=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-34/paper-2
|storemode=property
|title=Collaborative Knowledge Management: Theory and practice of a successful commercial application (slides)
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-34/gruber_slides.pdf
|volume=Vol-34
}}
==Collaborative Knowledge Management: Theory and practice of a successful commercial application (slides)==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-34/gruber_slides.pdf
Collaborative Knowledge Work:
Theory and Practice of a Successful
Commercial Application
Thomas Gruber
CTO, Intraspect Software
How well do organizations think?
How long does it take for new Does the left hand know what
people to come up to speed? the right hand is doing?
❚ Does knowledge walk How do organizations
out the door when communicate and coordinate
someone leaves? their activities?
❚ How long does it take to How do organizations maintain
find the right person for relationships as employees
the task?
change?
© 2000 Intraspect Software. Do not distribute without permission.
Some Important Ideas
❚ Knowledge Capture and Reuse
❚ Corporate Memory
❚ Organizational Learning
❚ Virtual Communities
❚ B2B Collaboration across Value Chains
© 2000 Intraspect Software. Do not distribute without permission.
Some Business Realities
❚ Rampant workforce turnover
– need for organizational memory
❚ Scarcity of talent
– need to find and leverage experts
❚ Pressure for fix-fee services
– need to capture and reuse best practices
❚ Need for Speed: Outsource and Partner
or Die
– need for B2B knowledge communities
© 2000 Intraspect Software. Do not distribute without permission.
A Success Story for Collaboration
and KM
❚ Intraspect was designed and built for
collaborative knowledge management.
❚ It actually works.
– People use it.
❚ It is a commercial success.
– They pay for it.
❚ It is bringing new capabilities to
mainstream business areas:
– CRM, BI, PSA, HR, Supply Chain
© 2000 Intraspect Software. Do not distribute without permission.
Some Intraspect Customers
Web & System Integrators Marketing Services Financial Services
Other Vertical Markets
High Tech
Telecom
OK, ENOUGH MARKETING!
WHAT DOES IT DO AND HOW
DOES IT WORK?
© 2000 Intraspect Software. Do not distribute without permission.
The Challenge:
❚ How can technology foster
organizational intelligence?
How to create an environment where
– people naturally build on each other’s work
– a corporate memory is created and maintained
– virtual communities emerge and thrive
© 2000 Intraspect Software. Do not distribute without permission.
Existing Technical Approaches
Don’t Solve the Problem
Portals Point-to-point Email
© 2000 Intraspect Software. Do not distribute without permission.
The Solution:
Memory Mediated Collaboration
❚ Shared Online Environment
– Integrate All Information Sources
❚ Many-On-Many Collaboration
– Not Just Teams and Rooms
❚ Community Knowledge Base
– Build on Previous Work
© 2000 Intraspect Software. Do not distribute without permission.
How It Works:
The Intraspect Group Memory
discover keep informed
contribute Intraspect disseminate
Group
Memory
discuss
re-use!
share
Email Files Web Notes Reports
© 2000 Intraspect Software. Do not distribute without permission.
Collaborative Knowledge Work in
Professional Services
Capture & Distribute Interact with
Best Practices Customers
Generate
Manage Proposals
Deliverables
Source
Track and Hire
Issues
Ramp New
Collaborate on Consultants
Engagement Find
Experts
© 2000 Intraspect Software. Do not distribute without permission.
Enterprise Deployment on a
Federation of Intraspect servers
Professional Services Collaborative Portal Customer and
Applications Services Partner Extranets
Content Managers Management Engagement Teams Outsource Partners Customer Teams
© 2000 Intraspect Software. Do not distribute without permission.
Product Functionality
❚ Collection, Linking, Organization
❚ Discussion and Commenting
❚ Document Management & Sharing
❚ Full-text & Metadata Search
❚ Universal Subscription
❚ Distribution over web and email
❚ Access Control & Security
❚ Customization and Personalization
© 2000 Intraspect Software. Do not distribute without permission.
Example: Workspaces for
Collaborative Engagements
© 2000 Intraspect Software. Do not distribute without permission.
Information is always In Context
© 2000 Intraspect Software. Do not distribute without permission.
Contribute directly to workspace
from e-mail, browser or desktop
Quickly find email
addresses with
LDAP integration
Unique
customized
e-mail
address
Full text
search of
attachments
© 2000 Intraspect Software. Do not distribute without permission.
Contribute directly from Microsoft
Office 2000 or Windows Desktop
WebDAV allows
Intraspect
presentation as
web folders.
© 2000 Intraspect Software. Do not distribute without permission.
Personalized information
management space
Personal workspaces
and client accounts Navigation Bar
Urgent
User- Notifications
controlled
command
bar
Links to news and items of interest Tasks, events, etc.
© 2000 Intraspect Software. Do not distribute without permission.
Search and you will find.
© 2000 Intraspect Software. Do not distribute without permission.
Find important client information
Templates
to sort and
analyze
across
accounts
Review
Adds a project
project history
workspace
with just
one click
Links to
live reports
in other
systems
© 2000 Intraspect Software. Do not distribute without permission.
Subscribe to stay informed of
relevant activity
Notified on
his Personal
Page
Notified
by
email
© 2000 Intraspect Software. Do not distribute without permission.
Subscribe and be kept informed.
© 2000 Intraspect Software. Do not distribute without permission.
Apply best practices to create a
new project workspace
Select
project
members;
assign Apply
access existing
policies methodology
Replicate
vital project
statistics
w/ c-spaces
© 2000 Intraspect Software. Do not distribute without permission.
Structured project spaces to run
and manage the engagement
Quick project
overview with
searchable
metadata
Project
member Use pre-
security formatted
policies. methodologies or
create new ones
© 2000 Intraspect Software. Do not distribute without permission.
Custom Searches combine
metadata and full-text query
Search by
document type
and custom
attributes
© 2000 Intraspect Software. Do not distribute without permission.
The Ontology of Context and
Collaboration
❚ Context hierarchy with typed nodes
– allow multiple parents, no inheritance
❚ Conversational relations
– next-in-thread/in-reply-to
– context-sensitive annotation
❚ Implicit metadata
– contributor, date, content type
❚ Explicit metadata
– titles and descriptions
– user-defined types and attributes
© 2000 Intraspect Software. Do not distribute without permission.
How it works: the principles
❚ Design for organizational intelligence.
❚ Create a knowledge ecology.
❚ Motivate by enlightened self-interest.
❚ Support existing work practice.
❚ Collaboration is king.
© 2000 Intraspect Software. Do not distribute without permission.
1. People are part of the killer app!
What People do well What Machines do well
❚ Create lots of ❚ Remember lots of
things to remember things
❚ Make sense of data ❚ Search large bodies
of data and
and information information
❚ Communicate to ❚ Deliver messages to
solve problems large audiences
❚ What they are ❚ What they are told
motivated to do to do
© 2000 Intraspect Software. Do not distribute without permission.
2. An Ecology of Knowledge Reuse
❚ Capture knowledge at its source
– get it while it’s hot!
❚ Capture knowledge in context
– don’t dump and try to sort it later
❚ Grow the corporate memory as a
product of people working on-line
– corporate memory emerges
© 2000 Intraspect Software. Do not distribute without permission.
3. Enlightened self-interest
❚ Make it easier to re-use than to reinvent.
❚ Make it easier to work together, on-line.
❚ Global benefit emerges from local action.
and…
❚ The more people use it, the more valuable
it is to everyone!
© 2000 Intraspect Software. Do not distribute without permission.
Not a Field of Dreams
“If you build it, they will come.”
“If they use it, it will build itself.”
© 2000 Intraspect Software. Do not distribute without permission.
4. Support existing work practice
❚ Reach out to existing toolsets
– email, web, desktop
❚ Support existing business processes
– workflow and metadata for routine tasks
❚ Don’t turn knowledge workers into
librarians!
– don’t expect IT staff to do it, either.
© 2000 Intraspect Software. Do not distribute without permission.
5. Collaboration is King!
❚ Knowledge management is driven by
collaborative work.
– the source of knowledge creation
– the context for knowledge reuse
– the main reason to be working over the net
❚ KM without participation will fail.
❚ Collaboration in knowledge-based
communities is the way we work in the
new economy.
© 2000 Intraspect Software. Do not distribute without permission.