Enterprise Knowledge Management: Convergence at the Desktop

Interactive Technologies International Consultants
Author: Michael Bookbinder, President
Contact: Tel: (905) 689-8032, Fax: (905) 689-3445,
Email: mbookie@worldchat.com
Web Site: http://www.itiinternational.com

"Action without knowledge is folly.
Knowledge without wisdom is perilous"

-Aristotle

Today, there is an abundance of hype surrounding Knowledge Management to a point of over using the word "Knowledge". Some vendors, in their specific niche, have been successful in expounding the benefits of knowledge management, yet the end user must face many challenges during the planning, implementation and migration of knowledge management throughout their enterprise. Vendors and end-user alike, are beginning to understand that knowledge management requires the convergence of many of the enabling technologies now being implemented around the world.

Common to many organizations across all industry sectors, there exists islands of knowledge and data that are not connected nor linked and therefore, not usable where and when required. Corporate memory, information and records include: policies, procedures, manuals, records, sales information, technical manuals etc. (explicit knowledge). Knowledge management must go beyond these collections of written information and include the experiences and perspectives of employees and the organization as a whole and access what is maintained in their heads (tacit knowledge).

So what actually is "Knowledge Management"? Is it just marketing hype? A technology? An application? Or is it scanning, image processing, full text, records management or workflow?

Knowledge management (KM) is still being defined, however, here is a market evangelist's definition from the trenches. Knowledge management is not a technology, nor a system, although it uses technology. KM is an environment, a culture and a business ethic enabled by the application of technology, people and business processes. Technology is the Knowledge Enabler.

Knowledge management (KM) is the sharing of intangible tacit knowledge (within the person's mind) and explicit (written policies, documents etc.) knowledge, "best practices" and experiences in an organization. KM is based on employees, each contributing, sharing, showing respect for other's opinions and views and synthesizing the knowledge into accessible "lessons learned" and "problem resolution" databases. This information can be used to improve efficiencies, productivity and profitability for any organization.

Knowledge management caters to the critical issues of a Corporation's adaption to situations, survival and competence in a changing business environment. For many organizations, knowledge resides within the employee/user and not only in the existing collection of corporate memory, documents and records. Knowledge management leverages collective wisdom and experience to improve innovation and responsiveness to market conditions, competitive and economic.

Business Drivers for Knowledge Management

In order for an organization to survive in the current competitive, economic environment there are many business drivers and factors that would lead any organization to implement a knowledge-based business practice. Some of the factors include:

• The growing digital knowledge-based economy
• Increased demand for efficient, accurate service, to end-users as well as other internal and external clients and business partners
• Declining or constraints on budgets for budgets for capturing, maintaining, distributing and accessing of information
• Declining head counts
• Increased global competition
• The need for business innovation to achieve market share and differentiation
• Achieving operational efficiency
• The need to maximize human resources

Technology Enablement

Technology evolution has been experiencing dynamic growth and change, never experienced before. The rate of introduction, convergence and rapid implementation has been influenced by the need to create, capture, access and use information in electronic format as well as physical documents and records in paper and microfilm. In the document and records related sector, some of the contributing factors for growth include:

• Increasing availability and cost efficiency of network bandwidth
• Processing power on the desktop is increasing while prices are decreasing
• The capacity and cost per megabyte of digital storage media has increase and decreased, respectively, many fold since the introduction of optical disk and CD-ROM.
• The price and capacity of magnetic media has introduced a level of competition between all forms of electronic storage media
• The evolution of standards in the areas of technology will provide for access, interoperability and retrieval across non-compatible platforms and architectures
• The global implementation and integration with international, national, de facto, de jure product standards
• The overwhelming implementation, search and access capabilities over the Internet, Intranet and Extranets

The existing office situation has placed technology on the knowledge workers desktop providing the capacity to create, store, search and access information and knowledge across the enterprise and the world. Although a boon to organizational success, the situation has introduced the creation of autonomous, localized, inaccessible and often unknown electronic documents and records. This electronic knowledge is not controlled nor managed with version and revision control, audit, security nor sound records management principles and programs.

Technology Convergence

Since the mid '90s, vendors have introduced their own products to assist with the management, control and access to existing "explicit' knowledge", not "tacit" experiential knowledge. Today, vendors and organizations alike, are beginning to understand the need to develop and implement standards-based enabling technologies with a "single point of access".

Based on the vendor, the "single point of access", or "knowledge portal", will provide to the end-user organization a reduced level of training for the user for each of the application areas. The single point of access will also provide for a single sign-on security procedure to permit the authorized user to initiate a search for documents and records, regardless of format and in many cases, location.

Although after many years of marketing imaging as the "end all" application, a limited number of vendors cannot provide the ability to index/profile analog 'physical" or paper and microfilm records within an EDMS environment. This functionality will prove very powerful and extremely valuable to any organization that is slow to migrate, accept a new method of information access or is limited in funding to move forward. The organization that is still using paper and microfilm for their operational documents and records can now access the "content value" using imaging, OCR or hybrid imaging systems for conversion.

In the knowledge-based organization, the distinction between data, information, document and records management are beginning to converge. The pace of this convergence is out pacing most organization's comprehension and ability to understand, plan and fund for fully integrated solutions. Based on the direction of the industry and many of the vendors environments, i.e. de facto standards, mergers, acquisitions and integration with business partnerships currently the flavour of the day, the convergence is becoming economically and technologically feasible. The convergence also opens up opportunities for redesigning document and records intense business processes and methodologies.

Knowledge management exploits "enabling" technologies for the capture, storage, sifting and searching for hidden patterns to derive knowledge from information that is contributed, shared and actionable. To achieve this, Knowledge Management implementations must include the integration of the converging information-based technologies and applications to include: electronic document management, imaging, workflow, records management, full text retrieval, Computer Output to Laser Disk (COLD), data warehousing, data mining, business intelligence and others. Most of these enabling technologies and applications are becoming internet and intranet enabled to reduce the cost of implementation and expand accessibility, globally.

Technologies such as optical character (OCR) and intelligent character recognition (ICR) permit the extraction or conversion from non searchable document formats (paper documents, micrographics) to computer-usable data for populating full text retrieval and "lessons learned" databases to facilitate search and retrieval of captured Corporate knowledge.

Knowledge management projects require the building and linking of captured knowledge and content repositories consisting of structured (data), unstructured (images, MS Word) and/or physical documents (paper, microfilm, video). The repositories and their location must be accessible and "transparent" to the knowledge seeker. The Knowledge worker must be provided with a "single knowledge portal" and rely on the system's linkages and performance to deliver he required "knowledge.

The Integrated Document Management System (IDMS)

To achieve the efficiencies offered by the technology application convergence, an organization should implement an EDMS that is seamlessly integrated (in some cases difficult to achieve), modular for growth and migration and be extensible to meet future application and technological changes. This IDMS is a critical environment of technology for remaining competitive and achieving innovation to meet the needs of the evolving global market.

The integrated EDMS must also be capable of managing and controlling documents and records in all formats, electronic, analog video, sound, paper and micrographic. In order to be compliant to legislation, authorities and legal admissibility, the EDMS must also have a records management component offering classification, retention, disposition and destruction functionality. To be cost effective for improved ROI, the EDMS must also be integrated using a "single point of access" or "portal" through an easy to use, interface security scheme and classification tree structure linked to other business applications.

The Converging Desktop and Legal Admissibility

For any organization concerned with compliance and use of electronic images and documents in their integrated knowledge management environment, they, the electronic document and records must be approved by senior management to become part of the "normal and ordinary course of business". The organization must be able to guarantee the "integrity" of their system to ensure the reliability, accuracy and trustworthiness of the accessible official records, information, documents, images, e-mails and knowledge.

For admissibility compliance the IDMS and knowledge management environment must have a sound records management program for implementing a uniform file classification structure, accountability, retention, disposition and destruction for all documents and records, regardless of format. The disposition program must identify the record and all of their formats, paper, electronic and microfilm, in order to either transform or destroy at the approved schedule time. This is also important for reducing an organization's financial and legal risk.

From the legal admissibility perspective, Bill C-54 the Personal Information and Electronic Document Act, covers the use of electronic documents, images and digital signature in the "normal course of doing business. This permits any organization the legal authorization to use electronic documents within the converged environment and provide for legal admissibility of the documents and records in use.

The Act also is key for the protection of personal and confidential information for E-commerce and Freedom of Information legislation for providing access to electronic documents and records.

A Key To Success: Change Management

Key to successful knowledge management and electronic document cultures is to include everyone in the analysis and gain their "buy-in" and willingness to participate and contribute information and knowledge from their private collections of documents and knowledge for sharing what they know and what they are willing to look for as collective input to the benefit of the organization. Without these knowledge assets, and the convergence of enabling technologies, organizations will not be equipped to achieve their vision nor foresee how they will handle the future as it unfolds.

With the "hockey stick" evolution of change in the technology industry, just stay tuned for "daily convergence strategies, mergers, acquisitions, that will permit efficient, accurate and timely access to all documents, records and information, regardless of format and location.