Profiting from the next level of knowledge management

As part of your business case, determine if you would benefit from automation for your content intelligence. A new line of products is helping companies simplify and automate governance and extension of robust knowledge applications like intelligent assistants. For example, Smartlogic (smartlogic.com) can help you leverage your new information architecture to extend and automatically tag new content, dramatically simplifying the maintenance and upkeep of your EIA.

Don’t forget governing the value of your solution. Build your intelligent assistants as Web-enabled applications, and use the same Web metrics your company uses for its corporate and e-commerce sites. Those same metrics tell you when people are searching too long, not finding what they need or abandoning pages too early to have learned what they need. Those metrics become strong hints of gaps in value or of the next part of the problem to solve.

Starting steps

Intelligent assistants that deliver answers instead of long lists of large documents to be read can deliver significant bottom-line value for knowledge workers and for your customers. While it may seem a daunting task, a few careful, pragmatic starting steps will help you deliver your first solution quickly.

Many times, you can use the same tools you already have. SharePoint and other leading collaboration tools have most of what you need. Along the way, considering DITA-based tools and some automation from governance and extension of the solution may be wise, if they can be cost-justified.

The benefits you deliver will unlock new momentum for knowledge applications in your enterprise, and knowledge management as a discipline can become a more strategic partner in achieving important business goals and objectives.