Let’s Talk Knowledge

The analyst firm Outsell published an interesting report (you’ll find it here. Sorry about the paywall, but we in the premium content biz have to hang together …  ) this week on the narrowing of the technological generation gap in the enterprise. Interesting, because it indicates that the three generational groups we now see coexisting in the workplace (Millennials, Generation X & Baby Boomers) are now converging in their use of technology and level of information savvy. As the report notes, “It is [now] not safe to generalize about younger people vs. older people when it comes to information habits and preferences.”  Their analysis concludes, in other words, that most workers—regardless of age—are using capabilities like Web searching, information alerting, email and mobile solutions in about the same way.

I agree with Leigh Watson, the report’s author, that this is good news for enterprises, as it means that we can ease up on some of the handwringing we’ve all been going through lately about how to reconcile these seemingly disparate information technology users internally, and how those of us in the information solutions business can create products to meet all their needs. As the report concludes, the problem seems to be taking care of itself. Right?

Well, maybe partially, but I think there’s an aspect of this gap that still exists, and is even more important for us close, and that’s the different ways in which Millennials (who, as Brigitte noted a couple of weeks ago, are newly entering the workforce today) approach knowledge sharing as an integral part of both their personal and professional lives. Speaking broadly, this generation of users has tightly integrated social networks into their daily lives, and they’re often using those networks not only to socialize, but to gather knowledge. They do it through peer-to-peer sharing via a community rather than through a solo hunting and gathering activity—which can mean a diminished reliance on traditional research tools. Ken referred to this as ‘Social Intelligence’ when he wrote about it back in April.

It‘s an example of The Strength of Weak Ties, and how finding connections outside your own area best stimulates innovation. Leveraging large social networks of weak ties to share and collect information changes the way people gain knowledge. Rather than finding and synthesizing vast amounts of information, they collaborate with subject matter experts, and then validate and extend what they have already learned. This has profound implications for us information providers, who will need to find ways to integrate with and into the social networks, or perhaps more importantly, to leverage the underlying capabilities and standards developed by the networks, to maintain their presence in front of potential users.

It could also indicates a perhaps more profound change under way in user behavior that is an outcome of both the social networking and self-serve information markets. That is: a move away from the notion that research is an activity that is best built on lessons of the past, toward more of an in-the-moment activity that looks for similar experiences. With the immediacy of the internet to connect people who share similar questions or concerns, we could see researchers move away from the notion of finding someone who previously answered the question and instead finding someone who is also asking the same question. If this change takes hold and sticks around, research tools will be less valued than community tools, and will have to evolve themselves to support this need.

And that brings us back around to the technological generation gap. Although use of social networks by Baby Boomers has increased significantly in recent years, young people still have significantly higher rates of use. But even more important than the tool that social networks are, is the different way of managing information that they represent. Even if older generations of users like the Gen Xers (such as me) and Baby Boomers are closing the gap on the use of electronic information tools, it will be more interesting to see if we can close the gap in leveraging the actual networks behind those tools and make those weak ties work to our advantage in the enterprise.

I’m interested to hear your thoughts, so let me know if you’re seeing examples of how people are beginning to use those networks of weak ties in their business lives (the use of networks like LinkedIn to prospect for jobs during the downturn is one obvious example).

-Ryan

ryanw Information Management, Research, Social Media

As I mentioned in my previous post, there have been two observations I wanted to share with you based on the research I’ve been doing as of late. The first was the power of context. The second is the impact time has on the value of information. Perhaps more accurately stated, the impact time has on who gets value from information.

At Dow Jones we see this across our lines of business. Our ultra low latency products power machine based trading, our real time newswires power investors decision, our daily newsletters inform decision makers, and our 30+ year archive fuels business research. The same piece of content, based on its age, finds value in different places across the enterprise.

Based on what I’ve been seeing as of late, there is an opportunity to understand what types and sources of information are getting value “early” in your enterprise. In many cases, this same content will continue to have value over time throughout the rest of your business, even as the information becomes vintage. So in your next review of content needs in your company, try starting with the people who need information first, and let me know how similar you find the needs of the rest of the company.

- Ken

Ken Sickles Information Management, Research Information Management, Research

As you can see I haven’t been busy blogging as of late – that’s the bad news (if you like my posts that is). The good news is I have been busy researching and talking to researchers and knowledge workers around the globe. There have been a couple of trends I’ve seen across these conversations, and one of them is the power of context.

While their is no refuting the power of aggregating information, it really is just the start. Of course you have to be able to find the most relevant information, when you need it, and be able to get to it when you need it. But just having the information really isn’t enough. That information becomes valuable when it is put in context for the user.

Understanding the user’s workflow, and what they will be doing with it when they get it can unlock the real value. Let’s look at the example of a Partner at a consulting firm to explain what I mean. We can use information about the revenue performance of one of the Partner’s customers as an example. Having access to recent financial statements and articles regarding the revenue performance over the customer over the last three quarters is good. Having the actual numbers extracted from that content is even better. But then what? How will the Partner use that information?

If he or she is trying to close new business with the customer, they may also need to see how expenses have fared over the same time period, in order to understand if current financial performance may lessen the likelihood or size of any potential opportunity. If he or she is preparing a report or making a recommendation, they may need access to performance from the peers of their customer for comparison purposes.

Two activities focused on the same piece of information, but both with very different needs for the context around that information. So while understanding the Partner in the consulting firm often needs access to revenue information regarding their customers is valuable, understanding how they will use that information is priceless.

In my next post I’ll talk about the other trend that I have seen in my conversations – the effect time has on the value of information.

- Ken

Ken Sickles Business Intelligence, Information Management, Research context, Information Management, Research

I have been doing a lot of market research and customer interviews as of late. Most of the work has been focused on providing role based information management tools for information consumers. There has been one common thread to the conversation: Simplicity.

I think there is a tendency on the behalf of people that design information solutions to try and jam as much relevant data as you can into the users workflow. I’m not sure why that is, maybe because we are accustomed to processing large volumes of data, maybe a desire to ensure we have a complete picture, maybe simply because we can. But it is clearly not what information consumers want. All they are looking for is *the* relevant data, not *all* of the relevant data.

I think it is easy for information professionals to lose sight of the importance of this subtle distinction. Information is our jobs, it’s what we do. But for end users it really is just a small (albeit incredibly important) part of their job. Probably one of the most valuable things we can do as information professionals is understand what the real needs of the end user are. This of course is easier said than done, because often users have difficulty describing their needs. In some cases they will also have trouble in defining them, and often cast too wide a net. Of course then after being given what they asked for, they will be overwhelmed, and in turn unsatisfied.

The best way for us to understand the information needs of users is to understand their role, their objective, and how it supports the operation of the company as a whole. Don’t ask “What information do you need?’, instead ask “Can you describe a typical day? What are the 3 primary objectives in your role? What are your top 3 challenges in meeting those objectives? What happens if you don’t get the information you need? “. Taking this sort of consultative approach will help you identify what an end user really needs, as opposed to what they ask for. It also has the benefit of helping you determine the value of the solution, and perhaps more importantly it can help the end user understand that as well. In many cases, it will also help you determine what sort of analysis that you can do on the users behalf (this is incredibly value because of the time savings you can provide).

Ultimately, once you identify the information needs, avoid the temptation to over-deliver. Deliver only what the user absolutely needs. Anything more will simply be a distraction.

- Ken

Ken Sickles Business Intelligence, Information Management, Research

I’ve been reading a lot of the conversations around the fate of the newspaper industry, and content in general. Of course many of them are centered on the fact that “content wants to be free”. I really don’t want to jump in the center of this debate (right now anyway), but I do want to talk about how this is relevant to those of us that do business research, or rely on information from external sources to make decisions.

The most important point to remember, as my father so often told me, there is no such thing as a free lunch. A post by Stan Schroeder on the Mashable blog actually got me thinking about this. Stan stated that Cost is not just price, but also the time to pay (and gave a great analogy about free donuts that made me go to Dunkin’ donuts). I think there is a third part of that equation, and that is the risk associated with the content.

Cost = Price + Time to Pay + Risk

So let me explain the equation. I think Price is obvious, how much direct out of pocket money is associated with the content. Time to Pay – how long does it take you to find and or access the content? Risk – how reliable and or accurate is the content.

First let me say I know people using information for business purposes care about this equation much more than those using information for general current awareness. For example, even if it takes me an hour to find out the latest Big Brother news, and it may not be accurate when I find it – I’m still not willing to pay for it. I essentially have nothing to lose (well, accept for any credibility I may have had by just admitting I watch Big Brother).

The attitude changes as soon as there is a potential for me to recognize a profit or loss from the use of that information. For example as a product manager, if I can quickly find high quality information on a market opportunity for a new product, I would gladly pay for it. First, I don’t have a lot of time to surf the vast sea of free content out there, find what is relevant, and put it into context. Second, I don’t want to use information that may be incorrect or even false, there is just too much risk associated with this decision.

I know many people today that are using and buying content for organizations are struggling with the justification of paying for content. End users have been inundated with the fact that content is free and ubiquitous, and that can be difficult to challenge. I’m hoping the above equation can help. I think in addition, knowing where and when the equation is relevant in your organization is important.

As I’ve mentioned before, it is important to align your Information Management purchases to strategic corporate initiatives, or high risk business functions (like supply chain management). When applying the equation to these types of initiatives it is very easy to see that the cost of paid-for content and tools is far less than the cost of free content.

Well, I’m off to get my “free” lunch. Of course I’m going I had to get up at 4:30 am, pay for a train ticket, and travel to and from New York City to get it, so maybe it wasn’t so free after all.

- Ken

Ken Sickles Information Management, Research business research platform, Information Management, ROI

I have had a few interesting conversation with customers in the past few days. I’ve spent some time with a wide variety of users, from professional researchers, content purchasers, information consumers, and a lot of roles in between. Some things I was reminded of in these conversations that are worth sharing, even if nothing new and earth shattering was uncovered.

First, ease of use can definitely beat out superior quality. A great research platform, with unmatched content and tools, will sit unused if the learning curve is to steep. This of course is a reason it can be hard to break knowledge workers of the often unproductive GYM (Google, Microsoft, Yahoo) habit.

Second, there is no one source for information. Information sources vary greatly from enterprise to enterprise, and just as widely from user to user within an enterprise.

Third, mobile, mobile, mobile. A lot of people seem concerned with mobile access to business research tools, but not sure what the specific requirements are beyond that. Clearly mobile is young and evolving, but important.

Fourth, value must be readily apparent. Whether this comes from some sort of hard ROI like time-savings, or as part of a larger initiative, value of research solutions must be established early, and demonstrated often.

Fifth, workflow tools are the flavor of the day. This probably has a lot to do with the preceding point – it is easier to establish value with targeted solutions, than general purpose tools.

Finally, there is a need for a business research platform to help bring all of these things together. A platform that can add value to content, regardless of origin. A platform that can support the entire process of business research, for every type of user. That is a scalable platform that provides basic services like search and alert for all users, but that can be configured and molded to support the specific workflow needs of research and information intensive roles. A platform with an interface that is effortless. A platform that allows intelligence to be created in a collaborative manner, shared, and distributed through many different channels (print, digital, web, and mobile). A platform that easily allows the information professional to demonstrate the value, both of the platform and the information professional managing it.

In short, a comprehensive business research platform is the only way I see to manage all of the concerns facing informational professionals today. Imagine if an informational professional has a business research platform that brings together all of the necessary capabilities and content to support their enterprise, and that platform can be engaged with little or no training. Then they can spend their time creating and adding value to the business instead of administrating a plethora of independent tools and content sources.

If anyone has any stories to share on the power an effective business research platform can provide, please do share!

- Ken

Ken Sickles Information Management, Research business research platform, Research

I promise, this is not another post about Bing, and everything it may or may not do to change the consumer search engine landscape, and related advertising industry. If you are looking for that, take a look at a very concise and relevant Forrester blog post here. I do want to talk about one of the principles that Bing is focusing on in an attempt to differentiate.

You can find it in the url of the introductory video for Bing: http://www.decisionengine.com/. Decision Engine. The point being that search is not an objective, it is a task that is employed by most people in an effort to make a decision. That is a bit of a no brainer, but a really important distinction (and I think MS is going to spend close to 100M in advertising to bring that to light). As a technology community we have just been to in love with making search better in the past 10 years. We need to change the focus to improving our efficiency in making decisions. Again, I know it sounds like a subtle distinction, but it is anything but subtle.

For example, if I am focused on making search better, I look at things like relevance of results to the keyword in use, speed of results, breadth of coverage,  autocomplete, etc. If I think about improving the decision making process, I try to understand what decisions are being made, why, and when? What data elements and information is required to make that decision, what is the best resource to get that information, who is the best person to talk to? Really, a very different viewpoint from a requirements perspective.

I often refer to the process to support decision making in business as business research (of which search is one of the tasks in that process of course, among others like analysis). So for people interested in business research Bing is important. First, even if only because of the huge advertising budget MS has, it will help shift the technology communities focus from search, to research. Second, I think it will help validate the importance of the decision making tools – something that can sometimes be hard to do believe it or not (how many of you have management or users that think your existing decision making tools like Factiva are nothing more than a search box and bunch of articles?). Last, because of the importance based on Social Intelligence (Bing organizes content based on what other users have found to be important). 

So while it remains to be seen whether it is a good tool or not, whether it will help MS gain some share in the consumer “search” market, and if it will bring a shift from keyword to display advertising, Bing is important – thanks Microsoft.

- Ken

Ken Sickles Information Management, Research, Search Information Management, Research, Search Engine, social intelligence

Today my colleague Brigitte Ricou-Bellan published an e-book on the Return on Intelligence, and I wanted to follow up that wonderful piece with a post. The topic of the piece couldn’t be more timely – how to justify the investment in knowledge and information management solutions. Today more than ever as organizations are cutting costs, these kind of solutions come under scrutiny. Many times they are viewed as a nice to have, but not a necessity. The e-book tackles two different means to help prove value.

First there is the case study from Accenture on determining a tangible ROI. In Accenture’s case, time-savings was used to show a $25-1 return on investment in knowledge management solutions. In the e-book they also discuss some of the other factors that could have been used, such as increased sales, increased quality, decreased costs, etc. 

Determining a tangible ROI is of course invaluable, but something that can often be time-consuming and difficult to do however. I believe the real opportunity is to begin to change the perception around information management solutions. The fact of the matter is that when deployed and managed effectively these solutions can provide distinct competitive advantage, customer intamicy, and operational efficiencies. All of which are critical in any economic climate, but essential a down economy. 

But how do we change the perception of solutions like Factiva from Dow Jones? Take a moment to think about some of the strategic initiatives in your organization. Is there one to manage risk in your supply chain? Perhaps one to reduce the cost of sales? Maybe to grow presence in an emerging market? Projects and objectives like these often have a return on investment associated with them and are perceived to be mission critical. Fortunately, initiatives like these are fueled by information from both inside and outside the enterprise firewall. Having access to reliable and timely information can be the difference between a good decision and a bad one. 

Think about the different conversations you can have with your constituents that use your IM or KM solutions. Don’t talk about the number of employees that receive “News Alerts”. Instead discuss the benefit of a “Daily Supply Chain Risk Dashboard”, and how it is a key factor in the success of your companies Supply Chain initiatives. Both come from the same tool, but are perceived completely differently.

So what initiatives in your organization can be improved by the availability of reliable, accurate, and timely information? What projects will be made better by a tool that enables knowledge curation of all manner of information, and social intelligence? More importantly perhaps, which ones already are?

So instead of spending time justifying the investments you have made, take some time to understand the importance of those investments to your organizations strategic goals. Find use cases of IM solutions doing so today in your company. Evangalise how a down economy is when you need to invest more than ever in creating competitive advantage, customer intamicy, and operational efficiency. Convince your company about the value of the Return on Intelligence. Intelligence that you, your team, and your solutions are delivering to your constituents.

For the many reading this who have done so, I encourage you to share your stories here and take the poll in the sidebar! Remember, this blog isn’t a one way communication vehicle for me, it is a community for transforming information into intelligence. Kudos to Brigitte and the DJ team for giving us a such a great topic to discuss.

- Ken

Ken Sickles Business Intelligence, Information Management, Research Information Management, return on intelligence, ROI

I’ve been playing around with Kosmix.com this morning to do some research for work. Of course I know Factiva is the ultimate online research tool for knowledge workers like myself (that is probably as far as anyone from Dow Jones will read, so I’ll be objective from now on). However, I wanted to try an actual project with Kosmix to put it through its paces.

My overall impression of the site is pretty favorable. I like the layout of the site, and the natural grouping of different content types. I especially like the inclusion of social media, and even found some of the most useful information, or links to it in that section of the search results (social intelligence anyone?).  The site did an ok job at clustering and establishing some basic relationships for some, but not all of my searches (this seemed to happen when my query was very specific, so I imagine there was not enough volume of results to do so). I was disappointed by the lack of any extraction capabilities (identifying companies, or products, or people for example) and visualizations.

Kosmix did a fair job of helping guide me through my research, I didn’t have to run more searches to navigate to related information. Though I did not try Right Health, a vertical search portal built on the Kosmix platform, I can see where the platform would be well suited for that.

However navigation and understanding is where I think all of our interfaces for research can improve, and certainly Kosmix has a fair way to go here. I mentioned the lack of entity extraction earlier, and that is really a pre-requisite for the ability to do this well. For example I was researching a particular category of software tools, and while company names appeared in many of the results and categories, they were never identified as a company, and linked to any relevant company information (fundamentals, business events, etc) and this caused more searching and extra time on my part to get these details.

Finally while the site was visually pleasing, there were no visualizations that really helped me understand the information. Again this is an area where many of our research tools can improve, and an area I think we have the technology and resource to invest in but I’m just not seeing a great deal of it.

Ok, now back to Factiva to finish my research (in case someone from DJ did actually read this far..).

- Ken

Ken Sickles Information Management, Research, Search Information Management, Research, Search

I mentioned in my last post that a shift in focus will be taking place in technology. Instead of creating, storing, distributing, and retrieving (as my friend Christine pointed out), technology will turn its focus to tools to help make sense of the vast amounts of valuable information made available to us. I wonder though if it isn’t the simplest of technologies, which already exists, that will be one of the most beneficial to us.

What could be better than a tool that would understand what decision point we are trying to support, go find all of the relevant information, then analyze it and present it in an easily consumable manner like a dashboard? How about someone who has recently made the same or similar decision? Someone who has already either manually or through technology synthesized large amounts of information, understands the sources of the most valuable data, and maybe even knows the context in which you are making a decision.

Learning from the knowledge of others is something we’re very accustomed to doing, and very comfortable with. Really, the idea of Search is to connect us to the materials that others have put together, so we can benefit from the knowledge they posses without knowing who they are. But now, we have social networks and messaging systems that help us easily find those people, and subsequently the knowledge they have.

Imagine discovering a company you are not familiar with in a news article, and wanting to know who their competitors are. If you use the standard means of Search, you would spend some time on Google, or your intranet, or a research tool like Factiva to get your answer. Think instead if you could click on the company, and have a list of people in your enterprise or industry peers that have a relationship to that company (a procurement person, a sales person, a technology person, etc.). An instant (or micro) message directed at one or more of the people listed, gives you access to all of there knowledge. They will likely either know the answer directly, or be able to tell you where to find the answer.

Intelligence obtained from your social network, not your ability to search. Connecting with people that are informed, not finding relevant information. A powerful way to benefit from the volumes of information we are presented with, and not be overwhelmed by it.

Of course enabling social intelligence is only one of the things that needs to happen. New information management technologies are still critical. I just think we should do our best to get the most out of our existing technologies, while future technologies are being development.

Ken Sickles Business Intelligence, Information Management, Social Media Business Intelligence, Information Management, social intelligence, Social Media