|
On a daily
basis almost every knowledge-worker reads news and other sources of business
content and then creates comments and observations that other business
associates, colleagues, customers, and vendors consume. The usual and customary
method for creating annotations and observations is by e-mail. I have nothing
against e-mail - in fact - my philosophical perspective is that SMTP and e-mail
processes represent valuable collaboration tools for enterprises that cannot be
discarded, but may certainly be optimized. However, the place where e-mail
content comes to rest is problematic - e-mail is where knowledge goes to
die.
Portals (such
as Metadot) are the primary
delivery source of news feeds. Imagine a portal component that allows users to
create annotations that tie one or more news or other information items together
with annotation text. Further imagine that the annotations are stored in a
knowledge channel that can then be consumed in many ways – such as in a weblog,
a report, an e-mail, or as an RSS news feed item. In most companies annotations
and observations are typically created in e-mail with some messagestaining links
that point out to specific information objects relevant to the message. Aside
from the message itself, the knowledge dies a slow death in the inbox of office
workers and executives. Creating a process so that annotations and business
observations may live as uniquely addressable information objects, clearly has
greater advantages; especially for portal users.
Here's a
scenario that might help organizations and teams transform information into
reusable knowledge.
- The
knowledge-worker uses a simple “annotate” button that has been integrated into
news and other content feeds in Metadot.
- When a user
selects an annotate button, MySmartChannels responds by displaying a dialog with
entry fields for title, synopsis, etc. The user is free to enter observations
and notes about the content item.
- The dialog
automatically adds a link to the content that was selected to annotate. Multiple
content items may be annotated under one channel item and multiple links are
added dynamically to the open channel item dialog.
- Once the
annotation is entered into a channel, it is available for consumption through
many processes and knowledge-discovery tools. Additionally, the annotations are
secure.
The
benefits:
- Complex
annotations – users may browse and assimilate items from multiple reports to
create a single annotation that connects all report end-points;
- Annotation templates -
templates provide advanced classification, consistency of annotation items, and
greater annotation productivity;
- Annotation viewing –
annotations may be presented in Web pages, news feeds, portals, and other
applications.
- Expertise
domains - annotations can be associated with other types of information
objects;
- Annotation syndication –
annotation content may be used in a syndicated form through native
RSS;
- XML and
RSS – flexible consumption support for all annotation content;
- Publish-subscribe –
integrated publish, sharing, and subscription services;
- Microsoft
Office – automatic linking to annotations from Microsoft Office XP
documents.
In my humble opinion, this sounds like a more
meaningful approach than e-mailing everything and everyone.
Let me know how you
feel...
--- bf |
