The goals of knowledge management have not changed, but the
software infrastructure that makes these initiatives work is now in
place. Technologies such as instant messaging and advanced search
are ready to help move employees to higher levels of
collaboration.
Knowledge management is an unhelpful term that describes a broad
range of software products and enterprise services. The term may
not be useful, but the basic goals of knowledge management have not
changed for more than a decade. Forrester originally defined
knowledge management in 1997 as initiatives that:
Capture information and processes The first goal of any
knowledge management product is to capture and store information
with its context. Once this is accomplished, the information should
be categorised so people can get it when they need it.
Disseminate this information in a relevant and timely way
Products need to accommodate active and passive user behaviour. For
example, in some situations employees will access information by
searching for and retrieving data. In other situations knowledge
management products must be intelligent enough to distribute
information to the right people when it is needed.
What's new about knowledge management software?
While
the idea of capturing and taking advantage of a firm's collective
intelligence is not new, some important trends have made it
possible for firms to get closer to this promise without fighting
for enterprise buy-in for a single solution. What's changed?
Firms have deployed packaged applications Firms have
automated many business processes with ERP systems, groupware
applications, and outsourced application providers from vendors
like Siebel and SAP. These deployments bring together disparate
sources of data and provide rich directories of employee
information.
Application infrastructure has proven scalability Firms
invested heavily in servers and storage in the late 1990s to pave
the way for stable intranet and groupware applications. Application
servers from vendors like BEA Systems and Oracle provide the
enterprise with scale to give all users secure access to data
warehouses and content management systems where important
information is stored.
Tools have become more advanced and open Groupware
applications have turned into portal servers; document management
systems have evolved to include mature Web content management
functionality; and a single business intelligence software vendor
like Business Objects or Cognos can now offer data mining,
reporting, and analytics software. These tools also expose better
APIs that allow developers and ISVs to build online collaborative
project rooms and eLearning applications that take advantage of
their directory information and document repositories.
New standards like Web services ease integration Integration
standards like Web services have accelerated the way applications
interact and users connect to knowledge resources. For example,
Microsoft will use Web services to allow users to pull up a list of
Web resources like content, catalogue data, or images from within
Microsoft Word and Excel; users don't have to open a browser,
search the corporate intranet, and copy the information into a
document.
Where will the vendor innovation occur?
Firms already
own many of the products necessary to build a powerful enterprise
platform to make knowledge management initiatives more successful,
but few have figured out how to weave these different technologies
together. To help, startups and innovators will:
Offer advanced search to improve codification Just when
search seemed to be old news, vendors like Netrics and ClearForest
are challenging established approaches with techniques that will
bring the ease and accuracy of Google to the enterprise. Firms will
use these technologies, along with external search technology from
specific applications, and accurately discover and categorize
information wherever it lives.
Stabilise instant messaging to encourage contribution
Instant messaging has proven to be much more than a chat room fad
for teenagers. The success of these tools within companies has
vendors like Lotus and Microsoft working to improve shortcomings
like state management (how do users store and index their
conversations?) and security (how do users securely communicate and
contribute corporate information?).
Improve business process management tools to orchestrate
dissemination Web services will accelerate application
integration. As a result, new tools from vendors like Metastorm and
Staffware that help business people model and execute processes
that occur across those various applications will become critical
for getting employees the information they need at the time they
are making decisions.
Create enterprise Weblog tools to facilitate collaboration
The Weblog phenomenon is sweeping high-tech journalism and spilling
over into newspapers as reputable journalists use zero-cost tools
to publish their ideas on personal Web sites. The impact is a
dramatically accelerated public dialogue. Firms will tap the same
behaviour to enable their experts to contribute their knowledge in
internal Weblogs that are indexed and searched from a central
collaboration platform. Look at UserLand.com for an early Weblog
tool set.
Joshua Walker is a research director at Forrester
Research
www.forrester.com