Knowledge management news and trends

BIOMAX INFORMATICS AG Releases the BioXM(TM) Knowledge Management Environment

2006-04-26T07:04:00.000+02:00

Breaking News: BIOMAX INFORMATICS AG Releases the BioXM(TM) Knowledge Management Environment
: "Biomax Informatics AG today announces the release of the
new BioXM(TM) Knowledge Management Environment, a fully customizable
solution for better integrated and knowledge-based drug discovery and
development.

During an Early Adaptor Program, the BioXM platform was
successfully put to the test by three major life science companies in
the pharmacology and nutrition research areas. Bertram Weiss, Senior
Scientist at Schering AG, Germany, summarized his experience: 'Biomax
provides an intelligent - even visionary - solution for project-driven
ad-hoc integration purposes where all kinds of relationships are
easily uploaded or automatically extracted from other integrated data
sources. The resulting biomedical networks can be explored and mined
professionally by the novel and intuitive query builder. The very
generic design of BioXM appeals to me: it is so easy to extend the
data model. In a few minutes a new type of relationship is formalized
and the data integrated with the help of the graphical user interface.
This platform is not limited to accessing a build-in, curated data
set, but has been capable of seamlessly integrating our own corporate
knowledge as well. It's connecting the information that makes the
knowledge -- and the difference.'

Dr. Sascha Losko, the Biomax Project Manager for the BioXM
Knowledge Management Environment said, 'The flexibility of the
platform allows users to quickly respond to changes, realize ideas,
and intuitively extract valuable relationships. The highly modular
BioXM framework enables connection to a wide range of proprietary and
public technologies and data. Customer and third-party tools can be
added to provide an integrated solution for data analysis, data and
knowledge management, knowledge generation and hypothesis modeling for
the life science industry. For example, the BioRS(TM) Integration and
Retrieval System can be seamlessly accessed to search and integrate
heterogeneous public and proprietary databases, including both
flat-file and relational formats. Users have the ability to extend and
change the data organizational structure and adapt it for diverse user
communities without destroying consistency.'

Dr. Klaus Heumann, CEO of Biomax emphasized, 'This software
platform addresses corporate needs regarding decision support,
knowledge management and knowledge sharing in the life science
industry. Individual scientists can use BioXM for data retrieval and
information management all across research and development.' He
continued, 'User-friendly, flexible construction of semantically rich
information-network connectivity allows the establishment and
validation of working hypotheses with unprecedented efficiency. This
is essential for quick turnaround times in research and development,
to avoid cost-intensive development and to ensure a high return on
investment.'"

Knowledge Management A Necessity | By Robin Trehan

2006-01-16T07:24:00.000+01:00

Hospitality Net - Industry News - Knowledge Management A Necessity | By Robin Trehan: "Knowledge management is a structure within which the organization views all its processes as knowledge processes. In this view, all business processes involve formation, distribution, renewal, and application of knowledge toward organizational sustenance and survival. This concept embodies a transition from information value chain to a knowledge value chain.

The knowledge workers need to be facile in the applications of new technologies to their business contexts. Such understanding is necessary so that they can delegate programmable tasks to technologies to concentrate their time and efforts on value-adding activities that demand creativity and innovation. More importantly, they should have the capability of judging if the organization's best practices are aligned with the dynamics of the business environment. Such knowledge workers are the critical elements of the double loop learning and unlearning cycle that should be designed within the organizational business processes.
Knowledge is most valuable when it is controlled and used by those on the front lines of the organization. The knowledge workers should also have an overall understanding of the business of their organization and how their work contexts fit within it. Only if they understand the implications of changes in their work contexts for the business enterprise, they can be instrumental in synchronizing the organizational 'best practices' with the external reality of the business environment. 'Knowledge is nothing without action. Nothing changes until you do something. What you do will directly determine what you learn.' - James A. Belasco & Ralph C. Stayer, Flight of the Buffalo
Given the need for autonomy in learning and decision-making, knowledge workers also need to be comfortable with self-control and self-learning. In other words, they would need to act in an entrepreneurial mode that involves a higher degree of responsibility and authority as well as capability and intelligence for handling both. To do this they knowledge workers need to evolve knowledge sharing environment based continuous improvement and breakdown of the old process to develop new."

Knowledge management THE BENEFITS OF SHARING

2005-12-10T13:56:00.000+01:00

Knowledge management THE BENEFITS OF SHARING: "Knowledge management THE BENEFITS OF SHARING An important step forward in broadening the focus of the DBSA into areas not adequately served by either government or the private sector came with the formation of a knowledge management division in 2002...."

BEA Systems Unveils Unified Portal Strategy, Helping Organizations Achieve Service-Oriented Architecture Success: Financial News - Yahoo!Finance

2005-12-09T20:21:00.000+01:00

BEA Systems Unveils Unified Portal Strategy, Helping Organizations Achieve Service-Oriented Architecture Success: Financial News - Yahoo!
Finance: "As part of its
'Think liquid' strategy for Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA), BEA Systems,
Inc. (Nasdaq: BEAS - News) today announced its vision for how portal technologies are
evolving to provide companies a business interaction platform for creating
interactive portals, collaborative communities and composite applications in
an open environment, spanning rival operating systems, application servers and
programming environments."

Tata steel to host symposium on knoledge management

2005-12-06T14:09:00.000+01:00

Tata steel to host symposium on knoledge management - India News - Webindia123.com: "In a bid achieve higher levels of excellence in the era of tough competiveness and share thier views on the field of knowledge management(KM) industries across the country will meet in a two-day symposium begins at the SNTI auditorium here tomorrow.In all 150 delegates from 45 companies representing almost all sectors of industry would take part in the symposium,organised by steel major Tata steel.Briefing newspersons here today Tata Steel vice president and the chairman of the organising committee H M Nerurkar said chief knowledge officers of all seven Most Admired Knowledge Enterprise (MAKE) would participate to interact with the delegates directly.The speakers would consist of eminent experts and proponents of KM form vrois sector of industry spanning the IT sector,service industries, manufacturing industries,chemical sector,R and D and engineering firms, Mr Nerurkar said and added the Tata Steel manging director would inaugurate the symposium."

Plexis Healthcare Systems and Applix Announce a Strategic Partnership

2005-12-02T07:20:00.000+01:00

Plexis Healthcare Systems and Applix Announce a Strategic Partnership : "Applix, a provider of TM1, a single platform for performance management and business intelligence solutions, and Plexis Healthcare Systems, recently announced a strategic partnership to provide healthcare organizations with a new streamlined benefits administration solution and advanced analytic reporting functionality. Plexis will offer Applix TM1 integrated with its industry- leading analytics and reporting capabilities to new and current Plexis customers.
Applix and Plexis have developed a new reporting 'dashboard' that allows users to perform claims analysis, predictive analysis, and review details of claims by status. The Applix TM1 solution is integrated tightly with Microsoft Excel to provide an Excel front end with true analytic capabilities and the power of real-time OLAP features.
'Applix believes right-time reporting for healthcare entities means that decision-makers across the enterprise%u2014including senior executives, planners, and operations managers%u2014should be able to simultaneously read and revise information as the need arises. TM1, with its high performance analytics capabilities for complex business models, provides customers with that critical, right-time reporting,' said Terry Kerans, Director, partner channels, Applix. 'The combination of an integrated solution from Plexis and Applix opens up a range of opportunities for Plexis' customers to improve their operational effectiveness.'"

Infosys Technologies into the Global Most Admired Knowledge Enterprises

2005-11-22T07:08:00.000+01:00

India Infoline News: "Infosys Technologies Ltd. said on
Monday that it is the first Indian company to be inducted into the Global Most Admired Knowledge Enterprises (MAKE)
Hall of Fame. The Bangalore-based software major figures among 22 other global organizations including Dell, General Electric (GE), Hewlett Packard (HP), Accenture, IBM and Microsoft.
The company has been recognized for its organizational learning and for transforming enterprise knowledge into shareholder
value, Infosys said in a statement. Infosys is also the first and only Indian company to win the Global MAKE award for the third consecutive year.
The 2005 Global MAKE Winners were recognized by a panel of senior Global Fortune 500 executives and internationally recognized knowledge management experts.
A total of 10 Global MAKE Winners rank among the global top 100 companies by market capitalization. Similarly, for the publicly traded 2005 Global MAKE Winners,
Return on Assets was nearly four times that of the Global Fortune 500 company
average. Infosys ranked among the highest in this category.
Acknowledging the award, Nandan M Nilekani,
CEO, President and MD, said, 'At Infosys, Knowledge Management is central to a core strategy of providing differentiated value to customers and enabling their business growth.
Knowledge Management has helped us develop a pervasive culture of beneficent knowledge exchange across geographies. We are therefore extremely delighted to be ranked among the world%u2019s Most Admired Knowledge Enterprises and to be inducted into the Global MAKE Hall of
Fame'."

AUD highlights importance of Intellectual Capital & Knowledge Management

2005-11-22T07:07:00.000+01:00

AUD highlights importance of Intellectual Capital & Knowledge Management: "The American University in Dubai (AUD) has hosted this year%u2019s International Conference on Intellectual Capital and Knowledge Management (ICICKM 2005) that commenced its activities at AUD campus on November 21, 2005. This two-day conference acts as a networking opportunity for professionals and academics to share their views and perspectives on the subject of Intellectual Capital and Knowledge ManagementDr. Khalid Khawaja, Chair of AUD%u2019s IT department said: %u201CI am positive that this event will help enhance the understanding of Intellectual Capital and Knowledge Management in the region and will encourage individuals and organizations to get acquainted with what the latest technologies have to provide in these areas.%u201DThe Conference is chaired jointly by Doctor Yousif Asfour formerly chair of IT Department at AUD, and Doctor Jamal El-Den of the American University in Beirut. Professor Dan Remenyi of Trinity College Dublin is the Program Chair responsible for the academic content in the papers presented.Mr. Joseph Hanania, Managing Director, HP Middle East, delivered the key note address where he shed light on the significance of intellectual capital and knowledge management. Following the keynote address, the conference split into various workshops or %u2018streams%u2019 that concentrated on Knowledge Management and Intellectual Capital vis-?-vis their applications on an individual and management level within a corporate organization. Speakers discussed these subjects in context to the different commercial as well as organization environments. One of the highlights of the Conference was the knowledge caf? which allowed participants to both network with each other and share ideas on a number of subjects. This technique has proven very popular at Conferences and it may easily be adapted by conference participants for use in their own environments or institutions."

Using Data to Protect Public Health

2005-11-18T19:33:00.000+01:00

Using Data to Protect Public Health : "It starts with one patient's visit to a hospital emergency department, reporting symptoms of nausea, headache and vomiting. Within hours, more patients with similar indications arrive at other hospitals in the city, state or beyond. Could it be anthrax? SARS? Smallpox? E.coli?
Until recently, health officials didn't have the ability to detect a health crisis for days or even weeks. But now, the state of North Carolina -intent on protecting its 8.5 million citizens from potential biological attacks, infection or disease outbreaks-is using the North Carolina Hospital Emergency Surveillance System, or NCHESS. It is the nation's first statewide system to electronically collect, report, monitor and investigate pre-diagnosis clinical patient data on a 24x7 basis.
NCHESS was created in partnership with the North Carolina Hospital Association (NCHA) and North Carolina Division of Public Health (NCDPH). Two Chicago-area companies, Solucient, and Knightsbridge Solutions, collaborated to build the technological foundation of NCHESS, which acts as the system's digital engine, powering the collection and reporting of select emergency department data in near real-time, every 12 hours, for the first time.
A third technology partner, MercuryMD, developed the technology to electronically monitor available data for suspicious patterns and deliver real-time medical record access, which, among other things, allows physicians to securely pull up and review medical information.
'To improve North Carolina's preparedness for acts of bioterrorism or other health epidemics, the state needed a central clearinghouse that made it easy for hospitals to share data electronically with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the state's Division of Public Health,' said Matthew Bates, Senior Vice President of products and technology at Solucient. 'Within six months, NCHESS was built using existing infrastructure to speed delivery of the solution, ensure hospital ease of use, and minimize expense.'
Given their focus on helping people in life-or-death situations, emergency departments historically have lacked the time, people and technology to report even basic patient data to the state. Now, all licensed 24-hour emergency departments within North Carolina %u2013112 hospitals%u2014are required by state law to use the system, which meets current privacy regulations and international data standards. The system requires no additional staff and minimal training."

US Federal Knowledge Management Spending Expected to Reach $1.3 Billion by FY10

2005-11-12T11:52:00.000+01:00

Supply & Demand Chain Executive > Research > Archived Articles > Federal Knowledge Management Spending Expected to Reach $1.3 Billion by FY10: "U.S. Federal Government spending on knowledge management solutions is expected to increase 35 percent over the next five years to reach $1.3 billion by fiscal year 2010 (FY10), according to a report released today by INPUT, a consultancy specializing in government business.Recent information lapses highlighted by Hurricane Katrina will cause OMB and Congress to be even more focused on getting agencies to move forward with the development of information-sharing processes and systems, according to INPUT.'The mere possibility that improved information sharing between and within federal, state and local agencies could have resulted in a more efficient disaster recovery after Hurricane Katrina, or potentially prevented September 11, provokes an extremely unpleasant opportunity cost analysis,' said Chris Campbell, senior analyst for federal market analysis at INPUT. 'As a result, the integration of fully developed knowledge management solutions will stand out even more as a necessity rather than a luxury.'Knowledge management systems will begin to focus on tying all of an agency's information together and making it available in a manner that is supportive of the agency's management or mission performance process, INPUT believes.Enabling CommunicationsA large part of knowledge management systems will be focused on enabling communications so that an agency can tap into its greatest knowledge base, its employees. The Army's knowledge management initiative, centered on the Army Knowledge Online Management (AKO) program, could serve as a strong model for other agencies, INPUT said.According to the consultancy, vendors must be able to aid agencies in establishing and implementing a protocol that dictates how data will be collected, stored and organized, as well as which employees will have access to certain types of information, and in what manner the information can be used.'Agencies will look for vendors to help them revamp their knowledge management process, making it imperative for vendors to focus on knowledge management as a complete process, not just a software or hardware fix,' said Campbell. 'The key consideration for vendors when dealing with agencies is to consider them as one enterprise and develop solutions that will address knowledge management requirements at an enterprise level.'"

Colabria Showcases Knowledge Management with First Prediction Markets Summit

2005-11-09T07:19:00.000+01:00

Colabria Showcases Knowledge Management with First Prediction Markets Summit: "olabria, KM Cluster, CommerceNet and NewsFutures announce the first Prediction Markets Summit, to be held December 2, 2005 in San Francisco. The Prediction Markets Summit will highlight the applications of knowledge management, an up-and-coming trend in business technology, for the knowledge and information markets.

'Prediction Markets are a proven, but under-exploited, way to harness the wisdom of crowds,' said Allan Schiffman, Executive Director of CommerceNet. 'The Prediction Markets Summit is a great opportunity to work with pioneers of the field and to share experience and knowledge with the growing prediction market community.'

Prediction Markets are a new and crucial discipline for all knowledge-based organizations. Because they are so effective, social networks, smart mobs, knowledge management, crowd wisdom and idea exchanges have been getting a lot of popular attention.

James Surowiecki, author of 'The Wisdom of Crowds' stated, 'Market predictions often outperform those of even the best-informed expert.'

Prediction Markets allows managers and executives optimize their businesses with new, knowledge-based forecasting techniques. Business Week named prediction markets as one of the top ten business technology trends for 2005 and among the ten new technologies that should be on the radar of every Chief Executive Officer.

The Harvard Business Review stated, 'By gathering collective wisdom, idea markets can improve your forecasting, knowledge management, and decision making.'

Top knowledge scientists, information market researchers, business school professors, commerce think-tanks and market tool providers are converging for the one-day Prediction Markets Summit at UCSF Mission Bay in San Francisco/Silicon Valley on December 2, 2005.

Sponsored by CommerceNet, NewsFutures, Colabria and KM Cluster, the Summit will feature such business leaders as Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, Stanford Graduate Business School, HPLabs and others. Sessions for the one-day, conversational deep-dive of prediction, knowledge management and information markets are practical and conversational. The group conversations are not academic, theoretical, lectures or vendor sales hype. They advance understanding and the business applications of prediction markets. The cases studies and analysis are for executives, directors and practitioners having immediate, practical needs for improved performance, greater effectiveness, faster innovation, customer delight and satisfaction.

Registration for the Prediction Markets Summit is open and available now. The event tuition, including the full-day learning experience, meals, refreshments, materials, and registration, is $349.00. At this low cost, there are no press passes, student discounts or other mark-downs. For secure registration, visit https://www.kmcluster.com/sfo/PM/Reg_SFO_PM05.htm."

Building a personalised network of digital devices

2005-11-05T13:47:00.000+01:00

Plans to develop protocols and devices that link together all the audio and video gadgets that clutter homes, handbags and briefcases will unleash an incredible array of new, personalised and location-based services.
Imagine your alarm wakes you up an hour early because it knows you're flying abroad, and there's a traffic jam on the way to the airport. Your coffee maker turns on an hour early too, while the alarm clock gives you the latest headlines about your destination.

Your electronic doorkeeper automatically alarms the house as it senses your mobile phone leaving the house, your car provides traffic updates as you travel, suggesting a detour to avoid congestion. Once at the airport, you buy duty free with your mobile phone. When you reach your destination you can buy movies and videos online, which will be sent directly to your home media centre.

These are the types of service that the IST programme-funded ePerSpace project wants to enable, and once that functionality is there, inventive companies will be able to design a host of new, currently impossible, services.

It's an extremely ambitious project, not least because this type of functionality has been promised for years, but technical issues have dogged all attempts to achieve it.

In part that's because few attempts at personalised network services featured all the links in the chain, the telecoms, electronics, software, audiovisual, content and service companies required to develop integrated services. ePerSpace, however, provides a who's who of European technology companies, including some world players like France Telecom, BT, Motorola, Telefonica, Rai and Siemens Mobile.

"We demonstrated our technology for a number of standalone devices in February," says Pierre-Yves Danet, project coordinator of ePerSpace and Head of the Services for the Home R&D unit at France Telecom. "Now we're integrating those devices together for a demonstrator in January. This will show the system working in a cohesive network," he says.

Your gateway to a simplified digital life
The soul of the system is the user profile, which defines user preferences in news, TV and music. It will contain information about the users’ friends and family, and it will be linked to their calendar to keep it up to date on their work and life schedule.

The profile resides on a Home Gateway, the hardware system that will be the heart of your digital life, pumping binary oxygen to all the elements of your extended network. "The gateway links with all the individual devices and provides them with information as they need it," says Danet.

This is already a significant advance on what has gone before. Many attempts at personalised networking were too clunky, requiring way too much maintenance and user intervention to be useful. ePerSpace created a system that can be managed from one point. And if the profile or calendar needs to be updated, the user can do it from any networked device, anywhere in the world.

The Gateway links to all the other essential services in the chain: the content, service and location management platforms, so your music, videos and news, your banking and gym membership, and your travel and schedule are all handled from one point. The Home Gateway will host the user profiles of all the family members, so each one gets the content and services they need.

To make the system work each device requires a piece of software that identifies itself as part of the network and details the format it needs to see and display information.

"This is quite difficult because all devices have different formats and different form factors – a mobile phone has a small screen and uses one type of data, a TV has a huge screen and receives data in a different way," says Danet. Again, the Home Gateway is designed to deliver information in the most appropriate format, ultimately sidestepping the intractable problems caused when each device tries to translate the data on the fly.

Data is transferred through three primary networking technologies: broadband, WiFi and Bluetooth. All are mature technologies, which manufacturers are already integrating into different products. Still a lot of integration work remains to be done before the personalised network of science fantasy becomes science fact. "This is a research project. To develop it into a commercial application will require another 2-4 years of collaborative effort" says Danet.

Addressing privacy and security concerns
Security is also still a big issue, as is finding the best business model to deploy personalised types of services. "Privacy and security are big problems, but we are working with the regulations on privacy and security developed by the EU and national governments," says Danet. For example, in France it is illegal to host biometric information, like a fingerprint, on a central database like the Home Gateway.

So ePerSpace uses the mobile SIM card containing that data. If a user wants to open the front door with his or her fingerprint, the Home Gateway compares the fingerprint to the data on the mobile phone. In the ePerSpace system the Gateway could identify friends in the same way, either admitting them to the home or putting them in contact with the user.

Even so, Danet recognises that while all these services provide the ultimate in convenience and comfort, they present a potential worry, too, and part of ePerSpace's plans include solving the security and privacy issue, and addressing user concerns.

The project will attack those problems in earnest in phase 2, which is currently awaiting new grant approval.

Purisma Launches Customer Identity Management

2005-11-05T13:45:00.000+01:00

Purisma Launches Customer Identity Management : "Purisma recently announced the availability of the market%u2019s first and only turn-key Customer Identity Management (CIM) solution. For customer-centric enterprises, the Purisma Customer Registry is a sophisticated identity management solution that provides comprehensive, accurate customer identities to ensure a powerful foundation of reliable, consolidated customer information for customer data integration (CDI) intiatives.
In today%u2019s tight economy with aggressive competition and increasing focus on the bottom line, companies are looking for ways to improve customer retention, satisfaction, and ultimately, revenue. Providing employees with %u201Csingle view of the customer%u201D applications enables customer-facing personnel to better understand customers and deliver high-impact interactions. Customer satisfaction can be increased via %u201Csingle face to the company%u201D applications like customer portals which offer faster, more efficient service, at reduced costs. These applications require accurate, complete customer information%u2014consolidated correctly from disparate operational systems across an enterprise.
'Enterprises cannot expect to retain and grow their customer base unless they first have an accurate, complete picture of each customer,%u201D said John Radcliffe, Vice President and Research Director with Gartner. %u201CTechnology for matching and managing customer identities ensures that customer information is accurately identified and correlated to the correct customer, regardless of where that data resides.'
Purisma%u2019s Customer Registry connects via web services connections into enterprise-wide systems, databases and even external data sources to recognize relationships between account records or contacts, using rules-based logic and multi-pass correlation. Customer data stored in different languages and formats is recognized by the Customer Registry, providing support of data from over 50 countries.
The Customer Registry relates and incorporates applied organizational and relationship data into customer identities, allowing enterprises to define corporate hierarchies between a parent company such as Ford and a subsidiary such as Volvo, or relationships between a territory such as New England and a region such as the Northeast. It also references corporate hierarchies imported from internal systems such as CRM applications or from external sources like D&B. Because automated matching cannot be 100% accurate, Purisma provides an easy to use %u201Cdata stewardship%u201D application to reconcile and handle exceptions, define and manage hierarchies, and enable audit and control processes."

You Say Knowledge Management, They Say Convergence

2005-11-04T22:56:00.000+01:00

Managing Information News: "You and I may call it 'knowledge management.' DuPont called it 'convergence' when, in the early 1990's, its legal department launched an initiatve to reduce the number of external law firms, streamline the management of more than 4,000 legal cases, and meet global litigation challenges.

The formalization of the process, called the DuPont Legal Model, has all the classic earmarks of KM: electronic document retrieval, knowledge stewards, collaboration, culture change, learning, and leveraging expert know-how. But it also has four attributes we don't automatically associate with KM: significant cost savings, selectivity, promotion, and revenue generation.

The DuPont Legal Model has been imitated by other companies, but it
doesn't always work as planned. The DuPont experience has much to teach us, not only about how to manage complex litigation in a global environment but also how to make knowledge management programs succeed in any professional services company or corporate function.

Dupont still has room in its November 17 virtual roundtable (see
http://www.montague.com/roundtable25.htm)."

QlikTech Releases QlikView 7.2

2005-10-31T21:02:00.000+01:00

QlikTech Releases QlikView 7.2 : "QlikTech, recently unveiled the latest release of QlikView, the firm%u2019s innovative business analysis application. QlikView Version 7.2, a key milestone in the company%u2019s mission to simplify analysis for everyone, allows organizations to address analysis challenges previously reserved for specialized and complex enterprise business intelligence software.�
QlikTech%u2019s goal is to make enterprise-scale analysis capabilities practical for individuals throughout the workplace.� The new release allows organizations to gain business value from analysis quickly by putting the right information in the hands of users.�
QlikView 7.2 furthers QlikTech%u2019s vision of simplifying analysis for everyone by bringing the ease of use and simplicity of QlikView to analysis of datasets measured in billions of records and by broadening the client platforms supported by QlikView.�
QlikView 7.2 allows organizations to tackle even the largest of analysis challenges while maintaining QlikView%u2019s legendary simplicity, speed of deployment, and ease of use.� QlikView 7.2 has been optimized to support analysis of billions of records of data by taking full advantage of Intel%u2019s latest generation of standard 64-bit multi-processor platforms. QlikView utilizes all available processor power for selections and graph calculations.� Every task is split across all available processors and processor cores via parallel threads.� This provides a substantial performance increase when running extremely large applications, or when multiple users access server applications simultaneously.
QlikView 7.2 significantly expands QlikView%u2019s supported client platforms, allowing QlikView to be deployed to more users more quickly. The QlikView Zero Footprint AJAX based client is now compatible with the Mozilla Web browser engine, allowing the use of popular browsers such as Firefox and Netscape 8 on a wide range of platforms, including Linux and Mac OS X. QlikView Java clients adds support for Sun Java version 1.3 or later.
QlikTech is a providing a new class of easy-to-use, fast and flexible business analysis solutions that empower individuals to improve corporate performance and drive innovation.� QlikTech%u2019s flagship product, QlikView 7.2, extends the company%u2019s vision of simplifying business analysis, offering solutions that can be deployed in days, where users can be trained in minutes, and where end-users have the freedom to be more creative in their analyses.�"

Angoss Releases KnowledgeSTUDIO 5

2005-10-31T20:56:00.000+01:00

Angoss Releases KnowledgeSTUDIO 5 : "Angoss Software recently announced the release of KnowledgeSTUDIO 5, the Angoss data mining and predictive modeling workbench.
KnowledgeSTUDIO enables sales and marketing professionals and risk managers to achieve unparalleled insight and create actionable business rules from their customer data. KnowledgeSTUDIO offers superior ease of use and performance benefits over traditional statistical tools, with lower cost of ownership.%uFFFD By helping organizations make better use of their data faster, Angoss empowers its clients to make %u201CBetter Business Decisions, Every Day.%u201D
Known for its exceptional ease of use, rich set of advanced capabilities for power users, and performance, KnowledgeSTUDIO is used by hundreds of analysts in many of the%uFFFD financial services organizations and most demanding analytics environments. Designed using Microsoft.Net technologies, KnowledgeSTUDIO provides a state of the art predictive analytics platform, reflecting current and anticipated enterprise standards for Windows and Office use.
The version 5 release contains significant user enhancements and updates implemented in response to extensive customer feedback.%uFFFD It also provides additional deployment flexibility for existing and new users in enterprise analytics and decisioning environments, through a unified architecture integrating KnowledgeSTUDIO with both KnowledgeSEEKER, the company%u2019s data profiling and knowledge discovery tool and KnowledgeSERVER, the company%u2019s batch and real time scoring engine.%uFFFD"

A dicussion from real people: km in iT dept.

2005-10-05T08:04:00.000+02:00

Slashdot | Knowledge Management for an IT Department?: "Laurentiu asks: 'In every IT department out there there's a wealth of heterogenous information floating around: code snippets, HOWTOs, FAQs, docs, spreadsheets, post-it notes etc. Asking Joe where he put that file won't work forever. So what is, in your experience, a good way to manage this knowledge? And what software would you recommend for such a task?'"

WisdomSource: Global Think Tank Evolves Organizational Governance

2005-10-05T07:57:00.000+02:00

WisdomSource: Global Think Tank Evolves Organizational Governance
: "WisdomSource Technologies officially
announces the release of WisdomSource 2.1 Enterprise Edition, the Web-based
software solution positioned to make organizational governance a reality.
With the Knowledge Management Maturity Model (K3M)(TM) and WisdomSource 2.1,
the Company is designed to fix issues that originated at information
technology departments in the 1990's, when most projects failed to make
technology actually solve business problems. A vacuum now exists in the area
of organizational governance where management blames systems and in turn is
blamed for ineptitude and ineffective leadership.
WisdomSource provides a framework for state-of-the-art organizational
governance through an easy-to-use, employee-centric, and process-driven
knowledge management engine. With live interactive methodologies supporting
the organization's most important metrics, business continuity is assured;
communications are optimized; quality of all work is improved; and anxiety is
alleviated as the individual is empowered to become a knowledge-holder with an
expanded awareness of best practices and resource interdependencies at the
task execution level. According to Tom Varnedoe, Managing Director of The
Knowledge Institute, an Atlanta-based management consulting firm that resells
WisdomSource: 'Organizations are realizing that Knowledge Management solutions
deliver consistent organizational performance, increase efficiency and speed
the time-to-market for new initiatives. As experts in the field of Knowledge
Management, we are delighted to be in a position to work with WisdomSource.'
As an immediate enterprise-wide process management discipline instilling a
culture of innovation through knowledge creation and sharing, WisdomSource
ensures corporate activities are profit-maximized and sustainable while
aligning individual work activity with the organization's purpose, mission,
and goals."

China Printing subsidiary to sell a "lite" versione of its XO Office

2005-09-30T07:05:00.000+02:00

China Printing subsidiary CYIOS
Corporation announced today that it is in final negotiations to wholesale a
"lite" version of the company's XO Office product for international
distribution. This unique opportunity would be worth an estimated $500,000
and would be fulfilled over a two-month period beginning November 1, 2005.
The product will be delivered on compact discs that customers would install on
their servers. While this "lite" version will be similar to the soon-to-launch
online solution, some features will not be made available. XO Office is state-
of-the-art business management software developed to handle all aspects of
managing a business online, anytime.
The company will launch its complete online version by October 30, 2005.
Specific features of the online product include document editing and
management, timesheet management, project and task management, email/wireless
notification, meeting management, performance-based contract management, and
more. XO Office has been offered in limited release for testing and evaluation
over the last several months. The company is now finishing major upgrades and
graphics features to the site in preparation for a complete market launch to
the general public. Initially, the target market for XO Office will be small
to medium sized businesses that are in need of project management, especially
other U.S. Government contractors. For a full list of features and pricing,
please visit http://www.XOOFFICE.com.

About CYIOS
CYIOS Corporation is a leading Systems Integrator and Knowledge Management
solutions provider supporting the Department of Defense and other Government
Agencies for over 10 years. During this time, CYIOS launched the first Army
Knowledge Online (AKO) prototype (currently the world's largest intranet) and
now offers XO Office (http://www.XOOFFICE.com). XO Office manages Performance
Based Contracts (the government's new accountability contracting method) and
positions businesses to become knowledge-centric organizations. XO Office is a
user-friendly project and document management tool that allows collaboration
and manages the workforce, streamlines processes, and increases information
flow.

Sakhr & LayoutME set the standards knowledge investment for decision support at the 3rd Conference on Documentation & Electronic Archiving | Layout Mi

2005-09-22T07:11:00.000+02:00

Sakhr & LayoutME set the standards knowledge investment for decision support at the 3rd Conference on Documentation & Electronic Archiving | Layout Middle East: "The Arabic search engine which can fully grasp the unique characteristics of the Arabic language; the successful scanning of any document which has the capability to recognize text and convert numbers & letters into editable text; and instant translation capabilities between languages to meet the demands of the globalization era.

This statement was made at the 3rd Conference on Documentation & Electronic Archiving which commenced yesterday at the Dubai World Trade Centre where Sakhr and Layout ME are joint participants at the technology exhibition held on the sidelines of the conference.

Sakhr is showcasing its award winning ArabDox, the trilingual (Arabic, English, French) Document Management System developed by Sakhr which offers enterprises an integrated solution to manage increasing amounts of non-structured information in documents.

Layout ME is displaying the latest in scanning technology, the AGFA Microform document scanner which operates at high speeds reaching 160 pages per minute thus increasing productivity levels capable of highly detailed scanning operations which result in greatly increased optical recognition (OCR) of the Arabic characters.

'This conference is a good opportunity for us to get our visitors better acquainted with ArabDox, the first Arabic program acknowledged by the international giant Intel for document management. ArabDox exceeds the usual boundaries of document management systems by offering a trilingual knowledge management that was developed according to internationally recognized standards,' commented Moatasem Mohaisen, Regional Director, Gulf, Sakhr Software Co.

He added, 'We are aware that the needs of our clients are constantly on the increase, for this reason we chose to participate in this exhibition in collaboration with Layout ME to shed light on our company's latest developments, and the exceptional status this product enjoys, because it offers a fully integrated archiving system that includes applications, ArabDox, and hardware, the unique AGFA Microform scanners.'

'Our participation in this exhibition will allow us to expose our visitors to products which will help them achieve higher levels of performance in the field of documentation & electronic archiving,' commented Joe Karkour, Area Manager, Middle East & North Africa, Layout Middle East, Fz llc.

He added, 'Our collaborative experience with Sakhr has been highly successful in the field of providing comprehensive electronic documentation systems to some of the Arab World's most notable establishments & organizations.'

The exhibition will continue for a period of three consecutive days, until the 19th September 2005, and includes some of the major players in the fields of services, solutions and technical applications, as well as companies operating in IT, knowledge, and bookshops, electronic archiving, statistics and decision support systems, geographical information management systems, and more.

This exhibition is being held on the sidelines of the conference which addresses a variety of scientific issues, the challenges in the world of information & knowledge management, and other related topics of importance."

3-day Documentation & e-Archiving Conference concludes in Dubai

2005-09-20T07:22:00.000+02:00

3-day Documentation & e-Archiving Conference concludes | Dubai Municipality: "The 3rd Conference on Documentation and Electronic Archiving, which concluded in Dubai on Monday, has called on Dubai Municipality to set up an international working group that can look into investing financial and technical resources for turning Dubai into a distinctive centre for knowledge and information management and its various applications."

Information boom: International School of Information Management

2005-09-15T07:10:00.000+02:00

According to Prof Urs, the domain of information/knowledge has occupied centre stage with the emergence of knowledge based economy and knowledge centric society. Knowledge and information have become the key resource of every organisation and society. “But managing this key resource demands a new breed of professionals with the requisite knowledge and skill sets drawn from a multitude of disciplines across the information landscape,” she explains.

The Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have brought about paradigmatic changes and shifts in the world of information. “This new domain is multidisciplinary spanning the sciences, the technologies and the management of information and has many stakeholders — the academia, the knowledge industry and the scholarship and society at large,” she adds.

“At the turn of 20th century, the emergence of industrial society engendered the growth of the field of management sciences; the 21st century is witness to the dawn of a new domain – information/knowledge management,” Prof Urs, who heads the Library and Information Science Department at Mysore University, points out.

The universities in the USA, Canada and other countries have established I-Schools either de novo as in the case of School of Information Management and Systems at the University of California, Berkley, USA or some other schools such as the I-School at the University of Washington, School of Information at the University of Michigan, School of Information Sciences, University of Pittsburgh, which have integrated the different existing schools and morphed them under one umbrella, she explains.

These universities have formed a consortium of I-Schools and the first I Conference of the fifteen I-School deans is being organised at the Penn State University between September 28 and 30.

I- SIM model

Explains Prof Urs, “The I-SIM would be an innovative centre for a newly emerging new discipline based on a new model of global partnership across the academia and industry. I-SIM is modelled as a Collaborative Knowledge Enterprise - a cluster of partners and alliances.”

The partners are institutions or agencies in different sectors- such as academia, industry and the government and non-governmental agencies. The ISIM cluster is international, she adds.

Speaking to Deccan Herald, Prof Urs said I-SIM promoted by the University of Mysore, will be physically located at Mysore in University of Mysore campus. But specific activities could be in any of the partner/alliance institutions.

“The centre will be an independent autonomous entity formed on the basis of ‘core-alliance’ principle. The founding partners form the core and establish the Governing Body to drive the cluster forward, set and review objectives and manage resources.

I-SIM Programmes

I-SIM will offer a Masters Programme in Information Systems Management. “The curriculum would be in tune with the curriculum offered at the University of Pittsburgh, USA and University of Michigan, USA and progressively move towards joint degree programmes. Admission to the programmes would begin by the end of this year once the founding partners work out specifics for launching the courses,” she says.

She said the I-SIM will join the American I-School consortium. Faculty and student exchange between partner institutions would provide international setting for the students of I-SIM.

KMWorld Names Recommind's MindServer Legal Enterprise Search as Trend-Setting Product for 2005

2005-08-29T12:32:00.000+02:00

PRESS RELEASE KMWorld Names Recommind's MindServer Legal Enterprise Search as Trend-Setting Product for 2005: "Recommind, the leading provider of search and
automated categorization systems for law firms, today announced that
MindServer Legal Enterprise Search has been named to KMWorld Magazine's
prestigious 'Trend-setting Products of 2005.' KMWorld Magazine is the
leading information provider of the knowledge, document and content
management systems market, with more than 51,000 subscribers. The annual
Trend-Setting Products list identifies innovative products that deliver
powerful information management solutions to an organization, its workers
and its customers.
'We are delighted that KMWorld has once again identified Recommind as a
leader in innovative enterprise search solutions. Lawyers today are tech
savvy and expect the efficiency and power of an internal search tool that
delivers even more than systems they are familiar with on the internet,'
said Robert Tennant, Recommind CEO. 'Recommind's MindServer Legal
Enterprise Search allows lawyers to perform fast, powerful, relevant
searches across all firm documents and offices.'"

Bobsguide Fractal Edge

2005-08-21T19:38:00.000+02:00

Bobsguide Fractal Edge: "Fractal Edge today expressed its support for the findings of the Economist Intelligence Unit Report, %u2018Managing Knowledge for Competitive Advantage%u2019, published June 2005. The report survey revealed the increasing importance of effective knowledge management and, more importantly, the continuing challenges faced by the122 senior executives interviewed from organisations with over $1bn in annual sales revenues. 'The survey reveals that successful companies have conquered the task of gathering accurate information and have built consolidated repositories of knowledge, but continue to struggle with providing consistent performance indicators to drive decisions' said Richard Laughton, CEO of Fractal Edge. Other key report findings include:There is an abundance of information but knowledge extraction remains the challenge. 41% of respondents reported that efficient knowledge flow within their firm was obstructed by 'inadequate understanding of the information and knowledge that already exist in the organisation'. Two-thirds of surveyed firms reported that, while their IT systems generate masses of data, they struggled to manipulate this into information they could act on.Knowledge management is the top strategic IT priority. In answer to the question 'how important are the following technologies to achieving your company's strategic goals over the next three years?' the top answer, with 67% scoring it as important, was 'business intelligence / knowledge management solutions', IT tools that allow employees to prioritise information, and extract valuable insights from data"

Emilia-Romagna, turismo.

2005-08-02T12:56:00.000+02:00

Confesercenti: "La portata dei diversi eventi verificatisi nel corso degli ultimi anni ha avuto pesanti ripercussioni sul mercato turistico, causando una battuta d%u2019arresto che poggia le sue basi su una congiuntura economica non favorevole che coinvolge anche l%u2019Emilia Romagna. Questi alcuni dei dati emersi dall%u2019ultima indagine congiunturale effettuata dal Centro Studi Turistici di Firenze per conto di Assoturismo-Confesercenti Emilia-Romagna presso un campione di 402 imprese turistiche regionali."

Talisma Certified by the Consortium for Service Innovation

2005-08-01T19:24:00.000+02:00

CRM Today: Talisma Certified by the Consortium for Service Innovation: "Talisma%u2122, a provider of Multi-channel CRM solutions, announced today that Talisma KnowledgeBase 5.0 has been recognized as 'Knowledge-Centered Support (KCS) Verified' by the Consortium for Service Innovation (CSI).
The Consortium for Service Innovation, a not-for-profit alliance of service and support organizations, developed the KCS Verified program to distinguish knowledge management vendors whose products meet the practical requirements outlined in the KCS Verified Criteria. Supported by the Help Desk Institute, KCS is an emerging best practice for knowledge management in service and support organizations. KCS was developed, refined, and verified over the past 10 years through the joint efforts of Consortium members.
'We%u2019re pleased to be among the first solutions providers recognized as KCS Verified,' said Alex Kazerani, VP of Talisma%u2019s KnowledgeBase Group. 'Knowledge is the foundation for delivering effective and efficient service and support, and we look forward to a continued collaboration with CSI in order to further develop best practices that advance support solutions.'"

CobbleSoft Releases COIGN Enterprise Version 3

2005-07-29T07:33:00.000+02:00

CRM Today: CobbleSoft Releases COIGN Enterprise Version 3: "CobbleSoftTM International Ltd.announced the availability of Version 3 for COIGN Enterprise, its web-based helpdesk and service management software solution. Offering an extensive collection of new and enhanced collaboration capabilities, Version 3 strengthens the product%u2019s focus on Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) best practices for internal and business-to-business (B2B) support.

An industry first, COIGN%u2019s 'User Footprints' capability enables a full transactional user audit trail. Technicians can track the details of end-user self-service sessions to see what searches and downloads were tried before a ticket was logged. Armed with this knowledge, technicians can easily provide informed and pro-active support, resulting in greater speed and accuracy of resolution. "

NewHeights Software brings to market Desktop Assistant 90

2005-07-29T07:32:00.000+02:00

Canada NewsWire Group: "NewHeights Software, a leading
provider of next-gen soft-client solutions, brings to market Desktop
Assistant 90 (DA-90) and Desktop Assistant 15 (DA-15). These clients provide
users with a superior end-user interface at the desktop, enabling
point-and-click management over their IP Telephony, presence and multimedia
collaboration services. The Desktop Assistant(R) clients support both
proprietary and open protocol signaling, including Session Initiation Protocol
(SIP), and integrate seamlessly with offerings from carriers, CPE vendors and
softswitch vendors. The Desktop Assistant clients offer default integration
with applications such as Microsoft Office and Lotus Notes. Custom integration
with other enterprise applications is available.
NewHeights DA-15 enables users to manage their call handling and routing
features directly from their desktop, launch calls, emails and instant
messages with one or two clicks, and access real-time presence information for
corporate directory and buddy list contacts. Additionally, DA-15 enables
solution providers to dynamically provision and market new IP services
directly to customers. Using the client's Web-window, an e-promotion tool that
comes with every client, service providers can initiate upgrades, billing and
new services."

Peregrine Systems(R) Recognized by the Consortium for Service Innovation(TM) for Knowledge Management Best Practices

2005-07-18T10:11:00.000+02:00

Peregrine Systems(R) Recognized by the Consortium for Service Innovation(TM) for Knowledge Management Best Practices: "Peregrine Systems Inc.
(OTC: PRGN - News), a leading provider of asset and service management software,
announced today that its Get-Answers knowledge management solution has been
KCS Verified. Peregrine's Get-Answers 4.2 is one of the first products to be
KCS Verified, aligning it with the emerging KCS industry standard and best
practice for knowledge and incident management."

Consumer insight isn't knowledge management

2005-07-14T07:35:00.000+02:00

The Hindu Business Line : Consumer insight isn't knowledge management
: "HOW to use data and market research to get closer to your customer? To answer this question, you may need to get closer to Consumer Insight by Merlin Stone, Alison Bond and Bryan Foss, from Kogan Page (www.vivagroupindia.com) .

First, some insight into insight: Insights are 'flashes of inspiration, or penetrating discoveries that can lead to specific opportunities,' and insight is 'the ability to perceive clearly or deeply.' Consumer insight or 'a deep, embedded knowledge about consumers and markets' to help structure thinking and decision-making, is what companies need today, explain the authors.

Perhaps you are already measuring customer satisfaction in some way, and even tailoring staff performance appraisal based on such measures. In which case, the book can shock you with a bombshell: '`If you can measure it, you can manage it' has spread like a cancer. This has led to large-scale customer satisfaction surveys, targets and league tables %u2014 and a fall in customer loyalty and overall satisfaction.'

The authors give the example of healthcare: 'A health service's reason for being is about helping new humans be born, keeping people as healthy as possible, and, where this fails, healing and sustaining them and, in the end, helping them die with dignity and minimum pain.' Disappointingly, measures for many health workers aren't related to these goals, point out the authors. 'Rather, measures are process and transaction-based, counting beds, people on trolleys, queue lengths, waiting times and costs to serve, all important in achieving efficiencies, but not delivering the service people need.' Healthy thought, that is.

Is consumer insight the same as knowledge management? No, it is just the opposite, explains the book. KM aims to make tacit knowledge explicit, 'helping organisations capture and secure as an asset knowledge in the heads of their people.' The emphasis in consumer insight is the other way round. 'Most information is explicit already %u2014 in the form of research reports, statistics, and presentations %u2014 and the issue is that of making it tacit. The goal is to communicate it widely and to get it into the heads of all those who should be using it.'

The book has an elaborate discussion of `database marketing' - defined as the planned implementation, recording, analysis and tracking of consumers' direct response behaviour over time to derive future marketing strategies, for developing long-term consumer loyalty and ensuring continued business growth. You'd also learn how database marketers use consumer insight, and the meaning of `customer care.'

If, as a customer, CRM has been a bugbear for you, the authors suggest how companies can describe CRM to consumers: 'CRM is how we find you, get to know you, keep in touch with you, try to ensure that you get what you want from us in every aspect of our dealings with you, and check that you are getting what we promised you.' But CRM can act as a mask for problems, caution the authors. 'Many businesses feel that as long as they retain enough customers, they must be doing something right. However, a retention statistic might conceal consumers who are gradually finding the company's proposition less appropriate, because it is moving away from their `halo'.'

View consumers as longer-term valuable assets, and not just as prospects for the next contact list from which to make the next sale, exhort the authors in a chapter titled `analysing computer data to get insight.' This, I'd suggest you to read jointly with your systems chap, because of the emphasis on data mining. Another such chapter is `consumer insight systems' where the authors state that warehousing (coupled with mining of consumer data) is most effective 'when it is enterprise-wide, along the company to gain a single view of the consumer and business profitability.'

Incites interest in insight!"

The balanced scorecard and knowledge management

2005-07-13T07:36:00.000+02:00

The balanced scorecard and knowledge management - Deccan Herald - Internet Edition: "The concept of %u2018Balance Scorecard%u2019 provides a more accurate measure of an organisation%u2019s performance. S Muralidhar delves into this new tool of strategic management.

In recent years there has been a renewed interest in %u201Chuman resources%u201D and %u201Ccollaboration%u201D under the term %u201Cknowledge management%u201D. In this article the focus is on the relationship between the Balanced Scorecard and knowledge management.
Balanced Scorecard is a framework of strategic measurement based management. In fact Harvard Business Review considered Balanced Scorecard as one of the most important management factors. The Balanced Scorecard concept was conceived by Robert S Kaplan and David P Norton in their book %u2018The Balanced Scorecard -Translating Strategy Into Action.%u2019

According to them the Balanced Scorecard is a multi-dimensional work for describing, implementing and managing change at all levels in an organisation by linking objectives, initiatives, and appropriate measures through an organisation%u2019s strategy. The traditional financial accounting measures like return on investment (RoI), and earnings per share (EPS) may give misleading signals for continuous improvement and innovation. Today, the competitive business environment demands continuous improvement and innovations. Progressive organisations are able to quickly gain from the Balanced Scorecard concept of performance management. "

L'Europa piace agli imprenditori emiliano-romagnoli

2005-07-07T15:40:00.000+02:00

EMILIANET - ECONOMIA: "Forse �una sorpresa, ma gli imprenditori emiliano romagnoli, in controtendenza con gli ultimi pronunciamenti, promuovono a pieni voti la Costituzione Europea, dimostrandosi 'euro-convinti' in grandissima maggioranza: se si fosse votato anche in Italia, 7 imprenditori su 10 avrebbero detto s�. E' quanto emerge dal sondaggio realizzato per CNA Emilia Romagna dall'Istituto Freni di Firenze su un campione di imprese associate, i cui risultati sono stati presentati oggi nel corso di una conferenza stampa.

Francesi e olandesi hanno avuto torto a votare contro il Trattato europeo per il 76% degli intervistati. Gli imprenditori associati a CNA non si allineano, dunque, con gli 'euroscettici'; anzi, il loro atteggiamento nei confronti della Costituzione europea, evidenzia una diffusa adesione all'unificazione, ritenuta inevitabile e necessaria, spiega la ricerca. Alla domanda: 'Se in Italia ci fosse il referendum per la ratifica della Costituzione europea come avrebbe votato?' Il 72,3% degli intervistati ha risposto a favore; l'11,8% si sarebbe dichiarato contrario e il 7,6% si sarebbe astenuto (non ha risposto l'8,4%). Un esito dunque largamente positivo. Il perch�del s� %u2013 spiega la ricerca %u2013 sta nella convinzione che solo un'integrazione politica pu�rendere completa ed irreversibile l'integrazione economica gi�in atto e rappresenta, pertanto, ancora pi�che una necessit�, un'inevitabilit�. L'integrazione europea �, d'altra parte, ritenuta assolutamente indispensabile proprio all'Italia, considerata vaso di coccio in mezzo a vasi d'acciaio. Le riserve della minoranza di imprenditori che, nell'ipotetico referendum avrebbero scelto il 'no', riguardano soprattutto la procedura con la quale si �arrivati al testo della Costituzione Europea, senza cio�consultare i cittadini. "

Empowering Users: The Coming Transformation of Knowledge Management Environments

2005-07-01T20:57:00.000+02:00

Empowering Users: The Coming Transformation of Knowledge Management Environments : "The day is long gone when an enterprise could afford the disconnectedness, incompatibility and non-interoperability that were characteristic of its information systems in recent decades. Whether in the marketplace, the battlefield, the public services or their support environments, every single knowledge worker%u2014and we are all knowledge workers%u2014must pull in the same direction so that an organization moves forward in close alignment towards the fulfillment of its mission and achievement of its objectives. The key to this lies in a flexible and powerful knowledge management environment operating seamlessly within a robust enterprise IT architecture. That means an environment where business intelligence is extracted easily and purposefully from bits and bytes. Moreover, this vision must be shared and championed by the enterprise%u2019s leadership, enabled by its architects and ultimately adopted and supported by its users.

Ultimately, we must provide a knowledge management environment consisting of:
A set of tools and processes;
Used by knowledge workers;
In an architected environment;
Created through an enterprise initiative;
To obtain maximum returns; and
In extracting knowledge from bits and bytes.�
In launching an initiative to provide the enterprise with a robust knowledge management environment one has to note that this includes more than just the hardware and the software; it covers the technological, social and cultural setting and the physical surroundings that allow knowledge to be created, accessed and shared effectively throughout the enterprise. Intelligence must be extracted from the zeros and ones and it must be fed to anyone that needs it, whenever they need it.
There are many ways to construct such an environment, but ultimately it must provide users with the capability to�perform whatever tasks they need to do in order to function efficiently and effectively in a world increasingly characterized by complexity, uncertainty and change. There are at least a dozen types of activities that this environment must enable. Collectively, they catalyze the organization into the creation of a robust knowledge management environment where maximum sharing and flow can take place. This is crucial, because at its core lies the capacity of that environment to help someone with a question connect it to a corresponding answer.�
The user must be able to easily and effectively:
Access knowledge about his or her job, including captured tacit knowledge from previous workers and lessons learned from past experiences;
Connect and collaborate with other members of his or her communities of practice;
Find and disseminate best practices;
Locate desired experts and expertise;
Access and apply, openly or transparently, taxonomies for major knowledge domains;
Use enterprise portals as gateways to knowledge spaces;
Search all sources of unstructured data and facilitate its collection and navigation;
Access and exploit business intelligence from structured data through data warehousing and data mining;
Facilitate customer service through personalization and better information;
Harness narratives and success stories as a springboard to action; and
Take advantage of learning and e-learning opportunities.
But the linchpin behind the transformation is the concept of the %u201Cknowledge space.%u201D
A knowledge space is a collection of documents%u2014accessible content%u2014that comprise the working environment. This is the mine that a miner must work in order to extract its embedded value. It will surely include documents from internal and external sources, in multiple media, comprised of both structured and unstructured data. There will be both real and virtual aspects of this knowledge space. In it should be all the documents that might help us in getting an answer to anything we might ever want to know about a particular knowledge domain.� We can pick a broad domain such as healthcare, or warfare or law enforcement and create corresponding knowledge spaces. But these can become somewhat large and unwieldy. More than likely, our interest will be in more focused knowledge domains that will surely lead us to develop narrower knowledge spaces on, say, pancreatic cancer, dialysis processes or Ebola virus outbreaks instead of healthcare; infantry training, guerrilla tactics or ordnance disposal instead of warfare; and riot control, criminal investigation or interrogation tactics instead of law enforcement.��
Ultimately the knowledge space should be created as a starting point for the knowledge worker. As the needs require it, that knowledge space will grow and expand to encompass whatever might be needed to answer questions and connect the dotted lines.
Then we will need a workbench of tools to navigate, explore and operate on the content in the knowledge space. We will provide much more detail on the workbench in our next column.
In conclusion, we have introduced the important thesis that there is a transformation coming to the world of analytics, hence to business intelligence, and that at the heart of said transformation is the concept of a knowledge space and the workbench of tools that will allow us to navigate and explore these knowledge spaces.�"

Knowledge Management : No Such Thing As A Knowledge Worker

2005-06-28T14:03:00.000+02:00

From: http://www.webpronews.com/it/itmanagement/wpn-18-20050627KnowledgeManagementNoSuchThingasaKnowledgeWorker.html

For those who manage well, there is a bright and prosperous future. For those who are managed, the future-certainly the income prospects-are not so bright.

There is no such thing as a knowledge worker in the sense that we have agricultural or factory workers. All knowledge work is first and foremost a management task. Of course, strictly speaking, management is a type of work. However, in knowledge work, everyone is a manager to one degree or another.

Right now, you may not in fact be managing people. You are, however, managing your time, managing content, and perhaps managing other resources.

In a knowledge organization, the role of management changes. Management becomes less about setting and policing rules for workers and more about establishing strategy, setting goals, showing leadership, and measuring results.

Knowledge management is less about managing people and more about giving them the right goals, the right motivation, and the right tools, and clearly articulating how success or failure will be measured.

As a knowledge manager, you should look to your manager for the broad strategic direction and you should look to yourself for the ability to manage your day. You must develop this crucial skill because, if you're waiting to be told what to do, then your job is in serious danger of being automated or outsourced.

Let's say you're part of a web team and your day-to-day job involves turning print documents into PDFs and putting them up. That is a job that requires very little skill or thinking. That is a job that could just as easily be outsourced or offshored.

If you are a knowledge manager, on the other hand, you would stand back and ask the fundamental question: What is the task? The task is not to put stuff up on your website. The task is to effectively communicate with your readers. A knowledge manager would question whether print content is truly effective on the Web. A knowledge manager would explore what better ways there are to publish this content on the Web.

You send and receive many emails every day. As a knowledge manager, you need to constantly question whether you are effectively communicating in your emails. Are your emails being ignored or deleted? That's a big problem. How well do you organize the emails you send and receive? How easy is it for you to quickly find an important email?

Are your presentations effective? Do they make people more knowledgeable? Do they make them more likely to act in a way you want them to? Are your reports effective? A knowledge manager is always asking this question: Am I effective?

We are all managers now. In a new area such as the Web, we may in fact have to manage our managers. You need to manage your manager's expectations of what the website can practically achieve, because you probably know a lot more about the real potential of your website than your manager does.

There isn't a great future for those who do not rise to the knowledge management challenge. As organizations continue to automate, outsource, and offshore, those people who remain will become invaluable to the success of the organization. They will be the knowledge managers.

Knowledge Management Systems Licenses CIC's SignatureOne Platform Delivering Paperless HR Onboarding Applications

2005-06-24T11:04:00.000+02:00

Knowledge Management Systems Licenses CIC's SignatureOne Platform Delivering Paperless HR Onboarding Applications: "Communication Intelligence Corporation ('CIC')
(OTC Bulletin Board: CICI - News), the leading supplier of biometric signature
verification and a leading supplier of electronic signature solutions and
Knowledge Management Systems ('KMS'), a leader in providing solutions to
streamline manual and paper-intensive business processes, announced today a
licensing agreement for CIC's SignatureOne(TM) eSignature Platform and
components."

Trainer1 powers the ODPMs learning and knowledge management initiatives

2005-06-24T09:44:00.000+02:00

ClickPress | Trainer1 powers the ODPM%u2019s learning and knowledge management initiatives: "The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM) is using e-learning specialist Trainer1%u2019s knowledge management tool, Argonaut, to power the department%u2019s %u2018Learning Resources Directory%u2019 (LRD), registering the use of each of the materials in the LRD.

The ODPM%u2019s LRD contains the Department%u2019s learning resources and, thanks to Argonaut%u2122, everyone who accesses the LRD is certain to receive the latest, approved version of the materials s/he requires.

Neil Lasher, managing director of Trainer1, explained: %u201CIt is vital that, as new versions of policies, procedures and protocols automatically supersede old ones, everyone who accesses these, accesses the most up-to-date, %u2018approved%u2019 version. Argonaut%u2122, Trainer1%u2019s %u2018.NET%u2019 technology knowledge management tool ensures that this is so %u2013 thus bringing peace of mind to trainers, senior managers and, of course, learners.
"

SER Receives Business Britain's Knowledge Management Provider of the Year Award

2005-06-24T09:43:00.000+02:00

SER Receives Business Britain's Knowledge Management Provider of the Year Award: "SER Solutions, Inc., a leading provider of innovative software solutions for intelligent data capture and search and retrieval software, announced today that it has received Business Britain magazine's Knowledge Management Provider of the Year Award for 2004/ 2005. Business Britain is a national business magazine that covers topics relevant in today's business climate, providing information, aspiration, and best practice advice to Britain's leading business decision-makers. The award presentation and a two-page article on SER will be featured in the next issue of the publication. As part of this year's editorial, Business Britain endeavored to highlight the growing importance of knowledge-based solutions and the productivity, profitability, and reduction in cost benefits to multi-national organizations. SER's intelligent data capture solution, SERdistiller(TM), was one of the knowledge management solutions featured in the Finance and Accounting section of the publication and prompted the editors to consider SER for the annual award. They also focused on SER's other knowledge management offerings including SERbrainware(R), an intelligent software engine, and SERglobalBrain(R), an intelligent search and retrieval solution. Extensive research on the nominated organizations was carried out by a team of Investigative Journalists who conducted a comprehensive review of knowledge management solution providers. The specific criteria in the evaluation process included: Range of Products and Services, Additional Services, Cost Effectiveness, Customer Relations, Potential Return on Investment, Appropriateness to Business Britain, Marketing and Promotion, and Web Presence. The results of the findings were unanimous and SER was selected as this year's award winner. 'SER is proud of the industry-wide recognition it has received for our knowledge management solutions,' said Juan Navarro, COO, SER Solutions, Inc. 'By providing solutions that enable seamless and immediate access to accurate, relevant information throughout the enterprise and the Internet, SER makes it possible for organizations to reap the benefits of a knowledge-driven workforce.'"

Outsell, Inc. Research Shows Bright Horizons for Enterprise Information Management Functions

2005-06-08T09:42:00.000+02:00

Outsell, Inc. Research Shows Bright Horizons for Enterprise Information Management Functions: "Outsell, Inc. reports an upbeat marketplace for Corporate Information Managers, with growth in the job function allowing managers to take on more powerful roles after facing turmoil and uncertainty in recent years. Pre-released highlights from Outsell's research of 215 corporate Information Management professionals about their 2005 operations, shows they are enjoying larger budgets and more global responsibilities. Specifically: -- Information Managers are going global. In 2005, 48 percent of managers held global or enterprise responsibilities, versus 44 percent in 2004. Furthermore, Information Managers are now reporting into corporate administration/shared services at a greater rate - from just two percent last year to 23 percent now. -- Budgets are up significantly. They have increased 28 percent, from an average of $2.133 million in 2004 to $2.725 million in 2005, with continued increases projected to $2.788 million in the next budget cycle. -- A general state of user discontent with information environments is leading to job shifts. Thanks to Sarbanes-Oxley and other events, information managers are shifting to roles where they have bottom line and tangible organizational impact. Outsell data shows information managers shifting to roles in enterprise content management (up from 14 percent in 2004 to 22 percent in 2005), to Knowledge Management (from 19 percent to 24 percent) and Records Management (13 percent to 17 percent). -- Competitive intelligence remains a huge unmet need - and opportunity - for Information Management functions to take on. The need for Competitive Intelligence is the single biggest unmet information need articulated by over 4,000 knowledge workers in separate studies fielded by Outsell. Yet this newest study shows that Information Management functions' adoption of this role hasn't changed--with only 39 percent of information managers offering Competitive Intelligence services in 2005, versus 38 percent in 2004. Outsell analysts see this is a missed opportunity for Information Managers to provide more value to their organizations. With greater responsibility, accountability and budgets, information managers have more clout in selecting information providers. Research findings about their information-product satisfaction for example, found: -- Service and support, as well as flexible licensing models, will be the new differentiators. Buyers are generally satisfied with what they buy, but in a world of increasing commoditization and vendor choices, vendors need to break out of the pack. Users rate news and trade aggregators Factiva, LexisNexis and Dialog about even. -- Highest satisfaction ratings are given to the less traditional business-to-consumer models going enterprise (such as Amazon) and government providers (CISTI). -- With service and support being the new differentiator, users report the big commercial vendors (Thomson, Elsevier and Reuters) need to improve ease of use. Full details will appear in an upcoming Outsell Briefing scheduled for later this summer."

Can Knowledge Management help Governments respond to unexpected challenges and Enable Delivery of Higher-quality Services to Citizens?

2005-06-04T08:30:00.001+02:00

Money Plans - Can Knowledge Management help Governments respond to unexpected challenges and Enable Delivery of Higher-quality Services to Citizens? : Onlypunjab.comTeam-
: "Around the world, governments are struggling to be responsive to unexpected challenges and to deliver the higher-quality services that their citizens now expect. In the private sector, knowledge management (KM) has played a key role in improving organizational performance. Can knowledge management perform the same role in the public sector? This report shows that it can.Written by David Skyrme, a world-recognized KM expert this report explores current and future developments in public-sector KM and identifies examples of good practices from around the world. Including case studies, recent surveys, extensive research and opinion from leading practitioners, the report also provides Action Checklists and Key-Lessons-Learnt summaries. This is a fully comprehensive guide to KM in the public sector, from analysis and policy development through to implementation.This report brings fresh insight and practical guidance to knowledge-management practitioners, senior business managers and other professionals involved with planning and implementing knowledge management, presenting readers with real insights based on the views and experiences of experts and leading practitioners."

Can Knowledge Management help Governments respond to unexpected challenges and Enable Delivery of Higher-quality Services to Citizens?

2005-06-04T08:30:00.000+02:00

Effective knowledge management

2005-05-28T07:52:00.000+02:00

Effective knowledge management - Express Computer: "The
benefits of knowledge management (KM) cannot be debated, but the creation of
a knowledge portal is only the beginning of a stream of challenges. Making it
a part of the organisational culture is perhaps the toughest of all. For many
individuals, hoarding knowledge is power, and it is not so easy for them to
imbibe the true spirit of knowledge-sharing. There are others who take pride
in being individualistic, and are not willing to learn from the experiences
of others. Effective knowledge management is about leveraging the collective
ability of knowledge workers for business gain. For most organisations, a successful
KM initiative apparently means reducing the time to market; cross-departmental
effectiveness and workforce motivation are other key factors.
Knowledge management, which is a repository of tacit and explicit knowledge
in an organisation, is an integral part of a company%u2019s strategy. Effective
knowledge management would include people, processes and strategy, with the
human factor and culture comprising the maximum percentage; technology is an
enabler. For Pradeep Waychal, Head of Corporate Quality and Delivery Innovation
at Patni Computer Systems, KM is a set of processes, tools and structures that
aim to leverage collective abilities of the organisation%u2019s knowledge workers
in a business situation. Doing it effectively means effective knowledge management.
Waychal points out that a KM initiative should:
Reduce dependence on individuals.
Reduce cycle time: Standardise and speed up customer/Request
for Information responses.
Re-use solutions across projects/initiatives.
Integrate SBU level repositories into organisation-wide
repositories (break functional silos)."

Drug Safety Knowledge Management (Swiss InterAction Meeting) - Events

2005-05-25T07:14:00.000+02:00

BioITWorld Events - Drug Safety Knowledge Management (Swiss InterAction Meeting) - Events: "In this 2 day InnovationWell InterAction Meeting, supported by a collaborative software environment, participants will have a unique and ongoing opportunity to share information and viewpoints on optimal development, monitoring, and promotion of pharmaceutical products to maximise value and minimize risk to patients, prescribers, and the industry. Participants will also get the opportunity to identify and interact with key collaborators, subject matter experts, valuable information sources, and industry experts working at the forefront of developing practices and new business models in Drug Safety Knowledge Management. The program encourages and includes expertise and topics from different locations on the drug product life cycle including R&D, development, pharmacovigilance and healthcare delivery.
The focus program theme of Building the Drug Safety Body of Knowledge identifies strategies and methods required to meet the clinical, regulatory, legal, and commercial needs of pharmaceutical companies and healthcare organisations in the years to come.
Before the meeting, all participants are encouraged to submit short presentations on the InnovationWell website located at innovationwell.net as a form of introduction to the other participants."

Solcara Client Partner Delivers an Effective Knowledge Management Platform at William Fry.

2005-05-23T08:47:00.000+02:00

Solcara Client Partner Delivers an Effective Knowledge Management Platform at William Fry : ArriveNet Press Releases : Technology: "The Solcara Client Partner solution provides a common platform that streamlines the process of accessing and using essential Know How from a mixture of internal and online information resources. Solcara's expertise in delivering comprehensive Knowledge Management solutions within the legal sector was a major factor in the decision-making process at William Fry. The capabilities and flexibility of Solcara Client Partner were also considered to be superior to other comparable products in the market. The solution, which went live in January, integrates with a number of internal databases including the Granite & Comfrey (Tikit) Know How database, the Bailey Solutions Library Management system, and the OpenDocs document management system.It is also delivering a common approach to searching over 30 online information resources including a large number of Irish resources such as Firstlaw, Irish Revenue Commissioners, Westlaw.ie and UK resources including Butterworths, Justis, JustCite and many more."

The Knowledge Management Engineering Research Award | Knowledge Management International

2005-05-16T16:20:00.000+02:00

The Knowledge Management Engineering Research Award | Knowledge Management International: "A first of its kind in the UAE, the Award will be an annual event that has been recently launched in January 2005. This Award provides a unique opportunity for students, faculty and Professors to gain recognition for a body of work which can bring innovative initiatives and valuable research conclusions to the masses. At the same time this Award recognizes those Industries which have actively contributed to the development of Engineering Research.

The main aim of The KM Engineering Award is to provide a central focus for the review of Engineering Research contributions within the United Arab Emirates and a means of raising awareness of the knowledge gained. At the same time, it provides a unique opportunity for Universities, Colleges and Industry to unite in a common endeavor which will actively promote the sharing of knowledge gained, and provide a means of support to carry this research forward.

This year the Award is aimed at undergraduate Electrical and Computer Engineering students, Faculty and Professors in colleges and Universities throughout the United Arab Emirates. It is also aimed at Industries which have contributed towards research in these fields. Next year, the award may cover other areas of engineering.

The Award was conceived by Dr Mohammad Haddad, CEO of the Knowledge Management Group and was brought into being through close collaboration with Dr Hasan Al-Nashash, Professor and Department Chair of Electrical Engineering at the American University in Sharjah.

'The KM Engineering Research Award is committed to the promotion and recognition of Engineering Research in the Middle East' said Dr Mohammad Haddad, CEO Knowledge Management.

Submissions were received for the Award from four colleges and Universities in the United Arab Emirates. The winners will be announced at the official Award Ceremony and Dinner being held at the Crowne Plaza Hotel at 7.30 pm on Monday 16 May 2005. The prize will include a substantial sum of money for advancing the area of research.

The Award is intended as a pioneering, independent initiative to bring engineering research to the fore and to set a solid foundation on which to build for the future. Without a baseline of this nature it would be difficult to capture and harness the developments being made and provide the needed backing and support to carry these forward for the betterment of both the UAE and mankind.

The Knowledge Management Group is committed to the community and the Award is only one project of many that all promote the Group's belief in promoting and enhancing the education of the youth and support for research and development in different sectors within the UAE and the region as a whole."

Bper pensa di comprare una quota di Bnl

2005-05-15T17:48:00.000+02:00

EMILIANET - FINANZA: "Banca Popolare Emilia e Romagna sta studiando la possibilit�di comprare il 2-3% di Bnl. Lo ha detto un portavoce oggi.

Il portavoce ha aggiunto per�che al momento non ci sono piani concreti per l'acquisto della quota in Bnl, oggetto di un'opa da 6,2 milioni di euro da parte della spagnola Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria.

Intanto, in un articolo del Sole 24 Ore oggi, l'ad di Pop Emilia Guido Leoni ha fatto sapere che la sua banca non esclude di investire anche in Antonveneta, oggetto di una guerra di offerte tra la banca olandese Abn Amro e la Banca Popolare di Lodi.

'Abbiamo le risorse e, se qualcuno ce lo chiede, potremmo investire in Bnl o in Antonveneta'."

Knowledge Management: Less for Success

2005-05-13T16:24:00.000+02:00

Accounting Software 411 - Knowledge Management: Less for Success : "
Instead of approaching knowledge management like an all-encompassing ERP project, try tackling it incrementally, professes Alice Dragoon in her article about how to develop an enterprise knowledge management system in a piecemeal fashion. Ms. Dragoon has some compelling arguments such as - Smaller projects%u2014or splitting a big project into phases%u2014gives you more control over the outcome. Getting budget approval for smaller projects is also much easier than trying to get buyoff on a large expensive project. If a small project fails then the financial loss will not have as big an impact on the organization or draw as much attention. It's also easier to get company wide buy in if you can build upon your successes rather than throwing all your chances of success into one big project. Ms. Dragoon's point of view may seem to buck traditional IT tendencies towards large scale cradle to grave systems but she makes compelling arguments that ought to be highly considered by anyone contemplating implementing a Knowledge Management system."

Eedo Announces Industry Leading Growth and Profitability

2005-05-13T09:12:00.000+02:00

mysan.de - be updated - Eedo Announces Industry Leading Growth and Profitability: "edo Knowledgeware, a leading developer of learning and knowledge
management software, announced today its tenth consecutive quarter of
profitability, as well as an expanded presence in Europe and the Asia Pacific
region.Eedo%u2019s financial results for the quarter ending March 31st include net
earnings equal to 22% of revenues, with annualized revenue growth of 130%,
compared to the same quarter in 2004. The company experienced revenue growth
in all its major markets including the United States, United Kingdom, Europe
and Canada. Growth in Europe has led to the opening of new Eedo facilities in
the Netherlands, providing support to a growing European customer base. In
addition, the company is commencing operations in Sydney, Australia to
support a growing customer base in the Asia Pacific region. Customer wins of
note for the period include Inland Revenue, Legal & General, Organon
Pharmaceuticals, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Correctional
Services Canada, Catholic Health Care, Duke Energy and American Management
Association.Additionally, Eedo has reached a significant milestone with over 85% of
revenues coming directly from software licensing and maintenance. This
product-focused strategy has enabled Eedo to continue on an aggressive
product development plan, without the burden of services often associated
with enterprise software. Validating this approach, Eedo%u2019s LCMS product,
ForceTen is the first and only LCMS currently certified as producing content
conformant to the SCORM 2004 standard. In conjunction with this
product-focused strategy, Eedo has created alliances with leading I.T.
services organizations in all its key markets, with quality assurance
provided via an industry leading Partner Certification program. This approach
has enabled Eedo to expand rapidly into new markets, and has been a
contributing factor to its healthy balance sheet. New Certified Partners for
the period include high quality content developers such as Fuel and
Atticmedia, as well as implementation/system integrators General Physics,
Jigsaw Learning Systems and Productivity Point International.'Our team has delivered near-perfect execution on our corporate strategy,
exceeding our objectives for the quarter, and putting us in a very good
position to meet our targets for this fiscal year,' said John Hudson,
President and CEO of Eedo Knowledgeware."

UGS and A.T. Kearney Procurement Solutions Announce Sourcing Community Powered By Teamcenter(R)

2005-05-11T07:12:00.000+02:00

UGS and A.T. Kearney Procurement Solutions Announce Sourcing Community Powered By Teamcenter(R)
: "International Supply Management
Conference -- UGS Corp., a leading global provider of product lifecycle
management (PLM) software and services, and A.T. Kearney Procurement
Solutions, offering leading strategic sourcing services, today announced the
availability of Sourcing Community, the latest release of product lifecycle
sourcing solutions powered by UGS' Teamcenter(R) software. Sourcing Community
combines web-based RFx (Request for Proposal, Request for Information, etc.)
and sourcing survey capabilities with Teamcenter knowledge management and
collaboration solutions to further integrate the sourcing and change
management processes.
UGS and A.T. Kearney Procurement Solutions are demonstrating the new
technology at the International Supply Management (ISM) Conference on May 8-10
in San Antonio, Texas. The announcement represents the strategic next step in
the extension of Teamcenter PLM technology to support the needs of business
users.
UGS considers the expansion of PLM to unite both product development and
business data and processes as core to their product strategy. The company
has partnered with A.T. Kearney Procurement Solutions, a Strategic Partner in
the UGS Partner Program, to jointly develop the Sourcing Community solution,
which will be delivered to customers directly through UGS' direct channel and
through A.T. Kearney's strategic sourcing activities.
Sourcing Community combines sourcing with collaboration and product data
management (PDM), to provide one window access to sourcing and product data to
all stakeholders in the supply chain, increasing sourcing productivity,
compressing sourcing cycle time and enabling early supplier involvement to
design the cost out of products.
'The joint development of the Sourcing Community solution by A.T. Kearney
Procurement Solutions provides us with a key validation of the wide use of
Teamcenter for a variety of business uses,' said Raj Khoshoo, vice president
of strategic initiatives, UGS. 'More importantly, by providing this
integration on the Sourcing Community platform we have enabled collaboration,
program management and seamless integration with office tools, all provided on
the familiar Microsoft desktop to ensure usability by business users with
minimal training.'"

Knowledge Management Excellence: Trends in Internal Best Practices Sharing

2005-05-10T08:37:00.000+02:00

Knowledge Management Excellence: Trends in Internal Best Practices Sharing: " Proactive best practices sharing
continues to be a popular way to optimize organizational resources in the face
of tight budget constraints. To Xerox, this connection was clear after
managers surveyed 200 customer service engineers and conducted in-depth
interviews with 45 of them, asking about co-workers, strengths, problem-
solving approaches, attitudes about teamwork, and information sharing
behaviors. Language analysis tools were used to detect patterns and insights.Knowledge Management of Internal Best Practices, a benchmarking report by
Best Practices, LLC, focuses on developing systems for effective knowledge
transfer and intellectual asset management. Available online -- with a
complimentary summary at http://www3.best-in-class.com/re362.htm -- this
report benchmarks cross-industry knowledge management practices of the world's
leading companies. Also included, are corporate profiles of leading knowledge
management companies such as AstraZeneca, British Petroleum, Roche and Xerox. For example, the following insights emerged from this research:
- A leading banking company experienced first year cost savings of more
than $3 million through on-going best practices identification and
alignment with key strategic indicators such as the efficiency ratio.
- To promote best practices performance and deployment, one leading
insurance company has developed a creative program by which employees
are eligible to win Best Practice Awards for $1,000 each. Employees
nominate themselves or are nominated by others by documenting in
writing a one-page description of a best practice that resulted in a
high level of customer satisfaction.
- One financial services company codified the expertise of its best
account managers using a software program. As a result, over a period
of 4 years, the percentage of leaving clients dropped by more than
half.
Additional topics covered include:
- Link Best Practices to Strategy Fulfillment
- Best Practice Identification Systems
- Best Practice Recognition Systems
- Best Practices Communication
- Best Practices Knowledge Sharing System
- Ongoing Nurturing of Best Practices
- Seven Models of Intellectual Asset Measurement
- Corporate Profiles of Leading Knowledge Management Companies"

Command garners prestigious award for CIE, innovative knowledge management

2005-05-10T08:35:00.000+02:00

U.S. Joint Forces Command (USJFCOM) recently garnered a prestigious award from the E-Gov Institute recognizing "innovative knowledge management (KM) best practices in public sector organizations."

USJFCOM won the innovative use of technology in a KM solution category, which goes to a project that utilized contemporary or leading edge commercial technology to implement a creative solution to a real business problem.

In this case, USJFCOM accepted the award for its recent efforts with the Collaborative Information Environment (CIE) on April 21 during the E-Gov Institute's KM conference and exhibition here.

KM, simply defined, is a concept of gathering, organizing, sharing and analyzing an enterprise's resources, documents and information.

"The CIE fit well into any of the award categories which also included, KM initiative delivering high value to a broad user community/supporting agency mission and initiative or organization successfully using innovative KM practices," said Army Maj. Ed McLarney, Joint Futures Lab Prototype Pathway lead engineer who has worked with a large team of individuals to implement the CIE.

More than 50 different organizations turned in nominations for awards in three categories and winners in the two other categories included the Defense Acquisition University and the Illinois Department of Central Management Services.

"The award is an independent verification that our work is making a difference," said McLarney. "We're getting our capabilities outside of the laboratory and into the hands of the warfighter and this is a proud accomplishment. You can actually see the benefits of the CIE through all the things it's done."

"It wasn't just the Joint Futures Lab or the Joint Experimentation Directorate (J9) that worked on this; it was a USJFCOM team accomplishment," he added. "There was support from the Standing Joint Force Headquarters-Core Element (SJFHQ-CE), the Command, Control, Communications and Computer Systems Directorate, the Joint Training Directorate (J7), and many others."

The CIE, which users access through a secure Web-based network, allows warfighters to share information and communicate although they are separated geographically.

It also provides up-to-date situational awareness in real time and assists joint task force commanders and their staffs in performing effects based operations, giving them the ability to make decisions quickly as well as helping them assess the capabilities of an adversary, giving them the advantage over enemy forces.

Elements of the tool include:

• A secure reliable network that promotes ease of information exchange, unconstrained by geographical, operational or organizational boundaries
• Visual presentations of information and knowledge, tailored to the specific needs of users
• Automated tools to acquire, store, fuse and disseminate information and knowledge routinely and on demand
• Accessible information and knowledge sources and persistent, virtual "communities of practice" located worldwide
• Business rules and organizational structures that capitalize on the power of collaboration

According to command officials, the CIE was nominated for the KM award based on several factors to include successful implementation and utilization of the tool, and the degrees to which the tool integrated commercial technology.

It was also evaluated on the degrees to which the capability solved a significant business problem, and the degrees to which implementation of the tool showed innovation as well as other aspects such as benefits that have resulted from warfighters using the capability.

Ways in which the capability has shown benefit to warfighters include:

• Empowering the joint force staffs' ability to plan, execute and assess military operations in a functional manner across geographically-distributed echelons, coalition partners, outside agencies-synchronous collaboration
• Giving joint force staffs access to volumes of relevant data and information through an enterprise portal to support action planning, execution and assessment-allowing warfighters to make better decisions faster
• Enabling effective KM giving an operational commander the advantage over an adversary

Originally, the CIE began as a concept that would enable the SJFHQ but was eventually explored for other venues. After becoming a matured capability, it found its way to the regional combatant commands (RCCs) by late 2003.

"We've fielded the CIE to four of the RCCs, to coalition force headquarters, to headquarters in Korea and to the headquarters for Multinational Forces Iraq," said McLarney.

CIE elements are also in use in Afghanistan and were used to support the 2004 Olympics in Greece.

USJFCOM has been working recently to integrate CIE concepts into joint doctrine. The SJFHQ-CE, along with J7 and J9, continue to look at theater commands with regards to tactics, techniques and procedures (TTP) as they apply to the CIE, and to adapt those TTPs into doctrine.

McLarney summed up the importance of the capability and why it should be recognized for its utility.

"It really shows a cultural change in the way the military does business," said McLarney. "It helps staffs work better together and helps them make better decisions. Just imagine the power of the CIE and how it allows hundreds or even thousands of military staff members to communicate from various distributed locations without having to be physically at the same location and their ability to get the commander's intent rapidly to every warfighter."

Records Management Strategies for Success: the Records Management Society Conference 2005 | eGov monitor

2005-05-10T08:33:00.000+02:00

Records Management Strategies for Success: the Records Management Society Conference 2005 | eGov monitor: "The conference%u2019s theme was 'Strategies for Success', and the conference undoubtedly lived up to this theme. The focus of a large number of sessions was the future: the future of the profession, of the discipline and in particular the future of records management within individual organisations. In particular the conference addressed the fundamentals of building business cases and strategies to address the ever-growing problems of masses of paper and electronic documents and records. Although new and emerging technologies were not high on the conference%u2019s agenda, Alan Andolsen%u2019s startling introduction to emerging technologies was a notable exception %u2013 imagine a disc with the capacity of a hundred DVDs, or a computer the size of a pen, with a rollout screen!
The records management profession has been evolving rapidly in recent years, driving the need to question existing processes, models and standards at all levels. One of the most forward looking presentations this year was given by Gary Johnston, who introduced delegates to an alternative model for the design and implementation of records management systems. Gary discussed the concept of building quality into the design and implementation of records management systems, and proposed an alternative model to the accepted DIRKS and ISO 15489 standards. Gary claimed that this model would cause a reduction in the number of defects in the design and implementation of records management systems."

Murray Jennex and the Science of Effective Decision-Making

2005-05-10T08:32:00.000+02:00

SDSUniverse
| Murray Jennex and the Science of Effective Decision-Making: "Murray Jennex's path to his current position has been a circuitous one, winding through military service and a 20-year career in the commercial nuclear industry with a stopover in the Ukraine.
Jennex is assistant professor in the Information and Decision Systems department within the College of Business Administration. Specializing in knowledge managementand organizational effectiveness, he is editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Knowledge Management and president of the Foundation for Knowledge Management.
Last month, as the academic keynote speaker at an Air Force conference in Tucson, Arizona, Jennex presented research findings identifying critical factors for knowledge management success. He also moderated a panel addressing issues facing the Department of Defense and the Air Force in implementing knowledge management.
%u201CKnowledge management is the process of collecting specific knowledge and using it to improve performance. It recycles knowledge so that decisions can be made more effectively,%u201D Jennex said.
Knowledge management is crucial to the military because it teaches military personnel what to do in specific situations by learning from past mistakes. It can�improve a soldier's reaction time�in life-threatening situations.
Jennex has first-hand knowledge of the military from a 4-year stint in the Navy. After leaving, he pursued his education, earning a bachelor's degree in chemistry and physics from William Jewell College, an MBA and a master's in software engineering from National University, and, finally,�a master's in telecommunications management and a Ph.D. in information systems from the Claremont Graduate University.�Jennex is also a certified information systems security professional (CISSP) and a California registered professional mechanical engineer (PE).
After a 20-year career in�the commercial nuclear industry he landed�a position as Y2K manager of southern California�during the months leading�up to the millenium.�Jennex and his team�maintained�the region's computer systems and repaired transmission systems�damaged by hackers.
As a result�of his�experience as a Y2K�manager he was given various opportunities to work in the Ukraine.��%u201CAfter being there for a couple of months I fell in love with the country,' he said. %u201CThe people are friendly and work hard, I relate well to them.%u201D"

The Hindu Business Line : Go that extra mile for KM

2005-05-09T07:31:00.000+02:00

The Hindu Business Line : Go that extra mile for KM
: "THE building blocks of information society are data, information and knowledge, writes D. Kamalavijayan in Information & Knowledge Management, from Macmillan India Ltd (www.macmillanindia.com) .

He defines data as an observed fact, based on some survey or study or some conscious effort relating to certain activity. 'Data can be numerical, descriptive, graphic and symbolic.'

If that's easy-to-grasp information about data, please know that information can mean different things to different people.

'For a stockbroker, the fluctuating prices of shares are information. A librarian treats recorded knowledge as information. In telecommunication, the signals transmitted or received are essentially information.'

Yet, two things are essential in information, according to the author: It has to be perceived; and it has to be transmitted.

Then, what is knowledge? It is a synthesis of information contents received over time, explains Kamalavijayan.

Know that knowledge is an organised set of statements of facts or ideas presenting a logical result or judgment. And also that knowledge may or may not be transmitted; 'it is primarily meant for decision-making.' The omniscient may not be omni-talking or omni-mailing!

The author discusses how `seven properties' of information economics make it different from other branches of economics.

For instance, it is not a depletable resource, but a synergetic one, with value growing in the process of its use. While such perennial-ness isn't something that a miner can comprehend, let's move on to a different question: Can you measure information?
To answer this, the book draws insight from Claude Shannon's idea that a message is a string of symbols, and that information is the probability of these symbols being transmitted without distortion.

'The greater the information in a message, the lower is its randomness, or noisiness, and hence the smaller is its entropy,' says Kamalavijayan, citing www.slider.com, which pegs redundancy of English at 50 per cent, meaning 'half the elements used in writing or speaking are freely chosen, and the rest is required by the structure of the language.'

Redundancy is information in excess, and knowledge is `an extremely efficient information compression'.

Don't be contented with whatever you've learnt thus far, because there's `content' which the author describes as having two major attributes, viz. subject category and direction.

`Content management' aims at effectively collecting, managing and making information available in targeted publication.

A not-to-be-missed section of the book is on case studies. One case is about how knowledge management (KM) is practised in Infosys, as 'an institution-wide revolution'. Another is on Dr Reddy's strategy of `articulating knowledge'.

The author, however, cautions that KM defies a crisp definition. Nor is there consensus on what KM is, so Kamalavijayan explains first what KM is not."

NetDimensions Shakes Up LMS Market with Self-Installing, Fully-Featured LMS for $

2005-05-08T08:38:00.000+02:00

NetDimensions, a provider of global, enterprise-class learning management systems, today announced the availability of its newest LMS version to the U.S. market for $995, with no annual renewal charges. With the introduction of Enterprise Knowledge Platform (EKP) Bronze, NetDimensions offers companies deploying online training programs a fully- featured, multilingual LMS at a cost far below the average market cost.

"Our goal with this offer is to shake up the LMS market," said Jay Shaw, co-founder and CEO of NetDimensions. "Most LMSs are expensive to implement, customize, and maintain because they are based on outdated technology. EKP Bronze can be installed straight out of the box and configured for immediate use in less than a day. We know this all sounds too good to be true, but that's only because the market has such low expectations."

Recognized as one of the top-rated LMSs in overall customer satisfaction by Bersin & Associates, EKP is used by heavyweight multinational corporations such as HSBC, ING, ABN AMRO, and Cathay Pacific. "NetDimensions distinguished itself with the highest LMS customer loyalty of any vendor (none of its customers are even interested in switching) and very high ratings in ease of implementation," wrote Josh Bersin in the 2005 LMS Customer Satisfaction Study, a survey of the customers of 16 leading LMS vendors. "We expect them to grow rapidly in the U.S. market in 2005 and 2006."

All versions of the Enterprise Knowledge Platform offer a range of standard reports; data can be downloaded to Excel for further analysis and customized formatting. EKP is platform independent and will operate on Sybase, Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server databases. EKP is shipped with an MSDE-embedded database option. EKP users can quickly upload libraries of AICC- compliant and SCORM-conformant courses for launching, tracking, and management. EKP Bronze supports English and one additional language of the purchaser's choice.

"Based on transaction-server technology used for highly secure online banking systems, EKP is AICC compliant, SCORM certified, and 100-percent Java," said Ray Ruff, co-founder and CIO of NetDimensions. "In addition to being highly secure and easy to install, EKP has several other key technology advantages. Its component-based design means we can easily update and enhance the system, with no disruption on the user's side. EKP is also very easy to customize. In fact, most of our customers do the work themselves in days."

For $995, purchasers get a perpetual license for EKP Bronze supporting up to 3,000 learners. NetDimensions will honor an unconditional money-back guarantee up to 30 days from date of purchase. An annual support fee of $500 per year gives purchasers access to product updates and support services. Companies deciding to upgrade to other versions of EKP (unlimited EKP Bronze, EKP Silver or EKP Gold) can apply the $995 to the upgrade price.

For more information about EKP Bronze, including a detailed list of features and registration for NetDimensions' weekly product seminar, visit http://www.netdimensions.com/shop/outofthebox.php.

Squire, Sanders & Dempsey Upgrade to Hummingbird Enterprise(TM) for Legal to Deliver End-to-End Matter Lifecycle Management

2005-05-05T09:42:00.000+02:00

Squire, Sanders & Dempsey Upgrade to Hummingbird Enterprise(TM) for Legal to Deliver End-to-End Matter Lifecycle Management: "Hummingbird Ltd. (NASDAQ: HUMC,
TSX: HUM), a leading global provider of integrated enterprise content
management (ECM) solutions, today announced that global law firm Squire,
Sanders & Dempsey L.L.P. has selected Hummingbird Enterprise(TM) for Legal to
provide the firm's 1,500 lawyers and legal staff with an advanced content and
knowledge management platform for end-to-end matter lifecycle management. The
Hummingbird matter-centric solution will enable the firm to leverage its
intellectual assets and collective expertise by offering legal teams an easy
way to store, manage and share content and information amongst practice areas
and with clients."

PRESS RELEASE Kaidara Adds Educational Assessment Provider to Its Client Roster

2005-05-05T09:41:00.000+02:00

PRESS RELEASE Kaidara Adds Educational Assessment Provider to Its Client Roster: "Kaidara Software, Inc. today announced that
Pearson Educational Measurement (PEM), the largest comprehensive provider
of educational assessment solutions, has selected Kaidara's flagship
product, Kaidara Advisor, a Knowledge Management system, to
cost-effectively manage its product support service. With Kaidara Advisor,
PEM aims to increase customer satisfaction and employee productivity by
providing efficient customer support and service to the state and local
agencies, educators, and publishing companies its call center team
currently supports.
PEM's customer support team addresses complex, technical issues for a
variety of educational assessment products and services. PEM intends to
create an extensive knowledge base with Kaidara, enabling the customer
support team to leverage subject-matter experts to quickly resolve issues.
'Being responsive to customer inquiries and providing exceptional customer
service is a top priority for Pearson Educational Measurement,' stated
Darice Keating, vice president of program management for Pearson
Educational Measurement. 'Kaidara will be instrumental in enabling our
support team to leverage our vast knowledge base to rapidly address complex
questions and deliver the highest quality of service that sets us apart in
the marketplace.'
"

Informatics targets Rs.5 bn revenue in five years.

2005-05-05T09:40:00.000+02:00

Informatics targets Rs.5 bn revenue in five years:- - Business News - Webindia123.com: "nformatics, a leading technology firm in knowledge process management (KPM), has set a revenue target of Rs.5 billion in the next five years from the Rs.450 million that it posted in fiscal 2004-05.The Bangalore-based firm, which deals with content development and e-publishing services, foresees a big opportunity in content management, information aggregation and related areas, estimated to be a billion dollar industry in India.As a leading provider of knowledge management services to premier institutions and research establishments, Informatics plans to ramp up its headcount to 1,000 people by 2010 for expanding its operations and tapping the growing business potential. It currently has about 100 employees, with an additional 250 people operating from their respective homes.The company's workforce compiles, edits and consolidates information from different sources the world over to build knowledge products for its premier customers.'The storage of knowledge is moving rapidly from print to electronic medium. We are positioned to take advantage of our skill sets built over the years to address this change,' Informatics chairman and managing director N.V. Sathyanarayana told reporters here Wednesday. With its focus on aggregating space, the company is looking at developing content for the electronic as well as print media and using its core competencies for content distribution through online and digital formats for the local and global markets.'The knowledge process outsourcing services industry is about $1 billion in the sub-continent and is expected to grow to about $17 billion by 2010, employing 300,000 professionals in the next five years,' Sathyanarayana said.The company has launched a database of 12,000 e-journals providing access to several million journal articles. Users can access the information in real-time on an annual subscription basis.'We build local content that is licensed by global information companies such as Dialog (a Thomson company), Reuters, Dow Jones and FT Online. The content is also made available to Indian corporate and academic organisations, including market research, advertising and consulting companies,' Sathyanarayana said.According to neoIT, a leader in offshore advisory and management consultants, the aggregation market is part of the $200-billion global information market."

Interactive Intelligence Announces Desktop Client and e-Service Enhancements to its Contact Center Suite

2005-05-03T09:47:00.000+02:00

Interactive Intelligence Announces Desktop Client and e-Service Enhancements to its Contact Center Suite
: "nteractive Intelligence
Inc. (Nasdaq: ININ), a global developer of business communications software,
announced enhancements to its award-winning contact center suite -- Customer
Interaction Center(R) (CIC). The software upgrade provides broader desktop
client support through several new client interfaces, as well as the
introduction of enhanced Web self-service and e-mail response management
capabilities.
(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/19990914/IILOGO )
'Our latest client enhancements were designed for faster deployment,
simplified management, and more flexible and efficient communications,' said
Interactive Intelligence president and chief executive officer, Dr. Donald E.
Brown.
Long-recognized for its innovative design, the Interactive Intelligence
software includes multimedia routing and queuing, speech-enabled interactive
voice response, call recording, Web chat, and more, all offered as part of a
bundled communications application suite based on open standards and capable
of running on both traditional and voice over IP (VoIP) networks.
With this latest release, new options to CIC provide client integrations
for Microsoft Outlook(R), Microsoft CRM(R), and Microsoft Great Plains(R),
along with a new 'thin' client version called Interaction Client .NET Edition
for zero-effort deployment.
The new version of CIC also includes enhancements to its easy-to-use
knowledge management system, called e-FAQ(R), which offers automated responses
to e-mail and Web inquires. This functionality enables customers to reduce
costs by speeding self-service resolution in response to contact center
inquiries, thus freeing up agents' time to deal with more complex
interactions.
'The latest Interactive Intelligence feature enhancements help address
today's contact center needs by empowering customers to more rapidly respond
to industry trends such as the growing uptake of voice over IP, a rapidly
growing remote workforce, and the pressing need for cost-effective mid-market
contact center solutions,' said Blair Pleasant, president and principal
analyst with COMMfusion, a consulting and market research firm specializing in
voice/data convergence markets and technologies."

Former U.S. Army Chief of Staff, General Dennis J. Reimer, to Lead DFI Government Services

2005-05-01T19:33:00.000+02:00

Former U.S. Army Chief of Staff, General Dennis J. Reimer, to Lead DFI Government Services
: "DFI International announced today
that General Dennis J. Reimer, USA (Ret.) will join the organization as
president of its government services company. In his new role, General Reimer
will provide both strategic direction and daily operational leadership of a
premier provider of national security research, analysis, and knowledge
management services. Now celebrating its 20th anniversary, DFI International
supports clients within the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security, the
U.S. intelligence community, and in the private sector.
General Reimer served for the past five years as director of the National
Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism, a non-profit organization
in Oklahoma City founded to assist state, local, tribal, and national
jurisdictions in preparing for and preventing future acts of terrorism on U.S.
soil. Previously, General Reimer had served from 1995 to 1999 as the 33rd US
Army Chief of Staff."

Real-world agility

2005-05-01T19:32:00.000+02:00

MIS | Magazine > Real-world agility: "
In the real world, agility is a careful balance between institutionalised control and carefully choreographed redeployment.

Little wonder then that many executives see agility being achieved through specific decisions. Executives see agility achieved by creating independent business units to edge closer to key customers and markets.

Technologists see agility achieved through technologies such as Web services. Others see agility in mergers and acquisitions.

These views each have a grain of truth, but none captures the entirety of agility.

Enterprise agility is something you earn and build through your enterprise decisions and investments. There is no out-of-the-box agility despite what technology vendors and consultants say.

Agility is increased or decreased by management actions and attitudes. It is a characteristic that defines the quality of your enterprise, or how ready your organisation is to launch and support a new product. It is the ability to change when needed with cost and risk under control.

Agility's strategic value comes from its ability to support competitive advantage. Enterprises that can readily change without incurring unnecessary cost preserve their sources of competitive advantage. Because agility cannot be bought or sold, advantage attained through agility is sustainable over time. "

Innovative Arabic Language Translation Software Now Available to U.S. Government

2005-04-28T07:16:00.000+02:00

Innovative Arabic Language Translation Software Now Available to U.S. Government
: "Information
Manufacturing Corporation (IMC) has entered into a strategic agreement with
Sakhr Software USA, Inc. to help solve an urgent language problem for U.S.
government agencies. IMC is a West Virginia-based knowledge service
integrator. Sakhr Software USA is headquartered in Washington, DC.
Government agencies must sift through and organize millions of documents
in diverse formats to understand the nature of threats against the United
States. In countering terrorism, the government has had to rely almost
entirely on human translators to render Arabic language information into
English before it could be analyzed and mined for critical data. Human
translation is a long and arduous process. More recently, translation
software has helped to speed up the process, but translation errors and
inaccurate phraseology were inherent in software produced in the U.S. and
other non-Arabic language nations. With this strategic agreement Sakhr
Software USA and IMC are changing that. Sakhr Software USA is the U.S.
subsidiary of the Egyptian-based Sakhr Software, the leading information
technology software producer in the Arab world. Their Arabic-to-English
translation software, known as Sakhr, presents a unique advantage over other
translation software because it was designed linguistically with the Arabic
language at its core, allowing it to translate not only words but entire
phrases with far greater accuracy than has been possible in the past.
Through its partnership with Sakhr Software USA, Inc., IMC becomes the
exclusive U.S. producer and distributor of certified, trusted Sakhr Arabic
translation and information management software for U.S. government agencies.
Through a joint agreement, the Sakhr source codes will be deposited with IMC
and will be examined to ensure their integrity for broader use by the U.S.
government and then certified by IMC for 'trusted' distribution to key U.S.
government customers."

The Vitamin Shoppe Announces Strategic Learning Initiative: Enhances Training With ePath Learning ASAP

2005-04-27T20:04:00.001+02:00

The Vitamin Shoppe Announces Strategic Learning Initiative: Enhances Training With ePath Learning ASAP : "In an effort to create the
most knowledgeable associates in the industry, The Vitamin Shoppe, the leading
retailer and premiere authority of quality vitamins and nutritional
supplements, today announced that it has selected ePath Learning�, a leader
in the creation of browser-based learning technologies, as its universal
learning partner. Developed and delivered through ePath Learning ASAP SM,
this strategic learning initiative will result in the creation of Vitamin
Shoppe University, a web based, 'blended' learning environment for The Vitamin
Shoppe's product and customer interaction training, and will ensure that the
associates in all 250 existing stores, and 60 new locations are educated on
products that promote a healthy lifestyle and overall wellness."

Inxight Software and A.I. Tech Software Partner to Provide a Powerful, Intelligent CRM Experience

2005-04-27T20:04:00.000+02:00

Inxight Software and A.I. Tech Software Partner to Provide a Powerful, Intelligent CRM Experience: " A.I.
Tech Software, Inc., the leader in powerful intelligent relationship
management solutions made user-friendly via the integration of an innovative
and precise natural language (NLP) interface, and Inxight%uFFFD Software(TM),
Inc., the leading provider of enterprise software solutions for information
discovery, today announced that they have partnered to create a revolutionary
set of solutions designed to improve and enhance existing CRM, service and
support products."

DHS military spur IT growth

2005-04-19T17:23:00.000+02:00

DHS military spur IT growth: "The Homeland Security Department and the Pentagon are the main drivers behind federal IT spending growth, but systems integrators can still expect to see the Office of Management and Budget exerting pressure to control spending.

From 2005 to 2010, the federal IT budget will grow at an annual rate of 5.3 percent to $91.4 billion in fiscal 2010 from $70.7 billion in fiscal 2005, according to the market research firm Input Inc. of Reston, Va.

Of the $91.4 billion in 2010, $78.6 billion will go to contractors, compared to $59 billion in 2005, Input said. The contracted portion will grow at an annual clip of 5.9 percent.

The civilian IT budget will grow by 5.5 percent annually to $33.1 billion in fiscal 2010 from $25.4 billion in 2005. The defense IT budget will grow by 6.1 percent annually to $28.3 billion in 2010 from $21.1 billion.

DHS has been a primary recipient of budget increases since it's creation in 2003. The department will have $4.4 billion in contracted IT spending in fiscal 2005 and is projected to have $6.4 billion in 2010, although department spending will level off in fiscal 2007, Input said.
"

Benford’s Law—Information Analysis and Business Performance Management

2005-04-16T12:00:00.000+02:00

Benford’s Law—Information Analysis and Business Performance Management: "Sometimes what people perceive to be the truth is less than consistent with reality. In the business intelligence world, situations like these often present opportunities for discovery that lead directly to actionable knowledge. One example is a curious observation (in the 1920s) by a General Electric physicist named Frank Benford that led to his description of a counter-intuitive law of logarithmic sizes associated with numeric distributions. This law, which is now referred to as “Benford’s Law,” states that in data value sets with certain properties, there is a predictable, albeit, uneven distribution of the initial digits of numbers within the set. In other words, in some number distributions, if you analyzed the frequency of the leftmost digit of all the numbers, you are much more likely to find the digit ‘1’ than any other digit, followed by ‘2,’ then ‘3’,’ etc.

"

BioITWorld Events - Drug Safety Knowledge Management (US InterAction Meeting) - Events

2005-04-15T07:23:00.000+02:00

BioITWorld Events - Drug Safety Knowledge Management (US InterAction Meeting) - Events: "The focus program theme of Building the Drug Safety Body of Knowledge identifies strategies and methods required to meet the clinical, regulatory, legal, and commercial needs of pharmaceutical companies and healthcare organisations in the years to come."

Knowledge Management Solutions, Inc. Announces a Special Offer for THINQ Training Server(R) Clients

2005-04-06T07:10:00.000+02:00

PRESS RELEASE Knowledge Management Solutions, Inc. Announces a Special Offer for THINQ Training Server(R) Clients: "Knowledge Management Solutions, Inc. (KMSI), a leader in Web-Based Training and E-Learning Solutions, today announced its 'Corporate University - Today Program for THINQ Training Server� clients' special offer. This special offer lets corporations and Government agencies that have procured hosted learning management system services from THINQ Learning Solutions, Inc. migrate to KMx for as low as $6,330 per year!

Through July 31st, 2005, organizations that have procured hosted learning management services from THINQ Learning Solutions, Inc. can migrate to KMx and receive a significant discount. Other competitive products may also apply. Contact KMSI's sales office at (866) 501-5674 to confirm service qualification or to learn more about this special offer."

ATG Announces Significant Enhancements to Service Resolution Suite; ATG Forum, Updates to Customer Service and Support Solutions Further Augment Knowl

2005-04-05T07:15:00.001+02:00

ATG Announces Significant Enhancements to Service Resolution Suite; ATG Forum, Updates to Customer Service and Support Solutions Further Augment Knowledge-Based Service Resolution Capabilities: "ATG (Art Technology Group, Inc., NASDAQ: ARTG) the software provider behind the most consistent and relevant marketing, commerce, and service experiences, today announced continued enhancements to its service resolution capabilities including the addition of ATG Forum, a peer-to-peer support application designed to create and manage online communities. With ATG Forum, companies empower their customers to share answers, insights, and ideas; and in turn they are able to gain valuable insight regarding the interests, needs, and behaviors of their customers for use in future marketing and service campaigns. "

MIS | Magazine > Busting knowledge management myths

2005-04-05T07:15:00.000+02:00

MIS | Magazine > Busting knowledge management myths: "Knowledge management (KM) is not a new concept. It took shape as early as the 1980s, when companies developed mechanisms to gather feedback from customers and channel the information back to their marketing, sales and development units.

Still, few today understand the term. Josef Hofer-Alfeis, senior consultant at Siemens, debunks some common KM misundertandings.

Myth No 1: It's extremely hard to make people share
Knowledge is power. In the business world, it's often assumed that people don't want to give away valuable information. The truth is, people are willing to share if given good reasons.

'There must be an implicit understanding and explicit communication that KM will bring increased productivity for the individual involved and the organisation,' says Hofer-Alfeis. Incentives can also give the extra push.

At Siemens, employees are given points for sharing ideas and mentoring junior staff. The points can be exchanged for rewards such as sponsored trips to conferences and personal digital assistants (PDAs).

Employees whose ideas are adopted by others will also be recognised by their peers and upper management. 'Turf protection is not common at Siemens. Employees understand that the ability to execute is far more important than having a set of data,' he adds.

Myth No 2: Everything should be documented
Some people believe that KM is about filling up a central repository with expertise sucked from employees' heads. There will be no brain drain even if employees leave. 'This thinking is too one dimensional,' says Hofer-Alfeis. More advanced KM strategies recognise the limitations of documentation.

Tacit knowledge, for instance, can't be meaningfully captured. 'There are valuable things like networking and relationship building that can't be articulated in writing,' he notes.

Instead of betting every dollar on state-of-the-art systems to capture and archive static data that quickly become obsolete, Hofer-Alfeis suggests allocating some investments to foster networking within the organisation.

This will allow individual knowledge to be 'diffused' to a bigger pool of people. At Siemens, knowledge workers are organised into about 1,600 communities based on topics from contract management to Java programming.

Myth No 3: KM is the same as content management
Blame it on the vendors for sticking the KM label on every product from document management to e-mail systems. Content management is a big part of KM.

But having an intranet portal with pages of data is not all there is to it-especially when people are still calling on the human resource manager for the most basic information like leave entitlement.

The key is how the content is used. 'Confusion is the greatest barrier to KM,' says Hofer-Alfeis. 'In our case, we define KM as the capability for effective action by the individual or the organisation.'

Myth No 4: There's only one flavour of KM
One extreme is traditional leaders who hoard all information and monopolise decision-making. The other is a new management paradigm that forgoes ranks for communal, peer-based corporate leadership.

The greatest proponent of the latter approach is business consultant Jeff Nielsen, who wrote in his book The Myth of Leadership: 'Genuine communication will only occur among peers.'

Nielsen wrote that in a hierarchy, 'people will tell their superiors what they think they want to know.' Hofer-Alfeis, however, feels that there is no single solution to promote knowledge sharing within an organisation.

'It's not necessary to get rid of ranks. KM can still exist in various forms in different organisations. What KM does is provide a systematic approach to optimise knowledge flow.'

"

PRESS RELEASE Industry Leaders Showcase Best Practices for Knowledge Management and Self-Service Resolution at Kaidara Knowledge Management Forum

2005-04-01T08:39:00.000+02:00

PRESS RELEASE Industry Leaders Showcase Best Practices for Knowledge Management and Self-Service Resolution at Kaidara Knowledge Management Forum: "Kaidara Software, Inc. today announced the Kaidara Knowledge Management Forum, a case study showcase and unique opportunity to gain and share practical experience in deploying knowledge management solutions in technical support centers. This year's event takes place April 5-6, 2005, in Raleigh, North Carolina, and will showcase best practices and technical insights from customer support and service professionals at global leading organizations such as 3M, Cisco, DaimlerChrysler, Federal Express, Honda, Toro and many other North American and European companies. Michael Maoz, Vice President and Research Director for CRM and eBusiness at the Gartner Group, will present an overview on industry trends in the CRM and knowledge management markets, and Allen Bonde, president of the ABG Group, will moderate discussions."

The 5-step plan for global success!

2005-03-31T14:35:00.000+02:00

The 5-step plan for global success!: "The old, restricted view that you can start in your domestic market and then progressively expand, taking countries one by one, is completely obsolete. There's a new wave of managers and leaders who can quickly build a company and take that company global.

They start up in many countries at once, so that after twelve months the company has a balanced business in Europe, the United States and Asia.

Companies of all sizes and almost all industries are growing internationally. They know that success depends on serving clients worldwide. On access to the best ideas and leading talent. On finding the lowest costs of inputs.

Yet international growth is extremely difficult. The problem is not just the complexity of doing business abroad: local consumer habits, currency risks, government regulations, and cross cultural management. It is more fundamental.

In recent years, the process of international growth itself has changed. For decades, companies could expand in a slow, incremental manner, entering nearby countries and eventually expanding farther and farther away. That approach to international growth no longer works.

As Didier Benchimol, CEO of iMediation, says, a new wave of managers can build a global position quickly. iMeditation launched the company simultaneously in Germany, France, the United Kingdom and the United States.

How do such companies do it? Over the past four years, I have worked with dozens of growing firms in industries ranging from telecommunications to lodging, from packaging to software. I found that the best of them -- large companies like Accor, DHL and Cisco, as well as many smaller companies -- have built a new set of capabilities.

They do five things well:

*
They think strategically on a global basis;
*
They manage partnerships well, including acquisitions and alliances;
*
They build staff rapidly, both through expatriation and localisation;
*
They share expertise globally; and
*
They adapt their organisation design to support growth.

Let us look more closely at each one.

1. Strategic thinking: grasping the globe

The first necessary capability is mindset. It means thinking about strategy in a new way. For lots of companies, global strategy used to mean identifying the country to enter next. Great companies like Colgate-Palmolive, Matsushita and Danone expanded incrementally, one country at a time.

In each new market they performed roughly the same set of activities. Today, the best companies do not think one country at a time: they grasp the entire globe at once. They do not replicate their business model in each country, but look for the best way to spread their business system across the world.

They're guided by one broad question: How can I best reconfigure my business system on a global basis? They ask questions without regard to geography like:

* Where in the world shall we locate manufacturing?
* Where in the world shall we sell our products?
* Where in the world shall we hire talented managers?
* Where in the world shall we raise capital?
* Where in the world shall we procure our inputs?
* Where in the world shall we conduct research and product development?
*
Where in the world shall we locate customer service, data entry, and other labor intensive activities?

Questions like these lead in two directions. They lead to a dispersed business model, with different activities spread around the world, rather than a series of local clones.

They also lead to an emphasis on rapid growth, since a dispersed business model only works when all the pieces are in place -- meaning that you have to grow simultaneously rather than incrementally.

This sort of strategic thinking is only a starting point, of course, but it is the basis for everything that follows. Unless companies grasp opportunities on a global basis, they will never achieve rapid international growth.

2. Managing partners: acquisitions and alliances

Many excellent companies from the 1970s and 1980s, including Hewlett-Packard and Sony, expanded abroad mainly by setting up greenfields. Today, relying exclusively on that approach is too slow. Rapid international growth calls for partnerships, whether acquisitions or alliances.

Acquisitions are the fastest way to growth. Daimler Benz went from being the nineteenth largest automaker in 1992 to the third largest in 2000 thanks to acquisitions of Chrysler, then Mitsubishi, and next Hyundai.

Renault was limited to Europe until it bought Nissan and most recently Samsung. Acquisitions were the only way forward for Daimler Benz and Renault -- adding capacity in the auto industry would have been suicide.

In telecommunications, Vodafone grew rapidly through acquisitions including AirTouch and Mannesmann. Of course, finding an attractive takeover candidate is not enough, companies have to manage the integration process, capturing operational advantages and cultivating the skills and expertise of a new workforce.

Partnership management, not just financial acumen and analysis, are needed.

Alliances, non-equity alliances as well as joint ventures, are another way of building a global position rapidly. Alliance partners bring expertise about the local market, reach an established base of customers, and have connections with local stakeholders including government authorities, schools and universities, and more.

Alliances also help share costs and reduce the risk of foreign investment. Yet countless firms have discovered that making alliances work is tough. Some look at alliances as 'deals': they complete one deal, then move on to the next. But successful alliances are based on effective relationship building among partners.

They call for skilful negotiation and preparation; communication, trust building and conflict resolution; staffing and resource sharing during the alliance's formative stages and the ability to secure resources at later stages.

3. Rapid staffing: expatriation and localisation

The scarcest resources for companies expanding internationally are often human resources. A strong global position demands excellent local staff. Attracting and retaining outstanding talent is hard enough for a domestic company, but the challenges multiply when expanding abroad. The best companies have built two capabilities: expatriation and localisation.

Expatriation used to mean sending managers abroad on a long-term assignment. That approach is slow, wasteful and expensive. Today, many companies take a more fine-grained approach.

MTN, the South African mobile telephone network operator, entered three new African markets in 1998. Within days of receiving the license, MTN's human resource department determined the staffing needs in each new market.

Next, they met those needs with a combination of short-term technical visits, six month secondments, and a handful of two-year assignments. MTN made another smart move by creating a special pool of employees who were hired and trained with the expectation of going abroad. That way, MTN's domestic operation did not feel its employees were being poached.

Localisation means quickly bringing local citizens into responsible positions, making full use of their talent and also reducing the need for expatriates. Historically, firms are poor at localisation. They are stuck in a cycle of sending expatriates abroad, then replacing them with new expatriates.

Several years after entry, they still have expatriates in key slots -- expensive, demotivating and out of touch. Companies like Motorola and BOC Gas make a deliberate effort to localise management, either by hiring local managers from the outset, or by insisting that expatriates replace themselves with local managers.

4. Sharing knowledge globally

The best global companies excel at sharing knowledge. 'Knowledge management' and 'organisational learning' are nothing new, of course, but rapid international growth calls for two particular skills.

Entering many countries simultaneously means we cannot rely on individuals, posted in one country and then moving to another, to transfer expertise. Rapid entry means a systematic approach to start-ups. At DHL, for instance, a clear set of steps means that each new office is quickly and predictably put in place.

After entry, companies have to apply the experience of one market to others. New countries are sites of knowledge creation, and become sources of expertise for elsewhere. Already a large global firm, BP (formerly known as British Petroleum) continues to expand internationally, both upstream in oil and gas exploration (Angola, Azerbaijan, Algeria, Colombia) and downstream in petrol retailing (Central and Eastern Europe).

BP's chief executive, Sir John Browne, insists that each new action must benefit from acquired learning elsewhere in the world.

"In 1995, we spent 100 days on average drilling deepwater wells. [In 1997] we spent 42. How did we do it? By asking every time we drilled a deepwater well: What did we learn last time and how do we apply it next time? The key to reaping a big return is to leverage that knowledge by replicating it throughout the company so that each unit is not learning in isolation and reinventing the wheel again and again."

How does BP excel at sharing knowledge? Partly thanks to information technology -- in this case, a common operating environment (COE) that lets computers all over the world talk to each other. But that is not all.

BP also invests in information processes like user communities that allow employees facing common issues to share information immediately, and instills norms of open communication and sharing behavior among its employees worldwide.

5. Adapting organisation design: facilitating growth, not impeding it

As companies expand abroad, their organisations have to adapt. The wrong structure is like a straightjacket: it inhibits growth. As companies grow internationally, they often find their organisational or product line structure does not offer much support.

The solution is often a separate division, called the international division. But over time the international division may become counter-productive, separating domestic from international activities precisely when they need to be coordinated.

In fact, the more successful the international division becomes in stimulating growth abroad, the earlier it may need to be disbanded!

Becton-Dickinson, the US-based maker of medical and analytical devices, offers a good example. In the 1980s, when international revenues were 5% of the total revenues, Becton-Dickinson formed an international division to focus attention on its growing markets. By the 1990s, when international revenues had grown to 45% of the total, the international division had outlived its usefulness, and the company shifted to worldwide business lines.

Importantly, Becton-Dickinson monitored its strategic needs and amended its design to match the current needs. Failing to create an international division in the 1970s would have stifled growth in Europe and Asia; but failing to disband the division in the 1990s would similarly have impeded continuing growth.

The road forward: assessment and action

How can you develop these new capabilities for international growth? By implementing the following three steps:

a. Are all five capabilities important to us? To begin, be clear that all five steps are important to you. If you rely mainly on greenfield entry, partnership capabilities may at least for now be less important. If you have recently designed your organisation to support rapid growth, you may conclude that organisational issues are not pressing.

But most companies will conclude that each of these capabilities is vital for rapid international growth -- if not right away, then in the near future -- and that they deserve attention.

b. How good are we today? Next, assess your present level of each capability. Where are you strong? Where is improvement most needed? For example, are you able to staff with a combination of expatriates, but reluctant to turn the reins over to local management? Does your organisation structure prevent you from coordinating product lines on a global basis, or from serving customers globally?

There is no magical diagnostic instrument. Managers simply have to take the time to assess where they need to improve -- and have the courage to realize where they come up short.

c. What should we do differently? Once you have identified your priorities, you can take action. But none of these capabilities will happen automatically -- they will require focused effort.

Sometimes the breakthrough comes as soon as you recognize the weakness. I know a European firm that claims it wants to grow through alliances, but has a dismal record.

On reflection, managers concluded they were not giving enough importance to managing relationships, and were avoiding important discussions rather than working together constructively. They changed course right away, assigning a different mix of managers to negotiate alliances, placing greater emphasis on communication, and measuring alliance performance along 'soft' as well as 'hard' dimensions.

For other firms, improvement comes from looking outside the firm for best practices. Studying what the best companies do about, say, expatriation and localisation, is a good way forward.

Are these five capabilities a ready formula for growth? Of course not!

No company can build a strong global position by just following a fixed set of steps. Flexibility, pragmatism, and persistence are vital. But as a way to focus efforts on a few major priorities, and as a way to underscore that old traditional approaches are not enough, these five capabilities are an excellent way to pursue international growth.

Philip Rosenzweig is Professor of Strategy and International Management at IMD (International Institute for Management Development). He was formerly with Harvard Business School.

"

Talisma Acquires KnowledgeBase.net

2005-03-31T14:33:00.000+02:00

Talisma Acquires KnowledgeBase.net: "Talisma(TM), a leading provider of Multi-channel CRM solutions, today announced the acquisition of KnowledgeBase.net, a market-leading provider of hosted and on-site Knowledge Management (KM) software for Customer Support and Self-service. Talisma will incorporate KnowledgeBase.net's technology, intellectual property, and customer base into its operations, fueling its strategy of organic and acquisition-based growth. The acquisition is the culmination of over eighteen months of technology, product, and business collaboration between the two companies and has already resulted in several product and service offerings. The acquisition of KnowledgeBase.net will further enhance Talisma's award-winning suite of CRM solutions and strengthen Talisma's position in the fast growing Customer Interaction Management (CIM) segment of the CRM market.
"

Deborah Elizabeth Finn: In the nonprofit sector, we need better knowledge management...of our knowledge management

2005-03-29T09:44:00.000+02:00

Deborah Elizabeth Finn: In the nonprofit sector, we need better knowledge management...of our knowledge management: "In the nonprofit sector these days, we certainly have a better class of knowledge management problems.

Only a decade ago, there was little in the way consolidation of information (or wisdom!) pertaining to how technology could be used to support, document, analyze, and expand our programmatic goals.

Now, we are experiencing a proliferation - not only of technology resources for programmatic goals, but of collaborative efforts to manage this knowledge (and wisdom!) in various ways that are easily accessible to those that need it.

We may have more knowledge than we can easily find, classify, or absorb - but that is certainly a better problem than a dearth of knowledge.

In addition to TechSoup (a definitive web site), TechFinder (a searchable database), the Del.icio.us nptech Tagging Project (a folksonomy), the N-TEN 501 TechClubs (regional face-to-face gatherings), the Information Systems Forum (an email distribution list), CompuMentor has launched a very promising new project: ConsultantCommons.Org.

Here's the official mission of ConsultantCommons.Org:

ConsultantCommons.org provides an online collaboration space and community for non-profit technical assistance providers to collaboratively build and share knowledge. "

Knowledge Management Doesn't Come in a Box

2005-03-29T09:43:00.000+02:00

Knowledge Management Doesn't Come in a Box: "in day-to-day life, there are many examples of how components can be interconnected to create a desired solution. Although Apple Computer has now hidden the computer inside the monitor, there is still a host of external components that will likely come together before a basic desktop configuration is complete. Along the same lines, a home entertainment center that includes a TV, multimedia receiver, VCR, CD/DVD player and speakers is im-practical and generally not available as one all-inclusive unit because the cost would be relatively high and odds are that one or more of the component parts would not be exactly what you were looking for."

Improved data dealing drives drug discovery

2005-03-23T07:20:00.000+01:00

Improved data dealing drives drug discovery: "Drug research and development is facing a major problem with the sheer influx of data generated, which threatens to further slow down productivity, if its management and interpretation is not efficiently dealt with.

That was the verdict from Sheryl Torr-Brown, worldwide safety sciences for Pfizer Global R&D, who was speaking at the Drug Discovery Technology Europe conference in London this week. Her concerns stemmed from the idea that pharmaceutical companies were not fully extracting and understanding relationships between genes and diseases or compounds and side effects - the fundamental essence in drug discovery."

Knova Software Formed by Merger of ServiceWare and Kanisa; New Powerhouse in Customer Service Software Sets Standard for Service Resolution Management

2005-03-22T13:47:00.000+01:00

Knova Software Formed by Merger of ServiceWare and Kanisa; New Powerhouse in Customer Service Software Sets Standard for Service Resolution Management: "Knova Software(TM) (OTCBB:SVWN), today launched its new identity, following the merger of ServiceWare Technologies, a respected industry veteran in Knowledge Management (KM) for customer support, and Kanisa, the technology pioneer of Service Resolution Management (SRM). The merger closed in early February, forming the new combined entity, a leader in Service Resolution Management.

The combined company is widely recognized for combining powerful search and KM technologies with rich customer service applications and true business process support. By automating the service resolution process across multiple channels, Knova applications reduce service costs and increase revenues through improved customer satisfaction. More than 170 market leaders including Cingular, EDS, Ford, HP, H&R Block, Novell, Merrill Lynch, McAfee, Reuters, and QUALCOMM rely on Knova's award-winning solutions to deliver first-rate customer service.

'The creation of Knova Software through the merger of ServiceWare and Kanisa is a win for the company, its stockholders and its customers. Knova is a perfect example where the combination of two market leaders is far greater than the sum of their parts,' said Mitch Kramer, senior analyst for Patricia Seybold Group. 'With rich and flexible content, adaptive and self-learning search technologies, and strong navigation and business process support, Knova has an attractive suite of cross-channel customer service applications that can help customers answer questions and diagnose, report, and resolve problems. These product strengths, combined with a large customer base and good financial performance, position Knova for success.'

'Our experience working with the world's leading customer service and IT organizations has confirmed that true business solutions, not tools and point technologies, are required to deliver excellent assisted-service, self-service, and collaborative-support,' said Bruce Armstrong, president and CEO of Knova Software. 'Our new name reflects the company's strength in knowledge management and search technologies, while conveying innovation, growth, and strength. Knova's comprehensive application suite for SRM is the choice of industry leaders because it enables world-class customer service and support.'

Built on a next-generation search and knowledge management platform, Knova's suite of customer service applications automate the resolution process across multiple channels including contact centers, help desks, email, communities, and self-service sites. Regardless of where information resides, Knova empowers customer service agents and end users with universal knowledge access, rich application capabilities, and personalized, guided resolution processes. Knova's product highlights include:

-- The highest-ranking solution in Web self-service according to Gartner

-- A powerful natural language processing (NLP) search engine ranked by Gartner as 'Visionary' in its Enterprise Search Magic Quadrant

-- The first integrated suite of collaborative support applications for agent-assisted service, self-service, and peer-service communities

-- The Cognitive Processor(R), a patented self-learning, self-organizing knowledge management technology

-- The Resolution Flow business process engine that integrates all applications to guide users step by step through the optimal resolution process

-- A strong patent portfolio for KM and search technologies

'In order to exceed expectations in today's customer service and support environments, organizations must provide KM as part of a comprehensive service resolution framework,' commented Liz Roche, vice president, META Group. 'Customer service and support organizations are best served by technology solutions that combine industry-leading technologies, comprehensive applications and providers with impressive customer bases. Knova Software certainly fits this criteria.'

Knova6, Knova's award-winning application suite is built on a next-generation search and knowledge management platform. Knova6 applications include:

-- Knova Contact Center: An assisted-service application that automates the resolution process for customer service agents and support analysts

-- Knova Self-Service: A next-generation self-service application that enables customers to help themselves with a personalized, proactive self-service experience

-- Knova Service Desk: A robust knowledge management solution that empowers service desks to quickly resolve problems and questions

-- Knova Forums: An integrated forums application for peer-service that enables customers to help each other while providing valuable feedback

"

PRESS RELEASE Alcoa Streamlines Collaboration and Knowledge Management With PLM Solutions From IBM and Dassault Syst�mes

2005-03-22T13:46:00.000+01:00

PRESS RELEASE Alcoa Streamlines Collaboration and Knowledge Management With PLM Solutions From IBM and Dassault Syst�mes: "IBM and Dassault Syst�mes (NASDAQ: DASTY) (Euronext Paris: #13065, DSY.PA) today announced that Alcoa has chosen their Product Lifecycle Management solutions (PLM) to improve collaboration efficiency and increase integration between engineering and production. Alcoa will be presenting its collaborative facilities management solution at the COE Annual Users Conference in Phoenix this week.

Alcoa is a leading producer and manager of aluminum products and components. The supplier is active in the aerospace, commercial transportation and automotive industry, among others. It has experienced the benefits of SMARTEAM in two of its subsidiaries.

Alcoa's capital engineering for Cleveland Works deployed SMARTEAM for facilities management across four locations. The company is meeting the global challenges of a distributed enterprise by streamlining change management and providing unified access to the more than 60,000 AutoCAD and TIF drawings of presses, buildings, and support systems at its 30-acre Cleveland site, as well as at production sites in Virginia, Hungary, and Mexico.

'Setting up an enterprise PLM system will allow us to expand our capabilities,' said Dora Tripp, system administrator, Design Engineering Services, Alcoa Cleveland. 'SMARTEAM's flexible data model has enabled us to build a complex, scalable knowledge structure for accessing and collaborating with in our organization.'

In a successful two-year pilot program, the other subsidiary, Alcoa Wheel Products' Commercial Vehicle Wheel Division -- which serves the Class 8 truck and automotive OEM industries -- implemented SMARTEAM to vault and manage all its CATIA V5 product design data. Upon a successful production launch, the solution will be extended by introducing more optimized processes across additional locations, including multi-CAD legacy data, CATIA V4, SolidWorks and Pro/ENGINEER�, and achieving gateway interconnectivity with the company's ERP system."

Knowledge Management in action

2005-03-18T08:24:00.000+01:00

Knowledge Management in action

In order to drive a project effectively, project managers must have all the specialized IT tools and documents at their disposal—from project plans and sample deliverables, to intermediate notes and communications, to the most updated methodologies and templates. Knowledge Management (KM) is the business process that captures and manages the collective experience and work knowledge of an organization and forms a repository (or knowledge base) that is accessible to the other workers in the company. There are obvious performance enhancements and efficiencies to be gained by implementing KM in the enterprise, but not all companies are ready to take the plunge. However, we found one project manager who got behind KM and was able to sell the idea successfully to his company. Find out how he implemented the KM system and was able to encourage its adoption and use.
Identifying the issue and getting decision makers to sign on

When senior project manager Josh Brose of Woburn, MA-IT firm Collaborative Consulting (http://www.collaborative.ws/) started his job three years ago, his new employer didn't have KM. Brose realized in the first week of work what a benefit a KM solution would be for project managers and the company as a whole when he was charged with creating an integration testing strategy for a client, something he'd never done in his career.

"You know, at a consulting firm, you're selling the fact that you're going to bring in a consultant who knows how to do this," says Brose. "And so here I am, I'm put in a project and I need to figure out how I'm going to present a testing strategy."

He started asking around the company for people who had built an integration testing strategy before, and in a little over a week, he was able to find a document that got him about 75 percent of the way, enabling him to present the deliverable to the client.

"We just scored huge bonus points with the client," says Brose about the ability to turn a complicated task around in short order. However, the challenges of finding the right document made him realize the large gap Collaborative Consulting had at the time, in terms of being able to be easily share documents.

"We're all doing our own thing and there was no real consolidated point to share information," says Brose. Instead, workers continually had to reinvent the wheel.

The experience helped him advocate for a KM solution at his consulting firm, which resulted in the formation of a working committee, and eventually a product selection and roll-out to the enterprise.

The company created a committee of eight people, including Brose, senior people from the company's various business units, an analyst, and perhaps most importantly, the Operations Director, whose presence helped to ensure that people would take the project seriously.

After defining requirements, by 2003 the committee had selected low-end KM products from Jive Software (www.jivesoftware.com),an open source java development company whose core products include Jive Forum and Jive Knowledge Base, both of which Collaborative Consulting purchased for around $10,000. The goal was to create a KM solution that could be accessible through a browser-based secure area, and be a repository for information and online dialogues, categorized and available in keyword searches.

Brose himself installed the server-side application, and in about two weeks set up the taxonomy, or information structure within the information repository.

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The next challenge was getting people, including the PMs at Collaborative Consulting, to start loading documents into the KM system.

"We were starting from scratch; we didn't have a repository of documents," says Brose. "We didn't have a server out there with just a 1,000 documents waiting for KM." Instead, thousands of documents resided on desktops, laptops, and in information silos across the company's distributed workforce. "They were just everywhere," he says.

Brose wanted to get employees to load documents into the system, so he provided employees incentives (company branded leather binders, sweatshirts, and golf shirts) for loading up the KM system with their documents.

But Brose also wanted to give employees a reason to use the system immediately. He gave them what they used all the time to build proposals and project teams—the company's internal resumes, which lists competencies and skills of every worker. He figured that the wide availability of this common resource would help with system uptake.

"As a project manager, if I'm looking for people on a project, I'll go out there and scan the different people I know to see who I could pull onto a project," says Brose. "We moved all of the files onto the knowledge management system and that was our first step to getting people to use it."

Brose continues to provide incentives for people to load documents into the KM system, monitoring uploads and usage in order to recognize those employees who are helping the KM grow. He has also published their success stories with using the KM system.

"If they were able to go to the knowledge base, find an example of [a document that could help them], use it, and put together a deliverable for the new client—saving half the time or a quarter of the time, that's something I try to capture and publish," says Brose.
Ongoing enhancements

Brose plans to continue enhancing the KM system over time, making it more prominent in the work activities of PMs and other employees by merging the company's intranet with the KM system. This way, remote employees will log into a single place to check their e-mail, as well as access the company's time-reporting system, expense reports, and information about company-sponsored health benefits and investments.

"It'll be much more in front of people all the time," says Brose.

With less success, Brose has tried to set up project areas for project managers within the KM system. But largely due to logistical barriers with information sharing among PMs who work at client sites, project-based knowledge sharing areas haven't been heavily used.

"We're always so integrated with the client and right now we don't have it set up so that the client can come into our environment," notes Brose.

But despite the ongoing refinements to the system and the occasional challenges, Brose says it has been a big success for the company.

Surprisingly, though, the biggest issue with rolling out KM to project managers and others hasn't been a technological hurdle. It's been a people issue.

"How do you get people to buy into this, how do you drive people to use this, and how do you make it so they can see the value of it," says Brose. "They have to see the value of it on day one, or they'll stop using it, and they'll never come back.

"Once people get into it I think they'll find it very useful," says Brose. "It's very easy to find documents. The information is there. It's just making it as simple as possible so there's not a single reason not to use it."

Eedo's ForceTen to Power American Management Association Strategic Learning Initiative

2005-03-18T08:17:00.000+01:00

Eedo's ForceTen to Power American Management Association Strategic Learning Initiative: "Eedo Knowledgeware (http://www.eedo.com) announced today that the American Management Association (http://www.amanet.org), the world's leading membership-based business and management education organization, has selected Eedo's award winning LCMS as the platform of choice for launching its Blended Learning initiative to support both open enrollment and on-site learning and development programs. The American Management Association (AMA) will be utilizing Eedo's ForceTen authoring, assessment, content management and knowledge sharing platform to dramatically increase the value and effectiveness of their instructor-led programs. AMA currently offers over 175 different skills and behavior development programs, spanning 14 different business curricula, and available in over 100 cities around the world as well as on corporate client sites. Eedo's solution will support a suite of web-based content and assessments designed to align the learner's needs, expectations and preparation prior to the AMA classroom experience, and provide a post-seminar set of resources to allow for ongoing learning and application of their newly acquired knowledge or skill. Assessments, supplemental course content, communities of practice and other resources for the learner as well as 'performance support and application tools' to align employee and manager expectations and assist in applying learning in the workplace will all reinforce AMA's experiential model to the benefit of both the learner and manager. Utilizing Eedo's ForceTen, AMA can deliver an innovative technology-based continuous learning program that leverages the state of the art learning content management from Eedo with world class content and instruction offered by AMA to help students effectively achieve their learning goals. 'It was clear to us that Eedo's solution was the perfect fit for our needs,' commented Nicholas Igneri, AMA's Director of Learning Technologies. 'We selected Eedo as our partner not only for the quality and vision of the ForceTen platform, but for their insight and attention to overall customer experience.' 'To have AMA, one of the world's largest professional development organizations, select ForceTen to drive their business, validates both our vision and products,' said John Hudson, President and CEO of Eedo. 'We are delighted to welcome AMA as a new customer. And look forward to working with them to grow their business.'"

JCube and KnowledgeBroker, Inc. Announce Strategic Partnership

2005-03-10T08:56:00.000+01:00

JCube and KnowledgeBroker, Inc. Announce Strategic Partnership: "JCube, a leading provider of Workplace Management software and services, and KnowledgeBroker, Inc. (KBI) today announced a strategic partnership which will bundle KBI's knowledge content and tools with JCube services and support. This will allow Peregrine's ServiceCenter, Get-Service and Get-Answers customers to streamline operations and dramatically increase productivity for help desk personnel and end users, thereby reducing operational costs."

Protection through Information: New Tool Assists EPA with Knowledge Management - Articles

2005-03-08T08:48:00.000+01:00

Protection through Information: New Tool Assists EPA with Knowledge Management - Articles
Protecting the public from environmental dangers is a time-consuming and expensive endeavor, but the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) now has a powerful tool to effectively manage data on hazardous waste sites. The EPA’s Knowledge Management Application (EPAKMA) will cut costs and streamline the information collected by the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), commonly referred to as the Superfund program.

Enacted in December 1980, the Superfund program taxes chemical and petroleum industries. The tax money collected under the act is used for the clean-up of uncontrolled or abandoned hazardous waste sites. If no person or party is found liable for the hazardous waste identified, money from the Superfund program is allocated for the clean-up of the site.

The EPA is required to follow a standard set of procedures under the Superfund program to determine whether a site contains contaminants that are at a high enough concentration to warrant action by the agency. If contaminants are suspected at a site, the EPA is required to follow a remediation process to determine appropriate action.

The Superfund program and its requirements have resulted in the generation of a large amount of data that is frequently referred to and used during the site evaluation process. The data is stored in three different locations:

* the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Information System (CERCLIS) database, a database that contains all data collected on a particular site;
* the Federal Facilities Agreement Commitment Tracking Report (FFACTR), a bi-monthly report that provides the current status of documents under review for a particular region; and
* annual site management plans, non-standard reports that are generated by regional project managers to illustrate progress at a specific site and are updated on an annual basis.

Mechanical computer-aided design | Product lifecycle management | e-learning

2005-03-08T08:44:00.000+01:00

Mechanical computer-aided design | Product lifecycle management | e-learning
Virtual Services, Inc. and Cadpo announced a strategic partnership to provide automotive MCAD/PLM (mechanical computer-aided design/product lifecycle management) training to OEMs and suppliers in Michigan. The companies’ combined programs will impact the automotive industry with lower cost e-learning and blended learning offerings, as well as productivity-enhancing best practice training.

Virtual Services provides engineering solutions and support services to suppliers of BMW, DaimlerChrysler, Ford, General Motors, Honda, Hyundai, Nissan and Toyota. Cadpo provides engineering knowledge through i.get.it® – the only multi-application e-learning system in the MCAD/PLM market.

Virtual Services has adopted Cadpo’s i.get.it Knowledge Management system as its strategic platform for delivering engineering knowledge to its clients both in the classroom and over the web for self-paced learning. Virtual Services and Cadpo are currently collaborating on content to offer the i.get.it CATIA V5 Automotive Edition, which will be available March 1, 2005.

Three things about knowledge management

2005-03-07T09:15:00.000+01:00

FOR many, the main commodity they can trade is knowledge. Our value is based on what and who we know, rather than what we are able to produce. Increasingly we are responsible for acquiring and updating our own knowledge rather than relying on an employer to provide it. If you do something well — better than anyone you work with — there's a dilemma. Should you enable others to match your standard of performance, or keep it all to yourself to safeguard your superiority?

Share and enjoy: Sharing expertise refines and extends it. In an ideal setting it should enhance rather than diminish your position. Giving away what you know is fine if there's some reward and a strong possibility the beneficiaries will keep coming back to you for more. You are unlikely to ever transfer all you know to those you are helping. Providing others with an insight into the complexity and possibilities of you subject can help you create a niche as the expert.

Your terms: Be cautious if you work in a setting where people are treated as short-term assets. Knowledge is power and it is foolish to weaken your position while contributing to the greater glory of ruthless. Hoarding information can give you leverage, but at a price. It can trap you in the position of carrying excessive responsibility without backup. Concealing what you know is frustrating. Find an employer who inspires you to celebrate rather than hide your capabilities.

Virtual learning

DEVELOPING your listening skills can enhance your relationships with colleagues and clients. By listening attentively you can show that you value someone's opinion and it helps to build a more harmonious working environment. There are several ways to show that you are listening to someone:

Using eye contact: If you look at the speaker as opposed to focusing on different places in the room they will feel that you are interested in what they are saying.

Acknowledging: By nodding and smiling in appropriate places you can show that you are listening. Asking relevant questions will also show that you are keeping pace with the conversation and are interested in finding out more.

Taking notes: But it is important that note-taking does not get in the way of maintaining eye contact.

Reflecting: Reflecting on what a person has said, or how they may feel about the subject shows that you are listening both to he conversation and also the point of the conversation.

Listening can be either passive or active. Each is useful, but you need to work out which process will work best for you depending on he circumstance. Active listening involves you listening, questioning and summarising. Passive listening involves you listening quietly but with some appropriate non-verbal or verbal encouragement.

Often, the best method of listening involves passive listening interspersed with some summary and reflection, and some appropriate questions. So long as you make the person talking feel that you have taken on board their comments and listened and absorbed their points of view, they will feel valued. Next time you have in a conversation with someone, see if you can switch off all the distractions that might be going on around you. You could also ask someone you trust for feedback on your listening capabilities.

How to be a chairman

I HAVE been asked to chair a meting for the first time — how do I do this effectively?

Capitalise on your experience. It does not matter that you have never chaired a meeting before, you will no doubt have sat through plenty. Think back to ones that went well and ones that dragged on and achieved nothing. List the things that pleased or annoyed you. Well-run meetings stick to the point, get things decided and finish on time. Make sure everyone has the agenda and supporting information well in advance. Ensure you are familiar with the issues to be discussed.

If you know those who will be attending, think about how they will respond to any controversial items and devise a rough strategy for managing difficulties. If some or all of the participants are new, do a bit of detective work for them. Allow time for introductions at the start if the group includes people who do not know each other. Keep things moving by not letting discussions stray from the point or become over long. Get decisions made and recorded. If a colleague has difficulty in agreeing with the majority, offer to continue the conversation personally at a more appropriate time.

For meetings of more than an hour include a break halfway though. This acts as a marker and stops people fidgeting. Do not skimp on refreshments, people are always left with a favourable impression if they are well fed. As much as you can, try to leave everyone feeling they have had their say. And to secure lasting gratitude and popularity, try finishing early.

How to leave a job

DO NOT make assumption: When you get a new job, the last thing most of us think about is the prospect that we may end up back where we started with our original employer. But you shouldn't rule it out. Companies go bust and people get made redundant all the time. You should never assume this would not happen to you. So make sure that you do not leave under a cloud. It is always useful to know you have something to fall back on.

Watch what you say: If you have a leaving party and are called on to make a speech, or even if you just say your goodbyes privately to colleagues, make sure you never say anything negative about the company or any employees. It will make people who still work there feel uncomfortable and can make you look bitter and ungrateful. Far better to say you have enjoyed your time with the company very much but sadly the time has come to move on.

Do not be slack: However much it may be tempting to dash off any work you do in the last few days before you leave, remember that it will be the last impression you make. And should circumstances dictate that you return to your old position, you do not want to feel embarrassed or guilty about work you have completed previously. Not making an effort could ruin any chances of promotion if you end up back with the company.

Back to the beginning: If you do end up in your old position, try not to think of it as a step back. Take stock of your role and think of how you can approach it in a new way. Re-evaluate your job specification and update it if need be. Remember that you wanted to move on originally, but things didn't work out. Therefore try and move on in a different way, and do your best to get promoted.

Take advantage: You can use your time away from the company as a positive tool. Make your colleagues aware that you can approach things with a fresh viewpoint, and you can even mention how things were done in the other company if you think they may be useful. Be careful how you phrase this though, you do not want people to think you are suggesting that their methods are inferior.

Learn from last time: Presumably there will be some issues which made you want to find a new job in the first place. Think about ways in which you can put these right. If there were aspects of your job that you found hard to deal with, or methods you did not agree with, try and tackle these immediately. If you do not do everything possible to make yourself comfortable with returning to your old job, you may end up resentful. If you put things right, you can enjoy a fulfilling role and begin to take steps towards a promotion.

(Edited extracts from student accountant, a journal of ACCA, London. www.accaglobal.com)

Knowledge Management: Aiming For Better Insight Into Clients

2005-03-05T08:35:00.000+01:00

Automating customer info allows banks and brokers such as Raymond James and ING Belgium to analyze data at a higher level, which aids in service and marketing

By Shane Kite

More banks and brokers are tapping knowledge management to understand their businesses and customers, whether it's in tailoring marketing campaigns for specific segments or to comply with reporting requirements.

After automating and centralizing core customer information, many banks are taking the next step and installing overlay applications to analyze the reams of data that they've managed to digitize. Providing desktop access to the information gives senior management, financial advisors and customer service representatives descriptive, electronic views of historical transactional and general account data.

Raymond James, for instance, is using Boise, ID-based ProClarity's Analytics Platform to analyze all of its customer assets and revenue streams. The application acts as a front-end to Microsoft's OLAP or multidimensional "cube-based" database. As opposed to a regular relational database with indexes and separate tables, OLAP technology pre-aggregates information and builds complex data structures or multi-dimensional indexes for varied analysis.

The ProClarity platform acts as an interface to slice and dice information using any field as an index. "It's different from traditional reporting," says Jay Bentley, vp of IT and strategic development at Raymond James. "There are lots of Web reporters out there that can look at a database but this lets you take and move any column over and make it an index to drill into analytical situations."

The St. Petersburg, FL-based broker is rolling out the application to its 5,000 financial advisors, as well as to regional and senior managers. Advisors access a Web-based version securely through a Virtual Private Network app. Management uses a more powerful, desktop-based analytics engine secured by VPN hardware.

Marketers, analysts, and senior management use the tool to structure sales efforts around specific demographic details and product holdings. Financial advisors with 300 or 400 accounts can cull the same customer demographics, or a regional manager can look at statistics of all the branches in one area."We had a lot of good transactional systems that let them look at a customer in a household at an individual level, but this really lets them analyze all of their customers," Bentley says.

While the rollout continued at press time, the application had already enabled a fixed-income sales effort molded during testing of the system last year among the broker's high-net worth segment. "Wealth management is obviously a big focus these days," says Carole Torreano, vp of IT at Raymond James. "This allows us to focus on particular products, such as fixed income, which those people tend to purchase."

Says Bentley: "You can say 'show me all of the people that are older than 65 that hold mutual funds,' and then of those, you want to know which ones have a net worth of $1 million or more. All of the fields become ways for you to group and filter the data."

According to ProClarity CFO Phil Bradley, banks are using knowledge management or business intelligence (BI) solutions primarily "to understand which of their customers and products are profitable and which ones aren't, but also for portfolio risk management, where they have concentrations of assets that may give rise to unusual risks."

Banks are applying BI platforms to both sell and manage risk. Uses include everything from scenario-planning to assess whether a consolidation makes sense, to project performance measurement on specific sales efforts.

BI efforts in risk analysis and financial reporting have risen as regulatory scrutiny has increased. "There's a whole corporate risk, performance management, risk-regulation area that's created the need for more accurate and timely decision-making," says Gartner analyst Mary Knox. "Regulations like Sox [Sarbanes-Oxley] and Basel II are really making people look at how they are structuring data. We see a renewed interest in data quality as a result."

According to Gartner's "Magic Quadrant" study on BI solutions, released last year, pure-play BI providers include MicroStrategy, Applix, arcplan and ProClarity. Some major enterprise platform vendors have begun to sell their own knowledge management applications, the study says, such as SAS, Hyperion Solutions, Oracle and SAP.

Document automation for some banks has enabled better risk management and auditing that is in turn boosting customer service. ING Belgium, for instance, is using Clearstory's Radiant Business Document Server (formerly called ESP+) and Radiant Document Imaging to electronically archive all of its records and images, including brand graphics. Video and audio files may be next, according to Jean-Paul Hainaux, a technical leader at ING in Brussels.

Implementing the solution has cut down on the time that is required to search and access content, he says, and enabled the broker to offer new on-line services to customers. ING clients can now access a historical library of their account statements back to January 1997 from a single interface. Both cashier and customer can view the statement on-line or via the network.

"This is of high value if a customer is audited or is refinancing," Hainaux says. "This way our help desk employees can electronically view the same document as the paper document received by the customer, so when clients call the help desk all of their documents are instantly available to the person taking their call."

Such statements have traditionally been stored on microfiche. Finding, printing and mailing such documents remains a costly and time-consuming process for many banks.

The ING unit is also using the platform to archive historical data for journal or general ledger accounting, as well as for other storage mandated by the legal and compliance department, such as for credit contracts, mortgages and human resource documents. Transaction logs are also archived for ATM banking. The system stores a journal for transactions at every cash machine.

Via its Radiant suite, Westborough, MA-based Clearstory also enables the digital validation of client signatures. The signature is scanned, archived in the system, and then made available among departments and branches throughout the network. "This allows our clients to go to any location for service because we can authenticate them everywhere," Hainaux says.

Solutions like Radiant from ClearStory competes primarily with the other document imaging and archiving providers, such as 1mage, FileNet and Scansoft.

Wilmington Trust uses Clearstory's product for archiving its mainframe legacy reports on disk and optical disk-based storage mediums. The Wilmington, DE-based institution had previously been transferring documents to microfiche, or simply printing hard copies. Now users view reports through either a Web interface or a "thick-client" desktop solution.

"We're saving a ton of paper," says Ed Olkowski, data center manager at Wilmington Trust.

The firm uses a digital annotation feature offered in the system-like an electronic sticky note-to confirm reviews of daily reports for auditing control and compliance. "That's being heavily used, especially with regulations like Sarb-Ox," Olkowski says.

Digitizing Wilmington's reporting environment has had another benefit, he says: better security. "If you're putting that report out onto a secure database structure or file, you can determine who can look at that and who cannot. There's also no worry about leaving a pack of microfiche somewhere that somebody could just put in their pocket and walk away with."

Business Intelligence and Negative Discovery

2005-03-04T07:23:00.000+01:00

by Dr. Ramon C. Barquin

In high school geometry we referred to it as “reductio ad absurdum.” This is the method of proof which proceeds by stating a proposition and then showing that it results in a contradiction, thus demonstrating the proposition to be false. While there are many tools in the business intelligence toolkit, we want to talk a bit about knowledge discovery and how sometimes the “reductio ad absurdum” approach can be useful.

As we know, data mining is a part of the knowledge discovery process and they are both strongly intertwined with data warehousing. The advances leading to mainstream data warehousing constitute the seminal point of departure from which we have to mark the start of contemporary analytical processing. It was data warehousing that served as the first thrust for the rigorous and methodical production of knowledge from our data.

Data mining is about finding meaningful new correlations, patterns and trends in large amounts of data and thus extracting previously unknown information from mountains of bits and bytes. It applies pattern recognition technologies as well as machine learning, statistical and visualization techniques to accomplish its objective.

It is in the manipulation of an enterprise’s data through these business intelligence and database management tools that we start the ascent from bits and bytes, to data, information, intelligence and knowledge. All sound knowledge management environments are richly supported through data warehouses and data marts that are mined to produce business intelligence and hence important contributions for the different communities of practice. Furthermore, it has been through the emergence of information technology and computer systems that we have been able to make substantial inroads.

These insights tie very directly to our concept of business intelligence; not so much in terms of the software tools, but rather the approach. In addition, what we are often involved with here is the continuation of the age-old process of obtaining meaning from a collection of data points or observations. Daniel Boorstin, the former Librarian of Congress, sheds light on this phenomenon in a fascinating essay titled, “The Age of Negative Discovery,” that appears in his book Cleopatra’s Nose. Boorstin points out that “for most of Western history interpretation has far outrun data.” For example, faced with the magnificence of a clear night sky replete with millions of light points visible to the naked eye, ancient man soon surmised the existence of a heavenly bear, a hunter, a fish or a swan. Out of this approach to data visualization were born the constellations, long before we knew much about stars, planets, black holes or the big bang. He goes further to show how discovery becomes more difficult when we already know a fair amount, as he recounts Capt. James Cook’s first voyages across the Antarctic Circle between 1770 and 1775. The British explorer managed to sail round Antarctica until pack ice blocked his route and yet was often befuddled as to whether these were islands he was seeing or truly a new continent. The annotations and comments in his log show him almost engaging in the process of negative discovery. Trying to deduce what is through discarding what cannot be.

Boorstin notes this “modern tendency…[where] we see data outrun meaning.” He attributes this “outrun” to the advent of the “mechanized observers” or machines that generate such vast numbers of observations, or data points and make it essential that we learn to navigate these oceans of facts. The sensors of our day produce these data points in numbers such that we have had to rely on a new vocabulary to quantify them. We now feel comfortable going beyond the kilobytes and the megabytes, and work with new terms such as, terabytes, petabytes, exabytes or even yottabytes (or brontobytes, take your pick).

The essential insight in all this has to do with the importance of negative discovery. In other words, discovering that which is not and hence allowing us to discard all data, through analysis, that does not contribute to a better understanding of reality. The implication for knowledge management is that in order to “use our collective intelligence” we must increasingly use tools and techniques that enable us to interpret large amounts of data as we strive to achieve understanding. And in order to do this, “reductio ad absurdum” can be quite useful.

Today, it becomes extremely difficult to actually establish, for example, that a new star or subatomic particle has been discovered. Let’s take the former example first. Usually we start with a small but known segment of the sky and use computers to minutely analyze changes in the observations conducted with a telescope on that segment over a period of time. Then you proceed to a very detailed analysis where we are looking for change. What is different now that was not there in our precious patterns or observations? From there, a proposition often follows that we can then prove leads to a contradiction and can hence be proven false. This process will often then lead us to the conclusion we are looking for.

If we take the case where we are in search of a new particle, the process is similar though the toolkit will obviously vary. We may be bombarding an isotope with certain particle beams in order to record the result of the collisions in the paths of the subatomic byproducts as they stream through a heavy water pool. Ultimately, these data points will be captured in computers and we will proceed to the long and protracted process of analysis in order to produce business intelligence. Have we found a new particle or is it just another instance of one we already know? Or, is it an error in the experiment? Again, we may often rely on “reduction to the absurd” in order to prove or disprove the hypothesis.

This approach is often used by scientists in the labs today at NASA, NOAA (National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration), the Weather Bureau, many National Labs and other government agencies. It can be a powerful tool in other settings too. For example, as we look to determine what has changed in a very large database, or data warehouse, after a refresh there might be some benefit from seeing what we can learn through the negative discovery process.

Knoco's Knowledge Management tools now online

2005-03-04T07:22:00.000+01:00

.:: SourceWire :: ::.

Knoco Maximi$er™, the online knowledge management (KM) resource centre purchased by KM leaders including BP and De Beers, is now generally available to KM practitioners worldwide via individual licences.

Knoco Maximi$er is a multimedia suite of products available on the Internet giving a structured approach to knowledge processes, knowledge packaging and its transfer to communities of practice. It details the tools and techniques of knowledge capture and packaging, implementation with communities of practice, case studies and practical tips and hints.

Unlike other KM packages, Knoco Maximi$er does not attempt to provide a database to package your knowledge. Instead it presents the principles and the practical details of how to implement KM within an organisation in a very clear style that trains, educates and engages personnel.

The multi-media package includes very clear instructions and guidelines of how to perform KM, complemented by video interviews of managers sharing their experiences of deploying these techniques. For example, an executive explains how eleven years of knowledge of their European fundraiser was tapped before he was promoted to another division within the same organisation; an energy executive describes how a knowledge asset was developed through their experience of mergers and acquisitions and successfully re-deployed even to the point of reducing consultants’ fees in subsequent acquisitions; and a banker discusses how knowledge of the implementation of a quality of training metric was conveyed across a global organisation.

Outlining the origins of the product, Knoco™ director Tom Young says: “Knoco Maximi$er is real-life KM – it’s been created by people who have led KM initiatives in some of the world’s largest corporations including BP and De Beers. We know that KM issues arise everywhere – from the tiniest practical details to the challenge of getting the commitment of senior management. Knoco Maximi$er is a globally available resource for dispersed organisations and is designed to help KM teams and individuals make rapid progress.”

Johnny Martin, BP Group Operational Excellence, is a regular user of Knoco Maximi$er. He comments: “This is a great online resource centre, packed with tools and best practice, which uses real case histories as examples of how to manage knowledge. For anyone starting to implement a knowledge management system, Knoco Maximi$er will get you up and working. It will help you develop a strategy, design processes and begin engaging your employees. And once you're up and running, it will serve as a constant resource. The checklists are excellent, and I'm always dipping in for help or guidance. These tools make knowledge management simple, precise and effective.”

Knoco director Nick Milton notes: “The value of Knoco Maximi$er has been proven in many contexts. It’s been used to create practical and cost-effective plans to transfer knowledge from one location to another, to help enterprises enter new markets, to capture knowledge from personnel about to be promoted, to move jobs or retire. It has also been used to help smooth transitions when companies mergers or make acquisitions.”

Knoco Maximi$er requires only Internet access with Internet Explorer 5.0 and later and can therefore be used almost anywhere in the world. Its use of video, audio and text bring to life the essential components of good KM.

Knoco Maximi$er costs just £99 (ex VAT) per module per year or £199 for all three modules. It is constantly and automatically updated, so users can be assured that they are abreast of the latest in KM deployment.

See www.knoco.co.uk for more details.

Bloggers Key In Corporate Knowledge Management

2005-03-04T07:21:00.000+01:00

Bloggers Key In Corporate Knowledge Management: "Bloggers could act as Subject Matter Experts internally. In that way, they could become key players in an organization's knowledge management.

It's Anecdote that outlines this solution in a new white paper (pdf), which

'...provides an alternative approach where content generated by subject matter experts (SME) creates new social networks, which in turn can provide useful pointers to content held in the 'knowledge repository'. People access the database at points recommended by the subject matter expert in context of the seeker's current need. It's a type of social indexing. While the paper takes a sales force application area, the solution is widely applicable.'

Blogs, the author says

'...encourage a wider set of relationships among the salesforce and the presales team. By increasing the connections within the social network, the sales organisation becomes more agile. More avenues of investigation become available for developing solutions as a result of the extensive connections established through myriad small question-and-answer sessions among salespeople and technicians.'
"

EWORLDWIRE PRESS RELEASE distribution, WRITING, and EDGAR FILING Service

2005-03-04T07:19:00.000+01:00

EWORLDWIRE PRESS RELEASE distribution, WRITING, and EDGAR FILING Service: "Expressing his enthusiasm about the partnership, S.L (Sam) Srinivasulu, Ph D, President, KESDEE Inc. said, 'Top managements of financial institutions should view Risk Management not as a regulatory burden but as a catalyst for value creation. This strategic partnership will accelerate the process of introducing Global Best Practices in Risk Management.'

KESDEE Inc. currently has 500 courses organized into 40 Course Libraries spanning about 1500 hours of e-Learning - and is the most comprehensive e-Learning portal for the financial services industry. KESDEE's e-learning & reference solutions focus on topics such as:

1.ALM,Liquidity Management, Foreign Exchange Management, Interest Rate Risk management, Market Risk Management

2.Credit Analysis, Credit Derivatives, Credit Ratings, Credit Risk Modeling

3.Basel II Accord, Capital Adequacy Planning

4.Operational Risk Management

5.Futures & Forwards, Options, Swaps

6.Asset Securitization

7.Corporate Governance

8.Equity Markets, Fixed Income Markets

9.Financial Accounting, Financial Mathematics, Budgeting

10.Anti Money Laundering

IMaCS provides consulting services to banks and financial institutions in implementation of good practices in Risk Management (Credit risk, Market risk, Operational Risk and Risk Based Internal Audit). IMaCS also provides software solutions for implementing best practices in risk management. The IMaCS and KESDEE alliance is a step towards offering a knowledge distribution platform and will help Financial Institutions in implementation of risk management systems including the Basel II accord. "

Nstein Technologies' solutions named to KMWorld's list of '100 Companies that Matter in Knowledge Management'

2005-03-03T17:09:00.001+01:00

Canada NewsWire Group: "Nstein Technologies Inc. (TSX-V: EIN), the leader in advanced linguistic-based Business Intelligence solutions, announced today that the prominent KMWorld Magazine has again named Nstein Technologies in its March special issue, listing the 100 companies that matter in the Knowledge Management Industry. 'We are proud that KMWorld has chosen Nstein for this esteemed distinction,' stated Mario Girard, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Nstein Technologies. 'Nstein is committed to help information intensive organizations master large volumes of structured and unstructured multilingual data and leverage them into actionable intelligence. Regardless of the data's source, real-time analysis and rendering of crucial information is provided in all major languages through various applications, such as Early Warning Systems for the Corporate and Homeland Security & Intelligence markets and through mission-critical business solutions in e-Publishing.' Mr. Hugh McKellar, Editor-in-Chief of KMWorld Magazine comments: 'The list was conceived as a way to identify some of the organizations leading the way in the knowledge economy. And, it's certainly not intended to be the final word on the matter; rather, it's designed to encourage a broader discussion of knowledge management. Criteria for inclusion varies, but each company has either helped to create a market, redefine one or enhance one--and they all share one thing: velocity of innovation.' Mr. McKellar adds: 'And Nstein has indeed developed technology solutions that contribute significantly to this ever evolving and challenging landscape that is Knowledge Management industry'. The list was compiled by KMWorld's team members, KM practitioners, theorists, analysts, vendors and their customers. For more information on KMWorld's '100 companies that matter in Knowledge Management': http://www.kmworld.com/100.cfm"

Greater Use of KM Tools Meets Need for Improved Business Processes, IDC Says | Tekrati Research News

2005-03-03T17:09:00.000+01:00

Greater Use of KM Tools Meets Need for Improved Business Processes, IDC Says | Tekrati Research News
According to IDC, enterprises are increasing spending on knowledge management (KM) technologies, including collaboration software, content management and access software and enterprise portal software, based on the ability of these technologies to deliver concrete benefits when implemented as part of a business solution. IDC says specific vertical markets are most likely to adopt KM-related technologies.

Beyond purchasing new software, companies are also investing the time, effort and capital required to integrate applications and information in order to solve real business problems.

“Vendors must understand and capitalize on their role in delivering solutions to companies faced with improving or automating business processes that require a variety of knowledge management related technologies,” said Brian McDonough, research manager of IDC’s Enterprise Portal Software and Packaged Composite Applications program. “Vendors in the portal ecosystem can capitalize on this opportunity by providing the appropriate mix of functions, process know-how, and leadership in the delivery of specific solutions.”

Over 51% of IDC survey respondents seek to integrate information and applications in order to establish a single point of access to multiple information sources. Other leading reasons for purchasing KM technologies include the need to streamline internal business processes, create a unified view of enterprise information, and reduce the number of duplicate applications.

IDC believes that government, business services, and financial services are the vertical markets most likely to adopt KM-related technologies.

MerseyBIO Selects Autonomy to Support Biotechnology Network

2005-03-03T17:08:00.000+01:00

MerseyBIO Selects Autonomy to Support Biotechnology Network: "Autonomy Corporation plc (LSE: AU - News) a global leader in infrastructure software for the enterprise, today announced that MerseyBIO, a biotechnology incubator organization, has implemented Autonomy's technology to power a network for the biotechnology community in Merseyside. The service, called esymbio, which has gone live this morning, aims to create an infrastructure that will foster collaboration between biotechnology companies, investors and public bodies to drive the development of the region's life sciences sector. The project is backed by public institutions such as the University of Liverpool and the North West Genetic Knowledge Park."

InStranet Wins Prestigious 2005 ContactCenterWorld.Com Members' Choice Award for Best Knowledge Management Solution

2005-03-03T17:07:00.001+01:00

InStranet Wins Prestigious 2005 ContactCenterWorld.Com Members' Choice Award for Best Knowledge Management Solution: "InStranet, Inc., the leader in multi-channel knowledge applications, today announced they have won the 2005 ContactCenterWorld.com Members' Choice Award for Best Knowledge Management Solution in EMEA. These awards are unique as customers vote for the winners and there are no judging panels.

InStranet recently announced the release of Contact Centers In-Line (CCIL) 5.0, the first application that offers customer touchpoints (the contact center, field sales and self-service Web sites) access to a centralized repository of company product, service, and procedural information that can be customized, filtered, and searched on in real-time regardless of the access channel or location. In addition, CCIL 5.0 provides one out-of-the-box interface to automate how each customer touchpoint receives knowledge.

Commenting on the awards, Raj Wadhwani, Founder & Editor-In-Chief of ContactCenterWorld.com said, 'For the third year, the industry honors the best of the best. This year's competition was extremely high amongst the eighty-three entrants, and over 3,500 members voted. For InStranet, this is a great honor - the quality of the votes from their customers was exceptional and this is why they won the award. It goes without saying that we feel every company who entered deserves credit for putting themselves in a program where customers vote - a challenge that many other vendors in the industry would not entertain!'

'This award is major industry recognition that confirms what we're hearing from our customers,' said Alex Dayon, CEO of InStranet. 'Our solutions are a strategic part of today's customer service initiatives where increasing customer satisfaction and cost reduction for each interaction are key objectives. This is why we're seeing industry leaders turning to InStranet.'"

FTI Consulting Completes Acquisition of Ringtail Solutions

2005-03-03T17:07:00.000+01:00

FTI Consulting Completes Acquisition of Ringtail Solutions: "FTI Consulting, Inc. (NYSE: FCN - News), the premier provider of corporate finance/restructuring, forensic and litigation consulting and technology, and economic consulting, today announced that it has completed its previously announced acquisition of the assets of privately held Ringtail Solutions Group (Ringtail), including its operations in Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States. The purchase price of $35.0 million comprised $20.0 million of cash plus $15.0 million in shares of FTI common stock, plus an earn-out over the next three years based on future performance. The cash portion of the purchase price was financed by FTI from cash on hand and its existing credit facilities."

Ektron Named to KMWorld's '100 Companies that Matter in Knowledge Management'

2005-02-26T08:27:00.000+01:00

Ektron Named to KMWorld's '100 Companies that Matter in Knowledge Management': "Ektron Inc., an innovator in Web content management and authoring software, today announced that is been selected as one of the '100 Companies that Matter in Knowledge Management' by KMWorld, a leading industry publication. KMWorld editors, knowledge management practitioners, theorists, analysts, vendors, and customers compiled the 2005 list to recognize each company's velocity of innovation."

Mondosoft Named Leader in Knowledge Management Innovation; Enterprise Search and Behavior Analytics Pioneer Recognized as a 2005 ``Company that Matter

2005-02-26T08:26:00.000+01:00

Mondosoft Named Leader in Knowledge Management Innovation; Enterprise Search and Behavior Analytics Pioneer Recognized as a 2005 ``Company that Matters by KM World Magazine'': "Mondosoft, a pioneer in enterprise search and behavior analytics, today announced that it has been recognized as an innovator in knowledge management by KM World Magazine, in the publication's annual review of leading knowledge management companies. KM World Magazine compiled the list based on opinions of its editorial staff and on surveys of knowledge management practitioners, theorists, analysts, vendors and customers.

'The 100 Companies That Matter in Knowledge Management 2005 all share one thing: velocity of innovation,' said Hugh McKellar, editor in chief, KM World Magazine. 'These companies matter because they either created a knowledge management market segment or redefined or enhanced the knowledge economy.'

'The most competitive, successful companies leverage search and behavior analytics technology to gain better insight into customer behavior and respond quickly and efficiently to meet demand,' said Laust Sondergaard, CEO, Mondosoft. 'At Mondosoft we are committed to delivering powerful combinations of search and analytics solutions to help our customers achieve business objectives.'

"

Level 5 Partners, Inc. Announces Release Of Virtual Program Management Office Version 2.4

2005-02-25T15:16:00.000+01:00

Level 5 Partners, Inc. Announces Release Of Virtual Program Management Office Version 2.4
Level 5 Partners, an emerging provider of Enterprise PMO software, today announced the public release of the Virtual Program Management Version 2.4. The Virtual Program Management Office is an intuitive web-based Program Management Office providing: Project Portfolio Management, Resource Management, Day-to-day Project Management, Post Project Support, and Knowledge Management.

About Version 2.4
Version 2.4 of the Virtual Program Management Office offers enhanced platform support, a secure open XML API, and enhanced resource usage reporting.

• Enhanced Platform Support- As of version 2.4 the vPMO will be supported on Internet Explorer, Firefox, Netscape Navigator and Safari.

• XML Data Interface - The new XML interface allows the Virtual Program Management Office to securely interface and exchange information with external enterprise systems and reporting engines.

• Enhanced Resource Usage Analysis - Enhanced resource usage analysis allows organizations to understand resource allocation and usage across the entire enterprise.

Efficiency drive boosts knowledge management - vnunet.com

2005-02-24T07:10:00.000+01:00

Efficiency drive boosts knowledge management - vnunet.com: "In a bid to boost business process efficiency enterprises are steadily ramping up investments in knowledge management technology, including collaboration, content management and enterprise portal software.

Over half of respondents to a newly published IDC survey indicated that they are seeking to integrate information and applications in order to establish a single point of access to multiple information sources.

Other leading reasons include the need to streamline internal business processes, create a unified view of enterprise information, and reduce the number of duplicate applications.

IDC's report stated that government, business services and financial services are the vertical markets most likely to adopt knowledge management related technologies.

According to the analyst, companies are also investing the time, effort and capital required to integrate applications and information in order to solve business problems.

'Vendors must understand and capitalise on their role in delivering solutions to companies faced with improving or automating business processes that require a variety of knowledge management related technologies,' said Brian McDonough, a research manager at IDC.

'Vendors in the portal ecosystem can capitalise on this opportunity by providing the appropriate mix of functions, process know-how and leadership in the delivery of specific solutions.'"

Meta Data & Knowledge Management: Managed Meta Data Environment: A Complete Walk-Through, Part 6

2005-02-24T07:08:00.000+01:00

Meta Data & Knowledge Management: Managed Meta Data Environment: A Complete Walk-Through, Part 6: "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."

Collecting and sharing knowledge - Cover Story - Network Magazine India

2005-02-22T07:14:00.000+01:00

Collecting and sharing knowledge - Cover Story - Network Magazine India
Knowledge Management (KM) is a concept that has been around for a long time. Like any new concept, it has gone through the proof of concept and hype phase. However, as KM is more a concept than a technology, it has not been fully understood by the CIO community. In the absence of evangelical efforts on part of top vendors to hardsell the KM concept, it has failed to gain mindshare.

Defining KM

Arun O. Gupta, Senior Director Business Technology, Pfizer Ltd describes KM as a practice that addresses the need for information that is required for making effective decisions. If this information is structured, the same can be translated into knowledge by applying a set of predefined rules. For example, comments on discussion boards can be converted into useful FAQs.

The perception of KM differs from one industry vertical to another. In software service companies, knowledge management can be a highly effective practice as it helps capture knowledge across different skill sets. For instance, information regarding common queries about specific technologies (if captured on the Intranet) can help solve common problems. This, in turn, boosts productivity. As Indian software service organisations employ software professionals in thousands, employee inputs can be extremely useful for organisational growth.

Satish Joshi, Senior VP, Patni Computer Systems Limited says "For us, KM is a set of processes and tools which give us the ability to leverage and combine the collective abilities of our knowledge workers."

Simply put, a KM practice should let an organisation provide relevant information to each and every user. As Sunil Kapoor, Head IT, Fortis Healthcare says, "KM is nothing but having customised information tailored to the needs of each user." As a KM practice provides a structured way of capturing knowledge that exists within the organisation, it gives an organisation the ability to improve the productivity and knowledge of its employees by means of knowledge sharing.

"A KM practice that encompasses end-to-end processes owned by a department can go a long way toward boosting productivity," says M D Agrawal, GM IS Refinery Systems, BPCL.

KM can be a highly effective tool for organisations that have geographically dispersed teams. They can derive great value from a common knowledge-sharing platform. KM can also prove effective in organisations suffering from high employee turnover. In such cases, a KM practice can help bring new inductees up to speed with the history of ongoing projects. For example, in software companies such as Patni Computer Systems Limited, where development teams are spread across the world, KM is an efficient method for every employee to develop upon existing ideas rather than reinvent the wheel.

So far, KM vendors have predominantly found takers for their wares in the BPO, software healthcare and pharmaceutical industry segments. "The pharmaceutical industry cannot live without it. We may try out a small proof of concept in the last quarter of 2005," says Kapoor. He adds the caveat that KM has to mature before it gains widespread acceptance.

A proper flow of information is essential for the growth of every organisation. In this situation, KM will be play an essential role, and those organisations that deploy it early on will have an edge. Uma Ganesh of Kalzoom Technologies cites the example of Tata Steel that initiated a pilot implementation of KM. The KM practice proved so useful that the company is now considering incorporating the best practices of the KM implementation in the Tata Business Excellence Model (a model that governs the way every Tata enterprise should function).

As Indian organisations go global, it becomes imperative for Indian CIOs to look at a KM practice to capture knowledge beyond local boundaries. Agrawal agrees, "KM will go beyond the boundaries of individual corporations to provide a global rather than a local picture." For companies like TCS and Infosys that operate in dozens of countries, KM can give them an edge in the competitive software services market.

KM is more about best practices and procedures rather than pure technology. Consequently, it requires support from employees and effective use can happen only when all of them are actively involved. Therefore, a big bang approach will not work. An interview published in Darwin Magazine, in September 2004, quotes Jim McGee, currently director of Huron Consulting Group, recalling that his worst mistake was the implementation of a video-based knowledge management system. The concept failed simply because nobody used the system. In October, CIO Magazine published a case study of a successful KM implementation at Children's Hospital in Boston, USA. The hospital succeeded because it took time to involve every user by taking things slow and steady rather than going in for a big bang approach.

This probably explains the cautious approach Indian CIOs are taking when it comes to KM. Says Gupta of Pfizer, "We at Pfizer India have embarked on two initiatives that will gradually evolve into a KM framework. The first one involves capturing documents and creating a context sensitive repository. The second initiative focuses on converting unstructured data into structured data and warehousing the same. Together, these initiatives will provide us with key metrics and information that will assist decision making"

In conclusion, while there are a few successful cases of KM in India, the average Indian enterprise is not ready for it. For now, it remains a distant dream.

India Inc's KM successes

Patni Computer Systems, India's sixth largest software services exporter is one of the few organisations that makes extensive use of KM. The company has created a knowledge centre, which allows its employees to learn about new technologies, have discussions, get technical queries answered and even draft quick sales proposals.

For Patni, this system has led to a reduction in training time and a boost in productivity due to better sharing of knowledge among its employees.

Here are some of the features of the knowledge centre:

* The knowledge centre contains information about the quality management system, information related to different projects, related best practices and lessons learned, technology related white papers and tutorials.
* A searchable repository of reusable software components
* As it is based upon a Web based model, information is accessible from all Patni offices
* Classification of content according to industry verticals and technologies
* A discussion forum for exchange of ideas and solutions
* A helpdesk for facilitating process consulting to projects
* A marketing centre which holds frequently asked questions by customers (the same is used by employees in sales and marketing). Additionally, case studies and templates for proposals and newsletters are also captured in the knowledge centre.
* A role based access privilege model that ensures that every user has access only to information pertaining to his department.

EasyAsk Chosen as One of '100 Companies That Matter'

2005-02-22T07:11:00.000+01:00

EasyAsk Chosen as One of '100 Companies That Matter': "EasyAsk, a trusted provider of search and information retrieval solutions, today announced that it was chosen as one of KMWorld's '100 Companies that Matter in Knowledge Management' in 2005.

'Over the past year, EasyAsk has executed exceptionally well in both the Enterprise and eCommerce Search markets, gaining mindshare and marketshare in the industry,' said Bob Alperin, president and CEO of EasyAsk. 'This recognition by KMWorld is confirmation of the investments we have made in product and market growth, and testimony to the real value EasyAsk brings to companies who thrive on information. We look forward to another year of helping companies extend their competitive advantage and increase revenue by streamlining the flow of information through superior search and information retrieval technology.'

EasyAsk's Enterprise 9 enables organizations to quickly, easily and comprehensively search for critical business information in structured and unstructured data, regardless of format or location, and be rewarded with only relevant results. EasyAsk Enterprise 9 users can search or browse for relevant information using keywords, phrases, natural language questions, common terms and/or business-specific nomenclature. EasyAsk Enterprise 9 creates a 'smart' dialogue with users, enabling them to find exactly what they are looking for or helping them refine their search when they need assistance. Unlike traditional search, query, reporting and business-intelligence tools, EasyAsk offers automated concept extraction to intelligently match a user's request to relevant data sources and create concepts, relationships or hierarchies that result in superior guided search and navigation experiences. The net result is state-of-the-art information discovery and retrieval that eliminates reliance on metadata and the burdensome task of manually 'tagging' enterprise content.

'The list was conceived as a way to identify some of the organizations leading the way in the knowledge economy,' said Hugh McKellar, KMWorld editor in chief. 'And, it's certainly not intended to be the final word on the matter; rather, it's designed to encourage a broader discussion of knowledge management. Criteria for inclusion varies, but each company has either helped to create a market, redefine one or enhance one-and they all share one thing: velocity of innovation.'"