, Xerox collaborate.

Sarita cautions: "Don't expect a copy machine that works on Mars, but NASA and Xerox Corp. are teaming up on information technology projects."

An interesting collaboration indeed and I thought you might like to read some of the details from Sarita Chourey's article:

The relationship has already produced tools used in the investigation of the Columbia shuttle crash and a system called the NX Knowledge Network, which combines software from the Ames Research Center and Xerox's global research centers. NASA is using the fruits of the collaborative research for various missions and project teams at Ames.

One pilot application may help researchers at NASA's Astrobiology Institute determine if there is life on Mars. Researchers at the institute are using NX at Ames and on a distributed basis across a dozen universities. The network will also help manage risks, investigate accidents and analyze anomalies.

"Xerox gets some technology to develop into a [potentially] commercial product," said David Lackner, technology partnership manager at Ames, "and NASA gets a knowledge management system that we needed, a collaborative tool for collecting, archiving and retrieving a variety of data sets."

total security knowledge management solutions...

In a press release on Silicon Valley Biz Ink--Diebold and Lenel Announce Strategic Alliance.

NORTH CANTON, Ohio, June 8 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Diebold, Incorporated (NYSE: DBD) and Lenel Systems International, Inc. today announced the completion of a strategic agreement between the two companies. Under terms of the agreement, Diebold will sell, install and service Lenel's OnGuard(R) Total Security Knowledge Management Solution(TM) throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico and Puerto Rico.

Diebold is a global leader in providing integrated security, services and self-service delivery systems. Lenel is a leading provider of software and integrated systems for commercial security markets, with more than 8,000 system implementations in 74 countries worldwide.

The Lenel OnGuard Total Security Knowledge Management Solution provides a comprehensive security solution to customers in a wide range of markets, including government, educational, healthcare, industrial, technology, manufacturing, telecommunications, finance, transportation and defense, among others. OnGuard offers a suite of seamlessly integrated applications, encompassing access control, alarm monitoring, identity management, physical asset management, digital video management, smart cards, biometrics and visitor management functionality. The key value of the OnGuard security platform is its ability to seamlessly integrate into all enterprise businesses and information infrastructure.

on blogging and knowledge management...

Sue Bushell writes for CIO, Australia on--Blogging for Fun and Profit. Sue interviews a number of consultants and follows up with Caslon Analytics on the results of a survey they performed of their top 500 corporate contacts regarding potential adoption of the Weblog form.

What follows is an excerpt from Sue Bushell's article:

..."Our sense is that uptake of enterprise blogging by major Australian organizations is not going to increase significantly in the near future," says Caslon director Bruce Arnold.

"We differentiate enterprise blogging from other blogging on the basis that it takes place under corporate auspices," Arnold says. "It is thus different from personal blogging, even though many personal blogs are written on company time using company facilities and may centre on life in the office - what one enthusiast called 'online water-cooler conversations'. CIO management of non-official or quasi-official blogging is a challenge similar to management of Web surfing or private e-mail using the organization's network."

knowledge management with spit and polish...

Valerie Darroch writes for the Sunday Herald--Software with a bit of spit and polish.

Valerie is writing about former Army communications officer, Andrew Fraser, who is now the chief executive of a Glasgow-based information management company -- i-documentsystems (Idox).

...Fraser, a reluctant ex-pat who now lives in the southeast, won plaudits in his native land last year for his decision to establish the headquarters of the company (which was originally based in central London) in Glasgow, bringing highly-skilled jobs in IT, finance and marketing to the city.

Last month Fraser sealed Idox's third acquisition, the purchase of TFPL, a knowledge management consulting firm with a string of blue-chip corporate clients including Goldman Sachs and Shell as well as a series of contracts with central government...

knowledge management and philanthropy...

Kate Golden writes a review of "Foundations for Success: Emerging Trends in Grantmakers' Use of the Internet" for onPhilanthropy - Success Stories from the Sector.

"Foundations for Success" is written by the Washington-based Internet consulting firm Interactive Applications Group (iapps). Kate Golden lists four trends that this book highlights in detail: transparency, network building, knowledge management, and e-grantmaking.

The following quote is regarding the km trend:

...The third trend is knowledge management. The book states that "knowledge management is not simply about finding better ways to process data. It's about managing intellectual capital..." Foundations who have implemented web-based systems to capture, synthesize, manage, and disseminate knowledge gathered from funders and grantees include the Annie E. Casey Foundation, whose senior associates use web-based templates to capture what was learned at grantee site visits. And the Grants Manager Network (GMN) a group of approximately 600 grant administrators from over 400 foundations, has created a knowledge-sharing tool known as GIGI, or Group Intelligence on Grantmaking Information...

knowledge management definition...

David Kirkpatrick has a Fast Forward column for Fortune in which he recently writes: Document Overload: Managing the Digital Paper Chase.

This article is primarily about Enterprise Content Management (ECM) and a recent tutorial that David Kirpatrick received from Tom Jenkins, CEO of Open Text, on this topic. The part that caught my eye was David's mention of Knowledge Management as a "hot area" within ECM. The following quote from David's article also includes a unique description of Knowledge Management through the eyes of Tom Jenkins at the end of the following first paragraph:

The latest hot area in ECM is what's called Knowledge Management - KM to those in the know, of course. What that's about is figuring out how or why something happened in an organization. Government investigators, for instance, may need to know exactly what decision-making process a company went through before launching a drug or building an aircraft part in a certain way. Says Jenkins: "This becomes, in a catch phrase our industry uses, the 'corporate memory.' Knowing how things were decided is absolutely critical." He describes knowledge management as "like a Google search that comes with a video of how the document you found was actually created."

ECM is approximately a $2.5 billion industry growing at 20% to 25% a year - one of the fastest-growing parts of a still-sluggish IT industry. As consolidation continues in this rapidly maturing business, Jenkins holds that Open Text will be a consolidator and survivor...

clinical knowledge management...

A June 2, 2004 Business Wire press release announces: Bio-Reference Laboratories, Inc. Announces PSIMedica Contract with Lockton Companies, Inc. to Control Health Care Costs.

Here is an excerpt from this press release regarding Bio-Reference Laboratories' Clinical Knowledge Management (CKM) system:

Bio-Reference Laboratories, Inc. (NASDAQ: BRLI) announced today that its PSIMedica division has executed a multiyear contract with Lockton Companies, Inc., a leading insurance consulting and brokerage firm, to provide healthcare information analytics through its Clinical Knowledge Management (CKM) solution. As part of its full-service offering to customers, Lockton includes informatic analytic services that enable Lockton's customers to control healthcare costs and improve healthcare benefits. CKM is a proprietary solution that will enable Lockton to provide comprehensive analysis of healthcare costs and benefits.

"Claims analytics is a key component of the strategic services we provide our clients", said Mike Brewer, Lockton Benefit Group President. "InfoLock's disease management, cost modeling, financial analysis and overall flexibility will enable us to help our clients identify and manage claims costs at a level that was previously unattainable".

PSIMedica CKM is a web-based application that integrates all available health data, costs and quality information on employee benefit experience from sources including health carriers, pharmacy, disability, workers compensation, laboratory, dental, and absence data. By providing unfettered access to all the relevant data in one easily useable, web-based format, CKM makes employee benefit decision processes far more efficient. The value to the employer is control of the critical information upon which major benefits procurement and spending decisions are based.

edocs acquires brightware from firepond...

edocs Acquires Brightware eService Business from Firepond, Inc.

NATICK, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 1, 2004--edocs, Inc. (http://www.edocs.com/), a provider of customer self-service and e-billing software solutions, today announced that it has acquired the Brightware business unit of Firepond, Inc. Brightware is recognized as a pioneer in delivering eService software solutions for inbound e-mail response management, knowledge management and chat. The acquisition complements edocs' existing e-billing, web self-service and assisted care offerings, enabling companies to provide the most effective and efficient customer care regardless of which channel their customers choose for service.

...edocs is acquiring the following products with the Brightware suite:

-- "Answer" for e-mail Response Management - an automated response management system that determines the intent of incoming e-mail messages and composes personalized answers that can be automatically dispatched to customers or routed to service agents for a single click review.

-- "Converse" for Real-Time Chat Management - a real-time assistant that provides immediate interactions between customers and contact center agents.

-- "Concierge" for Knowledge Management - an intelligent knowledge management solution that leverages the Brightware knowledgebase to automatically direct inbound customer requests to the most appropriate information or resource.

hp regroups customer touch points...

For InfoWorld, Ephraim Schwartz writes--HP helps users meld business with IT

What stands out in this article for me is that HP has:
"...regrouped all the functions that touch customers in one organization," Kohler said, adding that the goal is to help customers synchronize business and IT in order to capitalize on a changing business environment.

To that end, the HP.com Business to Business extranet will give HP enterprise customers global visibility into catalogs, purchasing, and order status, allowing them to procure products across multiple HP regions from a single site. Catalog data will be personalized by industry and customer profile, as will the extranet, which will include account-specific content.

An opt-in component will also allow HP to monitor and analyze in real time customers' activities on the Web site, giving HP the ability to link what is happening in support with what is happening in terms of purchasing, for example.

...According to HP's Kohler, ECO will also reduce HP's operational costs by streamlining the company's ability to serve customers. HP's efforts at consolidation will help "normalize" the number of calls into HP call centers by giving customers "global consistency," Kohler said.

..Perhaps stealing a page from Dell's knowledge management book, HP will also offer a central repository of information that can be accessed globally...

mobile knowledge management...

Bob Brewin writes a Sidebar for Computerworld--Keep Mobile Apps Simple, Say IT Managers.

Wherein he cites some advice from a law firm that makes use of handheld devices to feed input to their knowledge management backend:

...Companies that want to deliver data to end users who have devices smaller than laptop PCs need to make sure it is "concisely formatted" to fit on a 3-inch screen, said Justin Hectus, director of information at Keesal, Young & Logan, a law firm in Long Beach, Calif.

Hectus said attorneys at the firm use mobile devices that are hooked into the back-end knowledge management system. Simple but powerful text fields let the users enter small amounts of information on the fly and quickly share the data with other workers...

ten tips and ten steps to IP telephony...

Cisco's Stephanie Carhee, in an article provided courtesy of Cisco Press to informIT, writes: Migrating to IP Telephony? Top Ten Tips for Guiding a Successful IP Telephony Implementation.

Embedded in Tip 6, Follow the 80/20 Rule for Implementation are ten steps to engagement success:

The fruit of managing several implementations, Cisco's "IP Telephony Steps to Success Engagement Guide" is a knowledge management portal designed to help Cisco IP telephony partners in creating their own implementation plans (cisco.com/go/stepstosuccess, Cisco.com login required). Following is a condensed version of the high-level steps that should be considered when beginning and completing the implementation phase:

A comprehensive depiction of the key implementation steps, the "The Road to IP Telephony" mini poster, is available to download free.

km and remote automotive diagnostics...

Europe's Largest 'Knowledge System' for Remote Diagnosis of Vehicle Faults Unveiled

LONDON, May 28 /PRNewswire/ -- Vehicle mechanics across Europe will be able to share their expertise and experience of specific vehicle faults thanks to an internet-based 'knowledge system' unveiled by TRW, the world's tenth largest automotive supplier.

It's the largest knowledge system of its kind in Europe and will allow technicians to diagnose and repair vehicle problems much more quickly and efficiently.

The system is based on knowledge software from eGain Communications, the leading provider of customer service and contact centre software.

eGain's knowledge system will be offered as part of TRW's 'Internet diagnostic' programme, called Id. It is forecast that over 4,000 garages in the UK and France will be using Id by the end of their launch year. Id is based on 'remote diagnostic' technology, which analysts believe will revolutionise the automotive industry for years to come.

Remote diagnostics takes advantage of the fact that almost all modern vehicle systems are governed by computers. 'Id' accesses all of the diagnostic information collected by those in-vehicle computers and makes them available to technicians on desktop PCs or laptops...

government, km, and the web...

In the Australian version of Computerworld, Infoworld writer David L. Margulius posts: Government veers onto the Web.

...The ultimate goal of self-service government is to combine a set of time-consuming interactions into a single, seamless experience. But most agencies start with a more modest aim: putting a simple information request process or transaction online. Even this requires the successful implementation of basic technology ranging from knowledge management applications to Web and e-mail self-service tools.

"Listening to what people want to know and putting the answer in language they will understand" is crucial, agrees Janice Mosher, manager of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Customer Service Center, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security. In 2003, Mosher's group implemented a knowledge base to provide Web self-service answers to import immigration- and agriculture-related questions. She believes that in addition to providing clear answers agencies must enforce usage of self-service channels by making it difficult to go straight to assisted support...

of peanut butter and knowledge management...

Susan Pinker of The Globe and Mail has a "Dear Susan" column. Yesterday's title for Susan's column was "Satisfaction is a moving target". And while this is not exceedingly germane to my typical 'knowledge notes' topics, it did make me chuckle to compare choosing peanut butter to choosing a career in KM.

A reader, 'Just Me' asks (after a detailed explanation of her hiatus from working due to a number of reasons):

Should I take more college courses in knowledge management? I don't seem to have a passion or can't define one. Where should I go from here? Is it even viable for me to start over?

--Just Me and My Cats

To which Susan Pinker replies:

Dear Just Me,

Your predicament reminds me of shopping for peanut butter in a big supermarket. Should you buy the one you liked as a child? The one without fat, sugar or salt, but perhaps without taste? What about the organic one; it's better for you but you read somewhere that it contains a weird toxic mould. Smooth? Crunchy? The one with the peanut on top or the oil slick on top?

...To extrapolate to your situation, now that you're healthy and your parents are settled, I don't think it's critical whether you work part-time, full-time, in business, library science, knowledge management or a combination of the above. What is critical is that you get back into the labour market and away from your cats, at least for a few hours a day.

lexisnexis and the irs...

In a press release on Yahoo! today: LexisNexis(R) Technology at the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Wins Knowledge Management Award.

DAYTON, Ohio, May 26 /PRNewswire/ -- LexisNexis U.S., a leading provider of legal, news, public records and business information services, is proud to announce that the LexisNexis database network technology solution provided to the IRS won the E-Gov Institute's 2004 Knowledge Management Award. The Award was presented at the E-Gov Institute's Knowledge Management Conference in Washington, D.C.

...The Internal Revenue Manual Knowledge Base, is a linkable, searchable electronic network of information and data repositories with the online Internal Revenue Manual at the core. Combined with tax and legal research services, this network provides a comprehensive suite of tax administration tools for all IRS frontline employees. LexisNexis provides tax solutions to over 35,000 IRS employees and started working with the IRS to refine this network in early 2000.

knowledge management for effective supply chains...

Something to watch out for...

While perusing my news feed this morning I came across an announcement from Penn State Live regarding Penn State University Leaves of Absence 2004-05.

Among the numerous leaves listed was one:

Richard R. Young, associate professor of business administration, to conduct research and develop further the concept of the application of knowledge management to the functioning of supply chains; to develop a manuscript for publication in an academic journal; and to compile research necessary for the publication of a book, Knowledge Management for Effective Supply Chains.

Best of luck Richard... (-:=

Magic Quadrant for the Smart Enterprise Suite, 2004...

On May 17, 2004 Gartner announced vendor placement in its 'Magic Quadrant for the Smart Enterprise Suite, 2004'. By browsing the press releases of a number of the proud 'Magic Quadrant' leaders, I was able to ascertain that IBM, Open Text, SAP, Vignette, Plumtree Software, and Hummingbird landed in the 'Leader' category this year. And Microsoft sits alone in the 'Challenger' category. Hmm...

Of Gartner's definition of the Smart Enterprise Suite, Judith Lamont, writes for KMWorld--The smart enterprise suite - Gateway to the KM vision:

"...The prospect of being able to bring all the technologies that have been labeled as knowledge management enablers into a unified environment is enticing to vendors and customers alike. The smart enterprise suite comes closer to fulfilling the KM vision than anything else to date..."

knowledge and the semantic web...

An eMediaWire press release announces--Europe's semantic web projects start to mesh.

Galway, Ireland (PRWEB) May 23 2004 - An international audience of over 220 semantic web specialists and enthusiasts from Europe, USA, Australia and Japan attended the 1st European Semantic Web Symposium (ESWS 2004) on 10-12 May in Heraklion, Crete.

ESWS 2004, which featured academic research papers, industrial papers, tutorials, posters and demonstrations, also showcased three major EU-funded semantic web projects - SEKT (Semantic Knowledge Technologies), DIP (Data, Information and Process Integration), and KnowledgeWeb. These projects form part of a natural "cluster" collectively referred to as SDK.

...SEKT (SEmantic Knowledge Technologies), another of the EU-funded projects featured at ESWS, is coordinated by BT the UK telecoms operator and a leader in the information communication technology market. Dr. John Davies, the SEKT project director said: "The World Wide Web today is full of unstructured text. That's fine for people, but useless for computers. In this scenario, the computer isn't actually doing much computation - it is really a presentation device. The Semantic Web will make web-based information machine-processable - a key area of research in SEKT. SEKT envisions knowledge workplaces where the boundaries between heterogeneous data sources are broken down, and where knowledge management is fully integrated into day-to-day business tasks. Appropriate knowledge will be automatically delivered to the right people at the right time at the right granularity via a range of user devices."

Professor Rudi Studer from the University of Karlsruhe, SEKT's Technical Director, explained that the project will integrate 3 key Semantic Web technologies: "The synergy between human language technology, machine learning techniques as well as ontology management methods will be exploited in order to generate in a semi-automatic way the ontological structures and related metadata that are needed for realizing Next Generation Knowledge Management solutions". The end result will be to enable greater productivity for knowledge workers across a wide range of professional disciplines and industrial sectors.

KnowledgeWeb, the third project in the trio of semantic web projects, is also funded by the Information Society Technologies (IST) Priority for Research, Technology Development & Demonstration under the 6th Framework Programme of the European Commission. The mission of KnowledgeWeb is to strengthen European industry and service providers in one of the most important areas of current computer technology: semantic web enabled e-work and e-commerce. The KnowledgeWeb network of excellence will focus effort around the outreach of semantic web technology to industry, education and research in order to ensure critical mass, maximum impact and full support from industry...

tim berners-lee on semantic web...

Stacy Cowley, IDG News Service, writes of New Web Structure Promoted in PCWorld.com.

Stacy writes about the Semantic Web vision that Tim Berners-Lee's unfolded in a keynote speech at the 13th annual World Wide Web conference, along with an important milestone for Semantic Web--the development of two foundational standards, the Resource Description Framework (RDF) and the OWL Web Ontology Language (OWL).

...Projects involving Semantic Web technologies are already under way at several organizations. Boeing is exploring semantics-based applications for information and application integration and interoperability, and for knowledge management. Adobe Systems has built into its products Adobe Extensible Metadata Platform (XMP), an RDF-based metadata system that links contextual information with content files...

Berners-Lee urged the conference attendees to pitch in on the Semantic Web-enablement of online artifacts to help "bootstrap things in the short term".

turning km theory into reality...

Sion Barry, The Western Mail, writes about the University of Glamorgan's Welsh Institute for Competitive Advantage (WICA) and its aim to translate the latest research and development in strategic management into sound organisational principles in--ic Wales - University turning theory into workplace reality.

...Simon Brooks, senior lecturer at the university' s business school and head of the new unit, said, "We have surveyed over 130 businesses and assessed them on their use of strategic tools and techniques, strategic decision making, use of knowledge management, corporate social responsibility and organisational culture and leadership issues.

Mr Brooks said, "We insist on engaging clients in the process, to ensure that they feel a greater sense of ownership of the findings and solutions and that the project remains within their requirements."...

dod wireless policy and km...

For Federal Computer Week, Matthew French writes: DOD wireless policy looks to the future.

...Directive 8100.2 updates a 2-year-old policy intended to prevent wireless networks from becoming easy access points for hackers looking to access DOD systems and data. The new policy, which covers the use of wireless networks inside any DOD facility, primarily defines a baseline encryption standard to which anyone using wireless technology inside a department facility must adhere.

The solution was to develop a knowledge management process through which users could exchange ideas and information about the capabilities of wireless technology and security concerns and solutions...

army knowledge award nominations...

On The United States Army Home Page there is a call for nominations for awards in the area of knowledge management:

WASHINGTON (Army News Service, May 13, 2004) -- Army Knowledge Awards will be presented Sept. 2 during the annual Army Knowledge Conference, being held this year in conjunction with the annual Directors of Information, or DOIM, Conference in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., from Aug. 30 to Sept. 3.

Nominations for the awards are being accepted until June 30 via the Army Chief of Information/G-6 community page on Army Knowledge Online at www.us.army.mil. Post nominations directly to the AKO site.

"This awards program allows us to recognize Army initiatives that exploit knowledge management concepts and knowledge-ware technologies," said Lt. Gen. Steven W. Boutelle, CIO/G-6. "A net-centric, knowledge-based force is at the very foundation of the Army's future force and is a significant and profound combat enabler."

Awards will be given in six categories for the best Army Knowledge Transformation Initiative, Enterprise Solution, Cross-Functional Solution, e-Army Initiative, Community of Practice, and e-Learning Initiative.

Selection criteria includes: return on value; collaboration; impact; scalability; transformation; customer-focus; streamlining; and E2E Integration, which incorporates cross-functional processes.

Past winners include companycommand.com, eArmyU, and Communities of Practice within the Army Reserve.

NetWeaver linchpin of SAP's SOA strategy...

Rochelle Garner reports for CRN that SAP, Microsoft Collaborate On Cross-Platform Tools.

...sometime "early next year," Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft will deliver repository managers that integrate SAP NetWeaver Knowledge Management, Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services.

As for NetWeaver itself, Agassi made it clear that he and SAP see it as the linchpin of the company's services-centric strategy.

army outsources interrogation to km firm?...

Today, Joshua Chaffin for FT.com reports Dismay that US army outsources interrogation.

...CACI International, a rising star in the defence contracting business, boasts about its proficiency in information technology, knowledge management and other New Economy-sounding specialties. Nowhere in its promotional materials, however, does the Virginia-based company mention its prisoner interrogation services.

He and others expressed dismay that the army would entrust such a sensitive task to the private sector, which is not subject to the same military legal code or chain of command. As evidence of this, they noted that while six US soldiers were now facing courts martial, no contractors had been charged...

army preps paratroopers with km...

An article in Federal Computer Week by Frank Tiboni -- Software speeds airborne preparations -- reports that:

...Officials at CC Intelligent Solutions Inc. and commanders in charge of 150 to 200 paratroopers are developing a suite of applications known as FusionNet Genesis, which cost $330,000 to develop. The software has helped commanders deploy equipment, collect intelligence, order goods ,and plan airborne and helicopter attack operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

FusionNet replaced bulky logbooks and old software that didn't meet the logistical needs of paratroopers assigned to fight the war on terrorism, Army officials said...

knowledge management and small island developing states...

Earth Negotiations Bulletin: PREPARATORY MEETING FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MEETING ON THE TEN-YEAR REVIEW OF THE PROGRAMME OF ACTION FOR THE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT OF SIDS: 14-16 APRIL 2004

The Preparatory Meeting for the International Meeting on the Ten-year Review of the Programme of Action for the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States took place from 14-16 April 2004, at UN headquarters in New York. The meeting commenced with the official opening of the 12th session of the Commission on Sustainable Development, which was tasked to undertake the three-day preparatory meeting for the International Meeting, scheduled to take place in Mauritius later this year...

...Knowledge management and information for decision making: Canada proposed a new chapeau underscoring the importance of information management technology (IMT) for SIDS and identifying SIDS-appropriate IMT. The EU and the US proposed deleting language on the creation of a financial mechanism to implement the Digital Solidarity Agenda in SIDS. On the elaboration of a task force to elaborate a resilience index, the US expressed doubt over the usefulness of such an index, given the existing vulnerability index. The G-77/China explained that the proposed index was intended to be a management tool to assist SIDS in their decision making on building resilience...

HR and knowledge management...

In HR Magazine, May 2004 there is a long article on Shedding Light on Knowledge Management by Pamela Babcock.

A few of the Knowledge Management notables offering opinions in this article are: Carol Kinsey Goman, president of Kinsey Consulting Services, a human capital consulting firm in Berkeley, Calif., Marc J. Rosenberg, author of E-Learning: Strategies for Delivering Knowledge in the Digital Age (McGraw-Hill, 2000) and a knowledge management and e-learning consultant in Hillsborough, N.J. and Thomas H. Davenport, a professor and director of research in the school of executive education at Babson College in Wellesley, Mass.

Long article, many opinions, and, in the end, Pamela Babcock wraps with the conclusion that knowledge must be embedded into the workflow layer of an organization in order to ensure a level of success and "measurable results". Music to my ears -- and I can say, "been there, done that, and it works!" (-:=

social computing and knowledge management...

I believe that weblogs are an excellent vehicle for 'personal' knowledge networking and mapping especially in the area of technical support communications between multi-tiered engineers and agents. Thank goodness that the notion of scraping knowledge out of the brain cases of employees has become somewhat passe in the field of "knowledge management." This leaves room for more mindful sharing of personal knowledge, expertise, and techniques among enterprise employees - perhaps ala social computing tools?

The following piece by META Group Analyst, Mike Gotta, bears a read: Social Computing: Getting Ahead of the Blog.

...META Trend: Throughout 2004, organizational productivity strategies will drive the integration of knowledge and human capital management efforts into a holistic program to improve workplace performance and innovation (WPI). Focusing on the connections of people to teams, communities, process, and information in evolving workplaces will become a vital discipline for adaptive organizations by 2005. Knowledge management methods and practices will become critical for blending business processes and social networks to maximize enterprise productivity and drive competitive advantage through 2008...

inspiring gases...

In Managing Information News there is an announcement that -- BOC Chooses Verity K2E For Knowledge Management.

The BOC Group, one of the world's leading industrial gases companies, has selected Verity's advanced search, classification and personalisation software, Verity K2 Enterprise (K2E), to manage information across its external website www.boc.com and its global company intranets.

Verity K2E will enable BOC website visitors and employees to find information quickly and share knowledge more effectively.

BOC has an interesting Education Online service on their business of -- Inspiring Gases.

apqc best practice partner in km award...

Tata Steel bags APQC award - Sify.com

The American Productivity Quality Council (APQC) has selected Tata Steel as the "Best Practice Partner in Knowledge Management" for its 14th Consortium study.

Out of the several participants from all over the world only four companies from India, USA and Mexico were selected to be a part of the study, Tata Steel sources said today. Tata Steel is the only steel company in the world to get selected in this competition.

The presentations made by the Knowledge Management groups of the company were adjudged by the Editorial Board of (APQC) comprising experts from USA, UK and Belgium before giving away the award.

copernic and sme needs...

Andrew Goodman responds to James Fallows article in The New York Times with a volley that -- Copernic Targets the Information Management Needs of SMEs

...Fallows is a true horse whisperer when it comes to the potential of technology itself to soothe our technology-induced headaches. But the business analysis doesn't measure up. There are dozens of profitable companies offering custom KM solutions to the enterprise; many toil in relative anonymity, known only to the people that matter most: their customers.

Copernic, a moderately well-known player in the public search space (metasearch, invisible web search) is counting on these factors as it enters the enterprise search market. Rather than focusing on large corporate accounts with long sales cycles and price tags halfway towards seven figures, Copernic seeks to address the search needs of small to medium-sized businesses. To the casual observer, many would wonder what possible "search needs" an SME might acknowledge was worth an investment in the five-figure range. "I had the same question myself before I took this job," chuckles Eric Negler, Copernic's Director of US Sales...

personal knowledge management...

James Fallows, a national correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly, writes an article for The New York Times Techno Files -- Humans vs. Computers, Again. But There's Help for Our Side.

James calls the term 'knowledge management' -- "deceptively blah." Google is swimming in the easy side of the pool according to Mr. Fallows, the really challenging stuff to organize and access is right on our desktops or internal networks.

James calls out a number of contenders in this area of personal knowledge management below. Have any of you used these products? I know a few folks who utilize "The Brain" -- but I would love to hear of good, bad, or indifferent experiences with any of the other mentioned products:

If operating system upgrades are Microsoft's "hard power," it also offers a soft-power approach to the K.M. problem, with a program that looks and feels different from anything the company has offered previously. This product, OneNote, is costly - $199, but with a free trial - and is still a promising glimmer more than a realized solution. But its goal is to provide an easy, elegant way to lodge bits of significant information and then get them back at the right time. Oddball disclosure: I worked with the team now responsible for OneNote during a brief stint at Microsoft five years ago.

THEN there is everyone else. There must be hundreds of programs designed to give users better command of their own data. I know that I have tried at least 50 of them. They have names like ADM, askSam, BrainStorm, Chandler, Enfish, InfoSelect, iRider, Lookout, Onfolio, TheBrain and Zoot. Their prices range from zero to about $100, and nearly all of them do something useful...

knowledge management and the FBI...

There has been a fair amount of discussion in the Transcript: 9/11 Commission Hearing on Law Enforcement, Counterterrorism on Knowledge Management, and the lack thereof in the FBI (compliments of the washingtonpost.com.)

The following is a portion of the staff chairman statement read by Christine Healey, on reforming law enforcement, counterterrorism, intelligence collection in the United States, specifically addressing Knowledge Management:

HEALEY: In the past, analysts were often promoted from secretarial and administrative positions, and they too often served as catch-all support personnel.

For a variety of reasons, significant information collected by the FBI never gets uploaded into the automated case support system or it gets uploaded long after it is learned.

100 companies that matter most in km...

PR Newswire :: West, Thomson Elite Recognized for Leadership in Knowledge Management Technology Development

EAGAN, Minn., April 14 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- West and Thomson Elite today strengthened their positions as leaders and innovators in the fast- emerging area of business intelligence and knowledge management, being named to KMWorld magazine's list of "100 Companies That Matter Most in Knowledge Management."

West is the legal industry's most trusted source for authoritative legal information and research technologies, while Thomson Elite is a worldwide provider of business software to professional services firms. Both are businesses within The Thomson Corporation (NYSE: TOC; Toronto).

e-gov knowledge management awards...

Federal Computer Week reports -- IRS, Army win E-Gov awards.

"The Internal Revenue Service received an award for its Electronic Tax Administration tool that created a national strategy to help its employees search an electronic network of information and data, officials at the E-Gov Institute's Knowledge Management Conference announced on Tuesday.

The tax agency was among four winners recognized by the KM conference for making key contributions to knowledge management in the federal government. The IRS was cited for its innovative use of technology in a knowledge management solution.

The E-Gov Initiative sponsors the conference, which is a division of FCW Media Group, publishers of Federal Computer Week and FCW.com."

knowledge management and law...

Today in The Globe and Mail -- Knowledge management crucial tool for law firms -- Grant Buckler writes: "Facing an increasingly competitive market, a drive to specialization and a need to operate globally, major law firms must share knowledge more effectively than ever before. So they are turning to knowledge management -- a combination of technology for organizing knowledge and techniques for using it better."

Mr. Buckler begins this article with a quote from Matthew Peters, a Vancouver-based partner at national law firm McCarthy Tetrault LLP, who "often deals with technology startups with lots of promise but little ready cash."

Knowledge Management is a natural in law. For example, a single attorney in McCarthy's 800 strong practice, can leverage the combined experience of the entire firm to create documents to suit an individual client's needs -- saving both time and money.

Grant Buckler closes this long article with a prediction from McCarthy's Mr. Peters regarding knowledge management -- "It's going to be the distinguishing factor between firms." And this 'knowledge notes' weblogger agrees...

km tools taxonomy...

My knowledge cohort friend, Jack Vinson, posts --Knowledge Jolt with Jack: Taxonomy of KM Tools -- regarding an entry in Heath Row's Fast Company weblog, regarding the Kaieteur Institute for Knowledge Management's Taxonomy of Knowledge Management... Phew! Attributions and citations in the 'blogosphere' can get long-and-winding! (-:=

Unfortunate that the referenced Taxonomy has not been updated in two years. My questions were similar to Jack's regarding the placement of weblogs, wikis, and evolving personal knowledge management practices and tools within this tool-centered taxonomy.

Fine fodder for fomenting...

adaptive analytic architecture...

COPLINK(R) Introduces Groundbreaking Adaptive Analytic Architecture(TM) for State Law Enforcement and Federal Intelligence Information Sharing Initiatives

TUCSON, Ariz., April 8 /PRNewswire/ -- Knowledge Computing Corporation today announced the release of COPLINK A^3(TM), a radically advanced solution for how law enforcement and intelligence agencies at the federal, state and local level can share information and intelligence to help solve crimes, thwart terrorism and improve the safety of our communities nationwide.

...COPLINK provides unparalleled analysis and decision support for rapidly identifying criminal suspects, relationships and patterns that can help solve and prevent crime. The solution is also promising for use in homeland security applications.

COPLINK seamlessly integrates proprietary A^3 technology, also known as Adaptive Analytic Architecture(TM), with the company's critically acclaimed crime fighting solution. COPLINK A^3 expands the power of COPLINK exponentially when applied to regional, multi-state or federal intelligence knowledge discovery initiatives and provides enhanced 28 CFR Part 23 compliance.

navy knowledge online...

Both the Army and the Navy continue to lead with their 'Knowledge Online' offerings. This article, specific to the Navy's knowledge dissemination efforts, is an excellent example of the growing appeal of the Army Knowledge Online [AKO - a one-stop shop for multiple applications and services] and Navy Knowledge Online [NKO - education, distance learning and collaboration portal] services across programs and divisions within their respective organizations.

Navy Library Program Offers Resources on NKO
By Darlene Goodwin, Navy Region Gulf Coast Public Affairs

PENSACOLA, Fla. (NNS) -- The Navy General Library Program (NGLP) has partnered with Navy Knowledge Online (NKO) to provide electronic books, reference materials and practice testing services at no cost to Sailors and Marines worldwide. These materials are also available to Reservists, retirees, and Department of the Navy civilian and non-appropriated fund (NAF) personnel.

The move to partner with NKO saved the Navy an estimated $15.5 million compared to the cost of having each installation purchase the resources individually, according to Nellie Moffitt, NGLP director.

"The primary reason for joining NKO was to provide greater library services to a greater number of Sailors at a cost savings," said Moffitt. "There isn't a Navy General Library at every naval installation, so we can best meet Sailors' needs through Econtent (electronic content), which is accessible worldwide. An added benefit is that NKO also provides support to Navy civilians, NAF personnel and retirees. NKO allows us to meet many needs with a comparatively small investment."

The idea to put Econtent on NKO originated with Capt. James Kantner, director of Knowledge Management at the Naval Personnel Development Command in Norfolk, Va. "These Econtent resources are the perfect fit for NKO," said Kantner. "We developed NKO to connect Sailors with the right knowledge at the right time, to support their professional and personal development. The vision was to create a learning environment dedicated to providing our Navy workforce with the tools to excel, and that requires us to harness the best Navy and commercially-produced resources available today."

NKO is the Navy's Web Learning Portal through which Sailors will be able to access the professional and personal development resources needed to support their 5 Vector Model (5VM), the Navy's premier interactive career planning model. NKO is currently averaging more than 20,000 daily logins by approximately 260,000 users.

commonsense experts...

Today in the Warsaw Business Journal Online there is an announcement of the "first-ever international HR conference in Warsaw" beginning this Thursday, March 25, 2004. What I find exciting about this announcement is the focus of these HR leaders on the 'knowledge' in their organizations. And their readiness to step up to the proverbial plate and address the 'corporate culture' issues involved in creating successful knowledge flow in organizations from small to large.

..."IT tools have been increasingly important in HR," says Marzena Mielecka, project manager at the Management Institute, which co-organizes the conference. "They make it possible to dispel the notion that investing in people does not bring specific benefits," she continues.

"Many employees are unwilling to share their knowledge, fearing they will thus become dispensable," Mielecka says. "That is an issue of corporate culture, something that only HR managers can address." And, while HR is commonly thought to be relevant to large corporations alone, Mielecka adds that the issues of knowledge management are equally pertinent to small, and, in particular, midsized companies. It is, however, to those companies that the long-term nature of investments in human capital and changes to corporate culture can be a particular problem...

next generation product development...

Michael McGrath, cofounder of PRTM -- a global management consulting firm that I have had the pleasure to work with in the past -- has a new book coming out in April, 2004 titled:

Next Generation Product Development : How to Increase Productivity, Cut Costs, and Reduce Cycle Times.

The following is an excerpt from the Business Wire book announcement released this morning:

...In his new book, Next Generation Product Development, veteran author, product development expert, and co-founder of management consulting firm PRTM, Michael McGrath describes how research and development (R&D) effectiveness is poised to double in the next stage of product development.

...In Next Generation Product Development, McGrath redefines project management as a process, not just a technique; a project's success is therefore not limited to individual project managers' personal and technical skills. This new project management process is referred to as enterprise project management and is based on collaboration and a common plan that serves to direct all steps in the project. This in turn provides a foundation for more advanced project management practices such as distributed program management, collaborative development, and context-based knowledge management...

'free jazz' and 'co-creation' in KM...

Funny how I cannot think 'Jazz' now without thinking of Stuart Henshall, who (in his Unbound Spiral weblog) is fond of talking about jazz -- "jazz communities," "jazz blogging," "jazz in the blogosphere," "'actionable' jazz," "group jazz," "jazz quadrants" -- you get the picture.

Jazz is a wonderful forum for 'co-creation' - reminding me of Charles Mingus' 'Free Jazz' and the spontaneous 'co-creation' he inspired in the music, methods, and musicians that he was famous for bringing together.

And so this morning, as I was catching up on my knowledge 'news' reading, imagine my glee at finding the following title within my 'knowledge management' search -- Play Management Symphonies Like Jazz.

In this article, for The Financial Express, Mrityunjay B Athreya reviews --The Future of Competition by C K Prahalad and Venkat Ramaswamy, and the authors' [referred to in the following excerpt of this article as 'PR'] interpretation of the concept of 'co-creation.' [Strong emphasis throughout the citation below is mine...]

As an aside -- Mrityunjay B Athreya also makes wide usage of the term 'consumer' [twenty-nine mentions actually] and I cannot help but feel my friend Jerry Michalski cringing and gritting his teeth! [click on Jerry's name above and read his one year old but still most excellent post on the utilization of the word 'consumer.']

PR claim that company, competitor, partner, collaborator, investor, consumer are all equal. The market is not a target to be attacked, but a forum to be involved in.

Co-creation brings the added opportunity, and complexity of widening KM to involve the consumers. PR identify seven layers of such a Knowledge Environment. In the context of co-creation, the concept of strategy also undergoes change. It can no longer be unilaterally set by the top management. The initial model of strategy, from Harvard Business School (HBS), enunciated by Edmund Learned and others was a four-step process of funnelling through opportunities, resources, aspirations, and social responsibility...

knowledge management & weblogs...

Jena McGregor, writing for Fast Company -- It's A Blog World After All -- reinforces the conversation that many in my Knowledge Networking cohort have been talking and writing about for some time now. Weblogs are an inexpensive vehicle for knowledge sharing in both large and small organizations - offering a flavor of 'Personal Knowledge Mapping' that is appealing to a larger audience. The following is an excerpt from Ms. McGregor's article - highlighting the 'Knowledge Management' potential of Weblogs in the Corporate environment.

Verizon, IBM, Microsoft, and Dr. Pepper are all climbing on the blogwagon. Turns out, Web logs are a nifty knowledge-management tool. And companies also see them as a promising medium for advertising (naturally).

"...So do blogs hold the key to seamless sharing of collective corporate intelligence, the holy grail of knowledge management? Web log software is cheaper to install and maintain than many knowledge-sharing programs, and it's extremely simple to use. Knowledge software often requires employees to take both an extra step and extra time to record what they know, and to fit their knowledge into a database of inflexible categories. Internal blogs are more integrated into a worker's regular daily communications. IBM began blogging in December, and by February, some 500 employees in more than 30 countries were using it to discuss software development projects and business strategies. And while blogs' inherently open, anarchic nature may be unsettling, Mike Wing, IBM's vice president of intranet strategy, believes their simplicity and informality could give them an edge. "It may be an easy, comfortable medium for people to be given permission to publish what they feel like publishing," he says.

But that informal transparency is precisely why many companies' embrace of blogs is at best uneasy. Internally, blogs have the potential to let employees who wouldn't otherwise be seen as authorities have a voice with a lot of impact. "[Companies] are not going to be able to stuff it back into the box," says Greg Lloyd, CEO of Traction, a business-oriented blog software company. Externally, the fears are even greater. Letting employees speak directly to customers requires a huge amount of trust. A loose cannon might reveal corporate secrets, give out the wrong message, or even open up the company to legal trouble.

Despite those worries, no new medium can go for long without being turned into a marketing channel. Got a message to get out or a product to promote? The blog world is populated by folks who thrive on racing to be first to post news and getting others to link to, or "blogroll," them. They're naturally the opinionated, hyperconnected influencers marketers crave. Jonathan Carson, president and CEO of BuzzMetrics, a New York-based firm that mines message boards, listservs, and blogs to see what's being said about companies, says his clients ignored blogs nine months ago. Today, more than half specifically ask whether his monitoring includes the blogosphere. "If companies focus in on what's going on in the blog world, it's an amazing leading indicator on what's going to break in the real world," he says..."

km at the nsa...

NCI-SES Wins Knowledge System Prototype Contract with the NSA; Firm Sees Knowledge Management as the Next Information Frontier

RESTON, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 18, 2004--NCI Information Systems, Inc. (NCI), a leading information technology, systems engineering and systems integration company, today announced that Scientific & Engineering Solutions (SES), a wholly owned subsidiary of NCI, has been awarded a $1.32 million contract in support of the National Security Agency's (NSA) Knowledge Systems Operation Support and Transition (KOST) contract. KOST is an initiative in direct support of the NSA's Knowledge Management program.

This contract will allow SES to continue its efforts in driving knowledge management by supporting the ongoing spiral development of the Knowledge System Prototype. The end goal is to have this prototype activity transition, along with other ongoing initiatives at NSA, into a robust acquisition program for NSA.

federal knowledge management...

No, that's not 'federated' knowledge management, but rather 'federal' knowledge management. Knowledge Management - as a concept - definitely has its up and down days in industry, but is still alive and well and thriving as both a concept and practice within the U.S. federal government -- most notably in the Army Knowledge Online and Navy Knowledge Online services.

Today, in Government Computer News (GCN,) -- ATG pitches new app as federal knowledge management tool, Joab Jackson writes:

...Portal provider Art Technology Group Inc. is promoting its new customer service software as a tool for managing agency data in-house. "When you look at systems such as the Navy Knowledge Online or Army Knowledge Online, they have a pretty significant number of internal users," said Leslie David, a solutions architect who works in the Cambridge, Mass., company's government practice.

Although ATG is marketing this product to companies as a way to cut the costs of phone-based customer service, the company is also targeting government agencies. The app can provide more accurate information to internal employees and to workers at other agencies, David said. "Every agency has knowledge out there. Everyone is trying to figure out how to get the right information into the right people's hands," she said. "Up until now, AKO, NKO, even the Federal Aviation Administration have all been Web-enabling all their content. They are not targeting it toward anyone, just making it available. Now they need to organize and target."...

DOC and KM...

Using IT to Tap Experts' Know-how - Computerworld
Opinion by Pimm Fox

MARCH 15, 2004 (COMPUTERWORLD) - The U.S. government is using basic knowledge management techniques to offer timely and valuable advice about how to do business abroad.

At the Department of Commerce, a commercial service called the DOC Insider is adopting technology for knowledge capture and management from Bellevue, Wash.-based AskMe Corp. The service uses the technology to accelerate the counseling it offers to U.S. companies seeking to engage in international trade.

The DOC Insider has been using Web-based technology to create a knowledge network connecting its 100 offices in the U.S., another 150 in 80 countries overseas and a group of approximately 1,700 U.S. trade specialists who have expertise in what it takes to succeed abroad. These specialists can tell you what trade show to attend if you're interested in selling medical equipment in Germany or what papers to file if you're trying to expand your software business into Japan.

toyota wins 'make' award...

BUSINESS WIRE: The Global Leader in News Distribution

TOKYO & LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 9, 2004--The winners of the 4th Annual Most Admired Knowledge Enterprises (MAKE) in Japan study, conducted by the Knowledge Management Society of Japan (KMSJ) in association with Teleos and The KNOW Network, are:

1. Toyota Motor
2. Honda Motor
3. Kao
4. Nissan Motor
5. Canon
6. Sony
7. IBM Japan
8. Fuji Xerox

These companies have been recognized for their world-class efforts in transforming corporate knowledge into wealth-creating ideas, products and solutions. To select the 2003 MAKE Japan winners, senior executives of companies listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange and members of the KMSJ nominated and ranked Japanese organizations against eight key performance drivers:

-- creating a corporate knowledge-driven culture
-- developing knowledge workers through senior management leadership
-- delivering knowledge-based products/services/solutions
-- maximizing enterprise intellectual capital
-- creating an environment for collaborative knowledge sharing
-- creating a learning organization
-- delivering value based on customer knowledge
-- transforming enterprise knowledge into shareholder value

Creating a knowledge-driven company yields big dividends, according to Rory Chase, managing director of Teleos. The 2003 MAKE Japan Winners reported a Return on Equity of 14.5%, nearly twice the Global 1000 average - and their Return on Assets was more than five times that of the top 1000 global companies. Rory Chase said: "The 2003 MAKE Japan Winners are recognized as leaders in the international race to deliver customer-focused, knowledge-based goods and services. They are building portfolios of intellectual capital and intangible assets which will enable them to out-perform their competitors in the future."

actionable intelligence...

On the road again and blogging from Bette's Diner in Berkeley... Glorious day, sun shining, birds singing, 80 something degrees and it was snowing when I left New Jersey yesterday morning... (-:=

According to the following press release Endeca has teamed with Stratify and Taxonomy Warehouse - in their new ProFind 4.1 product - to turn information into "actionable intelligence." K-Praxis defines actionable intelligence as: a process of analyzing multi-dimensional facets of actionable information to arrive at an action plan. What do you think of "actionable intelligence?"

BUSINESS WIRE :: Endeca Boosts Classification, Taxonomy Capabilities

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 9, 2004--Endeca, the only provider of advanced search and Guided Navigation(SM) solutions, today announced new, innovative enterprise search capabilities and two new strategic partnerships to help organizations turn important information - regardless of source, format or structure -- into actionable intelligence. To bolster its capabilities for managing and adding structure to traditionally unstructured documents and content -- emails, Word documents, PowerPoint presentations, PDF files, etc. - Endeca has teamed with Stratify, the leader in unstructured data management software, and Taxonomy Warehouse (part of Synapse Corporation), a leading provider of industry-specific thesauri, taxonomies and controlled vocabulary. In addition, Endeca announced the immediate availability of Endeca ProFind 4.1, the latest version of its award-winning enterprise search and navigation platform.

...By entering into a strategic partnership with Stratify, Endeca can now offer advanced categorization by leveraging a customer's homegrown taxonomies, directly importing industry standard taxonomies, or by taking advantage of Stratify's auto-generation capabilities to dynamically create taxonomies using documents from any combination of corporate repositories and/or Internet sources. In addition, its partnership with Taxonomy Warehouse will enable Endeca to better serve customers across dozens of key verticals with hundreds of pre-built, industry-specific taxonomies -- under the primary headings of Business, Health, Products & Services, Technology and Social Sciences...

km in government...

PRESS RELEASE: Advanced Distributed Learning Platform Now Available from the GSA

LINTHICUM, MD (PRWEB) March 4, 2004 -- Knowledge Management Solutions, Inc. (KMSI), a leader in web-based Learning and Knowledge Management Technologies, today announced that its flagship Advanced Distributed Learning Platform, KMx, is now available to all government agencies via the General Services Administration (GSA) Contract GS-35F-0461M with Velocite Systems, Inc.

"The KMx Advanced Distributed Learning Platform, leverages the Instructional Systems Design and Systems Approach to Training models to provide Government Agencies with a complete Learning Management, Learning Content Management and Instructional Content Development Suite," said Bob Cook, President Velocite Systems, Inc.

KMx Enterprise is an advanced distributed learning platform that is globally scalable and provides an integrated environment for developing, managing, and delivering training and performance support. KMx enables rapid content creation and delivery by automating instructional development processes. KMx is an Enterprise Web-Application built using Microsoft .Net and SQL Server. KMx is accessible using standard browser technologies and supports content development using Microsoft Office and other popular learning, content and document management technologies. KMx is fully conformant with the Shareable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM) standards.

Explains KMSI CTO Mike Binnix, "Our competitors charge a per-user licensing fee that consumes the remarkable return on investment that e-learning technology can provide. KMSI provides its' learning development and management technology using a flat annual fee. For a Government Agency with thousands of end-users this can represent millions in savings. Our pricing model removes all of the cost barriers for Government Agencies that need to provide training and performance support for thousands of employees".

life's little messes & KM...

Scotsman.com Business - Management - Deal with the essentials to avoid a mess
by Frank Cullen

...If an organisation's staff toilets run out of toilet roll or the cleaners neglect to empty the bins or the staff canteen runs out of milk, then the organisation's directors will soon hear about it because, ultimately, it is the basic things in life that matter most.

...Consequently, directors would be well advised to reconsider their regard for facilities management. While it may be viewed as the least sexy side of operations, it is, nevertheless, an essential part of all firms - and choosing to ignore essentials invariably proves to be an expensive mistake...

a common taxonomy...

In Government Computer News (GCN), Jason Miller writes - CIOs blame slow pace of e-gov on funding hurdles. Through this article you can download a PDF of the 14th annual Federal CIO Survey which was released today.

...Defense CIOs said network-centricity is their focus and cited the Navy-Marine Corps Intranet and Army Knowledge Management Portal as examples of progress. Like their Homeland Security counterparts, DHS' systems chiefs said a common taxonomy is necessary for DOD to succeed at its Business Management Modernization...

knowledge management's hidden asset...

Bill Breen, in an article for FastCompany, - Hidden Asset - writes about Thomas Davenport [professor of information technology and management at Babson College, and a fellow at the Accenture Institute for High Performance Business] who "has helped midwife some of the biggest trends to have shaped business over the past 25 years--among them, reengineering and knowledge management."

Now Davenport is asking [with Laurence Prusak and H. James Wilson in a book, What's the Big Idea? Creating and Capitalizing on the Best Management Thinking (Harvard Business School Press, 2003)]:

"Where do ideas come from? And how do they get traction?"

Here are the eight-points in Davenport's plan for winning with ideas that are covered in more detail in Bill Breen's article:

* Companies compete with their brains as well as their brawn.
* Great ideas have three key elements.
* There are no truly new ideas out there.
* Innovation comes from the front lines, but the top sets the tone.
* Every new initiative needs a champion.
* Sell no idea before its time.
* The story sells the idea.
* All ideas have a life cycle.

wearable km?...

BUSINESS WIRE :: Xybernaut And ESS Deliver Mobile/Wearable Computing Technologies and Support Solutions to Government, Military and Commercial Sectors

FAIRFAX, Va. & FREDERICK, Md.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 25, 2004--
..."The mobility and point-of-task computing power afforded by joint Xybernaut-ESS solutions allows mobile employees increased flexibility and greater accessibility to knowledge at critical moments," said Grady Venable, president and COO of ESS. "The ability to send and receive information when and where field technicians need it is a critical component of success for service-centric organizations. Wearable computers and mobile systems facilitate this type of constant communication."

ESS Mobile IT primarily focuses on "flyaway" kits designed to address the needs of first responders, as well as tactical stand-alone operations. When combined with Xybernaut Mobile Assistant(R) V (MA(R) V) and/or Atigo(TM) wearable computers, benefits to customers include mobility, enhanced functionality, inter connectivity between operational teams, higher quality in data gathering and improvements in knowledge management.

...Organizations such as the U.S. Air Force, National Security Agency (NSA), National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NGA), CECOM, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and others already use ESS solutions to improve their field employee productivity. Organizations currently employing Xybernaut wearable computers include American TransAir (ATA airlines), Bell Canada, Boeing, various U.S. and foreign militaries, DynCorp, FedEx Express, GE Power Systems, International Truck, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and NTT DoCoMo...

emerald 2003 usage statistics...

Managing Information News :: Emerald 2003 Usage Statistics Speak Volumes

...Emerald statistics reveal the top five subject areas researched by its customers during 2003 were innovation, organization, knowledge management, as well as marketing and business intelligence. The article downloaded most often from the Emerald database was "From Marketing Mix to Relationship Marketing: Towards a Paradigm Shift in Marketing" by Christian Gronroos and published in Management Decision.

Emerald, the leading international management and information science publisher, released its 2003 usage statistics, which show more than 7 million articles were downloaded from its database, Emerald Fulltext. The number reflects an eleven percent increase over 2002 for the same 12 month period...

navy knowledge management news...

Consultant - News.com :: US Navy selects AMS company to continue strategic consulting services

...American Management Systems will provide professional support services to the US Navy's Chief Information Officer (DON CIO) under a contract awarded to RM Vredenburg & Co. Vredenburg, a wholly-owned subsidiary of AMS, was acquired in August 2003 and began supporting DON CIO in 1998. AMS will assist in the development and dissemination of strategy, plans and policies in support of DON CIO's mission to transform naval information management and information technology to provide affordable, next generation capabilities to the Navy and Marine Corps warfighter. AMS will perform the work under a delivery order worth up to $55 million if all options are exercised over the contract's four-year duration.

Under the agreement, AMS will provide strategic consulting services and develop tools, including strategic plans, policy guidelines, and tutorials to ensure DON CIO initiatives align with mission objectives and the Department of Defense's goals for military and business transformation. The tools and services AMS provides will support Navy programs in enterprise architecture, information assurance, critical infrastructure protection, e-business, knowledge management, management of electromagnetic spectrum, and investment planning...

knowledge management + security incubating...

BayouBuzz.com :: Two Companies Join LSU Business Incubator

...United Security Applications provides enterprise software products to secure people, infrastructure and assets. The company began developing software security solutions after the events of 9/11 and has provided products and services to agencies involved in security, law enforcement, public safety and justice. Sam Bhat and Paul Singh, the principals in the company, have over 40 years experience in the industry. They have developed products such as Enterprise Security Management (ESM-USA), Enterprise Image Repository (EIR-USA) and Enterprise Knowledge Management (EKM-USA). They are also working on a number of other security systems and follow-on technologies. United Security Applications primary target market includes Port Authorities, chemical and petrochemical industries, state and local governmental agencies, law enforcement, healthcare providers, transportation & warehousing, and other businesses requiring security management...

knowledge portals...

HardWareZone :: IDC Forecasts Enterprise Information Portal Market To Reach US$52M by 2007 With China Taking The Highest Market Share

This market is expected to reach an estimated US$52.2M by 2007 with a robust compounded growth of 15.5% over the next four years.

"The interest in EIP software will continue to grow as this access layer into the IT environment is increasingly used to aggregate composite applications and web services", said Andrew Chew, Research Manager, Software Tools, Asia/Pacific. "Enterprises will also be looking into unifying applications and processes with a single interface and administrative layer to improve data and process accessibility across the enterprise. This is due to increasing demands to have visibility into business processes, knowledge management and business intelligence through portals."

is km a fad?...

In Fads We Love To Hate, Wallace Immen, of The Globe And Mail, talks about the continuing conversation regarding the staying quality of knowledge management:

...However, "fads emerge quickly and are adopted with great zeal, then peak and decline just as fast," the authors found. Then there is a "tweaking phenomenon," in which successful parts of a fad morph into a new concept with a new name.

A current example is the continuing discussion on the Internet these days about whether "knowledge management" is merely a fad. Many discussions posted on the Web are arguing that electronic strategies for getting, storing and sharing information represent a revolution in the way everything will get done in the future, while others argue employing the latest technologies to stay ahead of the competition is as old as the Roman conquests...

In this article he also reports an "On The Rise" phenomenon that is closely associated with a successful knowledge strategy:

...Human capital: Trying to quantify the knowledge and intangible benefits employees add to a company's value...

knowledge bytes...

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 13, 2004--Primus Knowledge Solutions (Nasdaq:PKSI), a leader in knowledge management solutions, will be presenting to investors at the Roth Capital Partners 16th Annual Growth Stock Conference on Thursday, February 19th at 9:30 a.m. PST. The event is being held at the St. Regis Monarch Beach Resort & Spa in Dana Point, California. Investors are welcome to listen to the live audio webcast online on the Primus website, in the Investor Relations section, or at the Vcall Conference site. The recorded webcast will be accessible online until March 31st, 2004.

Joanne Cummings reports on DocumentIQ that IXOS and OpenText announced the first fruits of their recent merger, a new enterprise content management (ECM) system called IXOS 6 Suite. "IXOS 6 Suite is based on a single, highly scalable repository that provides a single point of access to all structured data (content that is managed by a database, such as ERP) and unstructured data (such as e-mail, word processing and spread sheets files, scanned faxes and images and Web content) within an organization. IXOS said organizations can use the repository to store all relevant content, along with its descriptive meta data, including author, creation date, version and so on, and have it all readily accessible from one place."

where did you park your knowledge?...

I have seen and/or heard many different metaphors utilized in describing knowledge as a resource in an organization. This morning in my news reader I found this clipping from - ic Wales - Don't let expertise leak away:

...What we do is treat expertise or knowledge as a resource or a commodity, "owned" by the business but "parked" in individuals' minds. The business owns it, but the expertise is effectively sitting in a giant corporate car park.

This is, to some degree, depersonalisation - and in the coldest, corporate, clinical terms it makes sense. But we obviously want to maintain a responsible/caring element, and there is a fine balance to be struck between social interaction and knowledge management...

Have you checked your 'car park' lately? (-:=

e-learning visionaries predictions...

Silicon Valley Biz Ink :: E-Learning Visionaries Share Their Thoughts

NEW YORK, Feb. 4 /PRNewswire/ -- What will be e-learning's successes, failures, and innovations in 2004? Lisa Neal, Editor-in-Chief of eLearn Magazine, asked e-learning visionaries from industry, academia, and government for their predictions. The published results point to e-learning's continued penetration into mainstream education and training and that e-learning will be better integrated with knowledge management, document management, and personal lives.

In this article, e-learning visionaries provide a variety of perspectives. Centra's Leon Navickas prophesies that e-learning technologies will penetrate areas beyond traditional learning, such as mentoring and parent-teacher conferencing, whereas Elliott Masie says that the most central issues to e- learning will be context management, learning integration, and readiness. Other key topics include the use of games for learning and the role of online learning communities.

Contributors to the article include e-learning consultants and vendors as well as researchers and faculty from the US, Japan, Greece, New Zealand, The Netherlands, and Canada. Read all the Predictions for 2004 at eLearn Magazine...

master in plm...

Business Wire :: RuleStream Sponsors mPLM - master in Product Lifecycle Management

WAKEFIELD, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 3, 2004-- RuleStream's Product Suite and Engineering Knowledge Management Expertise Are Key to the Success of the First Master in PLM at Polytechnic University of Milan.
 
RuleStream Corporation, a design process software company that delivers unbeatable competitive advantage to manufacturers, today announced that it is currently sponsoring the first edition of the post graduate course in "mPLM - master in Product Lifecycle Management" organized by MIP, the Business School of Politecnico di Milano, the Polytechnic University of Milan.

The mPLM program is part of the wider collaboration established by RuleStream since its inception with Politecnico di Milano's KAEMaRT (Knowledge Aided Engineering, Manufacturing and Related Technologies,) group led by Prof. Umberto Cugini. The main objectives of this collaboration are joint research activities, training, and the promotion of knowledge management in engineering through KBE (Knowledge Based Engineering) and design automation technologies...

ifla establishes knowledge management section...

NOTICIAS.INFO :: IFLA Establishes Knowledge Management Section

"The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) recently announced the creation of a Knowledge Management Section. "The Section will provide an international platform for professional communication and for understanding of the significance of knowledge management for librarians and the institutions that employ them" says IFLA.

According to IFLA, the Section aims at following developments in knowledge management and promoting its practical implementation within the IFLA community. Meeting the demand of librarians to maintain their competencies and skills in an ever changing working environment, the Section seeks to provide theoretical and practical knowledge in focused areas of knowledge management such as interactive communication in various types of information settings, using IT for the exchange of knowledge and experience in an organizational context, etc.

IFLA, which maintains formal associate relations with UNESCO, is the leading international body representing the interests of library and information services and their users."

knowledge management & security...

PR Newswire :: EVOLVENT Leaders Publish Homeland Security Book 'Securing Business Intelligence - Knowledge and Cybersecurity in the Post 9/11 World' Authors: Peter Ramsaroop & Bill Oldham

FALLS CHURCH, Va., Jan 29. /PRNewswire/ -- EVOLVENT -- Can your organization be attacked? Before the events of September 11, most organizations might have answered, no. Since then, this message has been reinforced by intellectual property loss, natural disasters, and power outages. These events brought with it the near-universal realization that tighter network security; backup networks, increased security in knowledge management and the creation of disaster recovery architecture are absolute requirements. Securing business intelligence is the vital key to survival and success in our brave new world.

...This book offers a unique perspective on both security and the management of our knowledge resources, demonstrating through practical examples from public and private sectors how integrating security as a way of thinking can not only protect our intellectual assets, but build knowledge systems that enhance return on investments in the much maligned world of information technology.

knowledge management reduces costs...

Business Wire :: Knowledge Management: Managing Intellectual Assets Helps Reduce Costs

CHAPEL HILL, N.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 28, 2004--To efficiently manage intellectual assets, leading companies embed knowledge management activities in their corporate strategy. According to a study by research and consulting firm Best Practices, LLC, identifying and sharing internal best practices enables organizations to gain market position and drive long-term growth. While some companies lay off employees to cut costs in a slow economy, leading companies utilize employees' valuable knowledge to reduce expenses.

"Knowledge Management of Internal Best Practices," (summary is free with registration, full report is $1,000.00) reveals the importance of employing effective management of intellectual capital technique.

french risk institute creates knowledge portal...

Transform Magazine :: French Risk Institute Creates a Knowledge Portal

...The French National Institute for Industrial Environment and Risks recently began using K2 Enterprise from Verity, Sunnyvale, CA, for search and content organization on its intranet.

Founded in 1990, the institute is a multidisciplinary unit within the French Ministry of the Environment. Its mission is to assess and identify ways to prevent accidental and chronic risks to people exposed to industrial plants and chemical substances. Like many public research organizations, the institute was overwhelmed by the amount of structured and unstructured content generated and stored by its team of researchers, making it difficult for users to locate relevant information quickly and accurately. To manage, locate and evaluate its enterprise data more efficiently, the institute chose the Verity software to create a knowledge management portal...

knowledge management news...

The Business Journal of Phoenix :: ASU works to broaden knowledge management understanding

...ASU's Center for Advancing Business through Information Technology (CABIT), teamed with Intel more than a year ago on the Knowledge Management Capabilities Assessment project, and, over time, it has grown to more and more business units of Intel.

"Knowledge is the biggest and most transient resource any business has," he said. "We are looking at how you manage this very complex object that exists in both minds and data."...

center for innovation in public service...

Yahoo PR NewsWire :: The George Washington University and BearingPoint Launch The Center for Innovation in Public Service

WASHINGTON, Jan. 21 /PRNewswire/ -- The George Washington University and BearingPoint, Inc. (NYSE: BE - News), one of the world's largest business consulting and systems integration firms, today launched the Center for Innovation in Public Service, a joint initiative aimed at empowering government leaders so they are better able to address the complex challenges involved in 21st century public sector governance. The center will be housed in GW's School of Public Policy and Public Administration.

The center will publish independent research, white papers and case studies, and provide information exchange forums for leaders and managers in public and nonprofit organizations. In addition, it plans to host online knowledge management communities, including research archives, online discussion forums, news and events information and a host of other tools.

"This is going to be a terrific addition to our academic community," said Donald R. Lehman, GW executive vice president for academic affairs. "The center joins a family of innovative, highly respected research units that make GW and the School of Public Policy and Public Administration a focal point for public affairs education and public service."

The Center for Innovation in Public Service will provide research and education opportunities allowing faculty of GW's School of Public Policy and Public Administration to collaborate with thought leaders from the private and public sector. The center also will enable GW to provide unique experiences for students, such as mentoring, research assistantships, internships and career development opportunities.

"At the heart of this organization is unprecedented collaboration among the best minds from government, academia, business and nonprofits," said Rich Roberts, executive vice president of the public services line of business at BearingPoint. "By sharing the insights gained through collaboration, the center will consider practical, yet innovative methods to address the most pressing challenges in the public sector. We're delighted to be teaming with GW on this exciting endeavor."

navy knowledge management news...

The 'Navy newsstand' released a story today titled 'DoN eBusiness Operations Office Announces First Round of FY 2004 Pilot Projects.' The Navy's eBusiness Operations Office has announced $3.8 million in funding for its first portfolio of fiscal year 2004 eBusiness pilot projects.

There are six 'pilot projects' and among their ranks is a 'knowledge management' project:

Navy Public Affairs Knowledge Management System (Navy PA KM): Navy PA KM will deploy an integrated suite of knowledge management and collaboration tools on the Web to provide public affairs officers (PAOs) around the globe with the capability to publish timely news updates to Navy leadership, Navy personnel and the public sector. The re-engineered business process will facilitate better collaboration among PAOs to provide products and resources to a larger customer base.

knowledge management, army style...

The Fayetteville (N.C.) Observer :: FusionNet puts soldiers, equipment in place
By Justin Willett

..."Eighty-five percent of an organization's knowledge is stored in the peoples' ... heads."

"We're on the path to show the Department of Defense and Department of the Army that this can be done relatively easy and relatively inexpensively," Warner said...

intersection of knowledge management and blogging...

Back on 19 September 2003, Jim McGee referenced a post by Jon Udell on Kimbro Staken's new science experiment, Syncato. And now - actually twelve days ago - Silicon Valley Biz Ink published a press release - Sleepycat Software Honors XML Innovators.

Sleepycat Software, makers of Berkeley DB announced results for the 2003 Berkeley DB XML Innovation Awards. XML technology consultant Kimbro Staken took the second place award for developing Syncato, a weblog or "blogging" application that combines an easy-to-use online personal idea log with advanced knowledge management and publishing capabilities. Staken's system stores each personal log as XML that can then be searched via XPath.

"Syncato maximizes the value of people's ideas and information in blogs by making them easily searchable," said Staken. "Under the hood, the Syncato weblog system is a XML fragment management system that relies on the flexibility of Berkeley DB XML to store XML natively alongside non-XML and semi-structured data."

rss winterfest 2004...

DecisionCast announces IDG's InfoWorld as Media Sponsor for RSS WinterFest 2004, a free, two day Webcast, wiki, and Weblog event on January 21-22, 2004, that will explore the uses, applications, and future of RSS and Internet content syndication. "More and more companies and organizations are using RSS to alleviate e-mail overload as well as to manage projects, deliver important information, create effective knowledge management and content management systems, and push information to their customers."

Featured speakers include:

-- Anil Dash Vice President, Business Development, Six Apart
-- Jon Udell, Lead Analyst, InfoWorld Test Center
-- Chad Dickerson, CTO, InfoWorld Media Group, Inc.
-- Bill French, Co-Founder, MyST Technology Partners
-- Robert Scoble, Technical Evangelist, US-.NET Platform Strategy, Microsoft
-- Scott Johnson, Founder, Feedster
-- Greg Reinacker, Founder, NewsGator
-- Chris Pirillo, Founder, Lockergnome
-- Ross Mayfield, CEO, Socialtext
-- Greg Lloyd, President & Co-Founder, Traction
-- Cynthia Carlson, Founder, KnowLogix Consulting
-- Graham Rasmussen, Consultant, KnowLogix Consulting
-- Matt McAlister, Vice President, General Manager, InfoWorld Media Group, Inc.
-- Derek Scruggs, Founder, Escalan

knowledge management HEAT...

TMCNet :: FrontRange Solutions Delivers Knowledge and Asset Management Solutions

...HEAT Plus Knowledge has a new and more intuitive interface that allows service and support center technicians to extract information and navigate content faster and more efficiently, thereby reducing call times and improving response consistency. Additionally, HEAT Plus Knowledge features improved relevancy rankings, allowing service and support centers to weight and rank documents with more accurate relevancy.

"Knowledge management and asset management are essential components to FrontRange's complete service management solution, further enabling organizations to consolidate the management of support, service, knowledge and assets," said Kevin J. Smith, vice president of Products for FrontRange Solutions. "For organizations to thrive, they need one solution that provides a complete service level view of their business and helps them increase their level of support and customer satisfaction while reducing costs. HEAT Plus Knowledge and HEAT Asset Tracker further establish our leadership position in the service management marketplace."...

knowledge management news - last 24 hours...

Today in Silicon Valley Biz Ink, CMP Media's Intelligent Enterprise Magazine announced today that its editors have selected the 12 most influential IT solution providers in the development of emerging "intelligent" enterprises. The 2004 Dozen excel at delivering solutions that bring higher value to customer relationships, enable greater visibility into enterprise business performance, and set the stage for affordable intelligent computing. Here is the complete list:

1. Cognos, Inc.
2. BEA Systems
3. Informatica
4. Business Objects
5. Hyperion
6. IBM
7. Microsoft
8. SAS
9. Information Builders
10. MicroStrategy
11. NCR Teradata Division
12. SAP

Also in Silicon Valley Biz Ink, Hummingbird announces availability of Hummingbird BI(TM) 8.5 which includes a broad range of customer-driven functionality, flexibility, and scalability enhancements to simplify user experience and increase productivity.

knowledge management by factiva...

In the 15 December 2003 issue of Computerworld Singapore, in 'Squeezing value from KM,' Melanie Liew writes that, according to Clare Hart, president and CEO of Factiva, "Knowledge Management (KM) is an all encompassing approach to harnessing the knowledge within an organisation, from capturing it to ­sharing it. It is predicated on existing organisational intelligence, the organisational culture and the platform that is in place."

...quote...
Said Factiva's Hart, "The decision-making process toward the adoption of what is called a knowledge and information management system increasingly takes place in four phases.

Phase one comprises an enterprise information audit. What information does a company have? What does it need? This applies to both internal and external information. Archived internal white papers and sales documents are as important as wider external news."

Phase two is where the taxonomy is applied. A common language is required to enable the integration of internal and external data – structured and unstructured. This must reflect a company's culture and fit with the existing organisational vocabulary.

Phase three is where the technology is finally deployed, built to fit the company that it is designed for.

Phase four sees this technology 'cut to fit' the organisation's culture and built to evolve with the direction this company wants to head.

In fact, KM technology is expected to get smarter and easier to use. Based on information supplied about the user and the technology's own intelligence, KM technology is increasingly basing its results on who the user is, what information users have volunteered about themselves, with built-in collaborative filtering to delivering the information that the worker needs efficiently and effectively.
...quote...

open source knowledge management...

PR NewsWire :: 3rd Millennium Releases R&D Software as Open Source to Biotech and Pharmaceutical Community

WALTHAM, Mass., Dec. 15 /PRNewswire/ -- 3rd Millennium announced today the release of its knowledge management system to the open source community. The software is a foundation technology for knowledge management solutions in biopharmaceutical research and development. It is the first of a number of open source releases planned by the company. 3rd Millennium, a leading life science informatics consultancy and systems integrator, has developed these systems in the course of dozens of custom software development projects completed during its seven years serving the life science R&D market.

copernicus award for km...

European and Pacific Stars & Stripes :: EUCOM sailors win Copernicus award
By Jason Chudy

...A sailor based in Bahrain and two based in Europe were recently selected as 2003 Copernicus Award winners. The award recognizes Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard military and civilian personnel who significantly contributed to naval warfare in the areas of command, control, communications, computers and intelligence; information systems or information warfare. It is co-sponsored by the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association and U.S. Naval Institute.

...Petty Officer 1st Class Aaron Martin of the Naples, Italy-based Submarine Group Eight earned the award for co-authoring a Web-based knowledge management software program with contractor David Weeks. Martin and Weeks' software allows members of the command to organize and share information on submarines in their area of operations...

pKADS: portable knowledge asset development system...

Jordan Times :: Jordan to develop Arabic version of knowledge-sharing software

...AMMAN (JT) - A knowledge-sharing software, whose Arabic version is to be developed by Jordan, was released during the World Summit for the Information Society (WSIS) under way in Geneva.

The portable Knowledge Asset Development System (pKADS), a tool used to collect, distill and synthesise lessons learned in a way that would improve results and inform policy and development strategy, was developed by UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, Business Information Systems, and University College Cork, Ireland, with full funding from the government of Ireland. The CD-ROM will be distributed free of charge.

According to a statement released by the Ministry of Information and Communications Technology (MoICT), pKADS is a CD-ROM version of UNFPA's Intranet-based Knowledge Asset Development System.

"We are excited at the opportunity of building bridges of cooperation between global and local learning institutions for the development of pKADS in the Arabic language," said MoICT Minister and Minister of Administrative Development Fawwaz Zu'bi.

He said the application of such knowledge management software both within and outside of government presents a prospect for knowledge sharing between development projects in Jordan and across the region...

LexisNexis: New Global Platform...

Yahoo PR Newswire :: New Technology Platform Will Deliver LexisNexis Services Globally

..."Today we've taken a substantial leap forward in our global strategy to deliver superior online legal and business information and decision-making tools to LexisNexis customers, no matter where they are in the world," said Andrew Prozes, CEO, LexisNexis Group, and member of the Reed Elsevier board of directors. "A single technology platform brings countless advantages to our business, especially the ability to develop and share advances in information services applications quickly and tailor those innovations to deliver the best online features and functionality for each market."

Also, the system enables LexisNexis to develop further advanced information services product concepts for more rapid worldwide adoption. These include products that are designed for electronically filing and retrieving court documents and other public records and electronic discovery, as well as those that integrate information and tools into customer portals, business intelligence processes and Knowledge Management systems...

collaboration taxonomy...

In an article today in Network Computing Asia, Chan Chi-Loong writes about Collaboration Trends and Managing Its Dynamics.

I am including additional references for Collaboration Taxonomy, following this (long) citation from Chan Chi-Loong's article:

...quote...
According to Dr Prabhakar Raghvan, Verity's CTO, the two most important resources a company has can be distilled to just two things: people and knowledge. Creating a knowledge management platform with efficient search functions and a well-defined document management plan can save companies millions - at a fraction of the cost of setting up the system, according to Prabhakar.

...Brian Prentice, senior analyst of Technology Research Services at META Group, strongly believes that collaboration technologies need to be managed more than ever as a profusion of collaboration tools invades the market.

Collaboration technologies are everywhere. A typical organisation might use IBM Domino for e-mail, Microsoft Sharepoint Server for directory services, Plumtree for portals, SAP for resource planning, Siebel for CRM, Oracle for databases, and so on. One of the biggest problems is that these technologies overlap. A shared workspace can be created with the Domino mail server, MS Sharepoint Server, Plumtree portal, and SAP. Besides the redundancy of resources, sometimes these different technologies do not mix that well and end users are inundated with having to learn how to use (or worse, forced to used) all these different applications for different groups. Far from simplifying matters, collaboration technologies actually complicate matters for end users if not properly managed.

Collaboration Taxonomy

One solution to help resolve this from the end user perspective is to establish a collaboration taxonomy. This is a set of guiding principles that correlate business activity and IT solutions with a collaboration focus. By having such a structure, organisations can better identify collaboration needs. This is a starting point for crafting a full-fledged management policy.

Through looking at some of the different aspects of collaboration - individual users, business processes, knowledge communities, intra-enterprises and lifestyle centric processes, a collaboration taxonomy can guide organisations in focusing on the intended returns of each IT investment. From this starting point, it can be extended to see how much work is necessary to integrate each piece into your organisation.

A Collaboration Strategy

META Group believes that a few big vendors like Microsoft and IBM will eventually dominate the market a few years down the road. These vendors were picked because they have strong existing products (e.g. Lotus Notes, Exchange) and a unified strategy for collaboration, rather than singular point products.

"Simplifying things is one of the best ways to empower people to use collaboration technology," says Balaprakash Kasiviswanathan, regional product manager for Asia-Pacific, Microsoft, "and seamless, painless integration from the front-end to the back-end will do this."

Whether META Group's predictions will play out remains to be seen, but there is no doubt that collaboration - e-mail, for example - is one of reasons we frequently employ IT in the first place. Comprising information and people, collaboration is too important to the future of an organisation to be left unmanaged...
...end quote...

Additional Collaboration Taxonomy References:

A Taxonomy for CSCW (Computer Support for Collaborative Work) Systems,
Blog of Collective Intelligence: Collaborative Taxonomy Archives,
Clemson University, C.R.E.D.O. Lab, Automation in Design Group,
CSCW-98 Workshop,
Mark Klein's Selected Publications on Collaborative Design,
Underlying principles of an online community: The CSCW framework,
Wherewithal: Collaborative Taxonomy Engine.

knowledge management barriers...

The following article is really about getting spammed on a continual basis, finally flipping your proverbial 'bit' and sending an email to the offending spammer threatening them with bodily harm and getting arrested yourself. However, it had a great closing pertinent to 'knowledge management' that I am citing below:

ITBusiness.ca :: You writin' to me?
by Dave Webb

...According to intellectual capital expert Nick Bontis of McMaster University, there are two major barriers in North America to a successful knowledge management environment. One is the input bottleneck -- though we can speak at 150 words a minute, most of us can't tickle a keyboard faster than 50 words per minute. This causes us to be selective about what we share, though frequent readers of this space might disagree. The second is cultural -- unlike, say, Japanese companies, North American firms tend to disseminate business information from the top down. Japanese workers are more accustomed to a collaborative environment -- horizontal sharing of information. North American workers lean more toward the knowledge-is-power ethic -- hoarded knowledge is leverage.

Recent vast improvements in speech recognition technology mean that the first barrier could soon be overcome. And there will be pressure, as companies recognize the value of knowledge sharing and try to enforce a culture that encourages it, for employees to be more forthcoming with their knowledge. In an environment designed for rapid and wide distribution of knowledge, we'll again run up against the immediacy issue. And we might share some things we'll wish we hadn't...

rss, weblogs and knowledge managment...

I am constantly searching for traditional news feeds that talk about weblogs, blogging, knowledge management, social software, and social networking. News items that cover the intersection of two or more of these areas are infrequent, but here is one today that speaks of weblogs, RSS, and Knowledge Management.

MarketingProfs :: RSS for the Real World
by Dana VanDen Heuvel

...RSS is a "techie" acronym for Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary, depending on whom you talk to, the time of day and the day of the week. Also referred to as an RSS feed or XML feed, this protocol is an application of XML that provides an open method of syndicating (or distributing) and aggregating Web content.

RSS feeds are read by a Web-based tool called a news aggregator (such as News Gator) - typically a free download that allows you to view RSS site subscriptions. An RSS feed is produced whenever content is added to the site to which you've subscribed...

knowledge management news...

[there are two news stories in this post.]

Navy Newstand :: FORCEnet: Delivering Tomorrow, Today
By Journalist First Class Jd Walter,
Naval Network Wafare Command Public Affairs

...NORFOLK, Va. (NNS) -- To be successful in information exchange and ensure both operational readiness and mission success, participants must learn to leverage technology in the most efficient and effective means possible. To this end, the naval services have engaged in a joint solution, an initiative known as FORCEnet.

FORCEnet was created to develop both the architecture by which Navy, joint and coalition force systems communicate, and the logistics to support such a network. By looking across warfare mission areas to identify and maximize current capabilities, while adapting network-enabled delivery of tactical data in a secure environment, the Navy expects to effectively deliver multiple sources of collected information in a collaborative, at sea environment. In layman's terms, this translates to a communications system employed and delivered to each participating platform within a combat scenario whether joint (U.S. forces), NATO or coalition.

"This is about integrating communications capabilities across warfare networks for streamlined operations," said Head, FORCEnet Innovation and Experimentation Branch Cmdr. Rick Simon. "It's more than just technology; it's being able to use knowledge to better engage the enemy."

This knowledge exists in three distinct forms: raw, unprocessed data; processed data, or information; and archival data, or actual knowledge. Similar to the intelligence process, where information does not become intelligence until it is analyzed, knowledge also requires scrutiny beyond the processing phase. However, whereas only legitimate intelligence or knowledge was once available to combatants, an integrated, network-centric architecture such as FORCEnet makes actual, real-time battlespace knowledge available to the individual combatants concerned. This allows for on the spot updates to battle plans to compensate for unforeseen circumstances or changing battle conditions.

"The first goal of this initiative is a unified Intranet that transfers data seamlessly with the appropriate security," said Capt. Robert Whitkop, FORCEnet deputy director. "Think of it not so much as a funnel through which all information flows, but a mesh, with standards that allows data, information and knowledge to be immediately available and transferred."...

ITBusiness.ca :: Don't talk to me, I only work here
by Shane Schick

...It isn't easy breaking down the barriers in the enterprise. Believe me, we tried.

Aristotle once called politics the ability to control your environment, so perhaps it shouldn't be any wonder that technology has a way of turning the poetics of space into office politics. Be it ever so contentious, there's no place like enterprise...

knowledge management news...

Hold onto your socks - there are fourteen knowledge management 'stories' in this post. From iPhrase's One Step application, to Kent State's collaboration with Sheffield University, United Kingdom, to Line56 Media and Plumtree Software's new survey results, to articles on Content Management, the UN, Document Management, to the release of new enterprise suites by both Hummingbird and Generation21 Learning Systems, Global Knowledge's new CEO, Primus' first profitable quarter, and the list goes on... Enjoy...

SearchCRM.com :: A better search creates a site for sore eyes
By Barney Beal

...The difference between a frustrated customer slogging through a maze of site links and one quickly finding the necessary information can be the difference between a sale and someone logging off.

Analysts say Verity, Inc., Sunnyvale, Calif., and Autonomy Systems, San Francisco, are two of the bigger players in the overall enterprise-search arena...

Yahoo :: Kent State University's CEED and United Kingdom's Thinktank Collaborate to Bring Global 'Best Practices' to the Business Sector

...KENT, Ohio, Oct. 24 /PRNewswire/ -- The Center for Executive Education and Development (CEED) at Kent State University announces an exclusive collaboration with ThinkTank Consortium, an Action Learning Consortium working with Sheffield University, United Kingdom. This first-time alignment between the two consortiums will launch a new block of training programs and global best practice initiatives never before available to businesses. The combination of practical knowledge and implementation strategies created by this venture is unprecedented. Businesses will have the opportunity to access these global best practices through new programs and initiatives offered by CEED. Courses will begin January, 2004 with curriculums such as Innovative Thinking for Management, E-Business: Global Best Practices, Knowledge Management Fundamentals and Process Management for Healthcare. A complete course schedule is available at: ThinkTank Consortium: Partners in Best Practice.