Enforcement of Policy is Key to Successful Content Management

July 13, 2010

I wanted to talk about everyone’s favorite subject, email management. Yes, I know your eyes just rolled to the back and you’re thinking of the tech guys that have lectured you in the past about cleaning up your inbox and that you have storage limits and the like. But I want to get away from the tech side and talk very briefly about the policy side.

I would like to touch on the importance of an email policy. An email policy is pretty clear-cut and simple right? Well, if it so simple why do so few organization have a formal email policy or, for that matter, any email policy oversight. Yes email is, or should be, addressed in the employee handbook and if you have an IT person they will most likely come by from time to time and lecture you about having too much email in your inbox. However, it seems that much of the time, management has not fully bought in to the whole idea of an email policy or enforcement of the policy. Many times management just lets IT be responsible for email policy enforcement. Of course, IT should play a role in development and enforcement but there really should be an oversight team that includes IT, legal and records management,  and they should have the backing of the C-Level guys. Every organization’s email policy will be different and oversight will vary, and therefore the makeup of the over sight team will differ from situation to situation. However, most policies should address a few basic concepts:

  • Acceptable usage
  • Signature blocks
  • Effective usage
  • Personal usage
  • Ownership
  • Privacy
  • Retention and disposition

What should not differ from situation to situation is that top-level management support of the written email policy.  This will help ensure that the policy will be enforced throughout the organization, including management. (If management is not going to adhere to the email policy how can they expect anyone else to?)

By having a clear email policy, organizations reduce legal liabilities, manage content and records for optimal retrieval and reduce the cost of storing outdated or useless information. The key to the success for any email content management policy relies on management buy-in.

Miller Montague 7/12/2010

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Two Years & Answer Maven Business is Good

July 7, 2010

Answer Maven has been busy this summer.

  • Duty as Chair of SLA Legal Division complete after the end of the Annual Conference in mid-June
  • Working with a great team on the planning for  the Lucene Revolution User Conference to be held October 7-8, 2010.
  • Finalizing the second custom taxonomy for two different clients
  • Content Management and e-Discovery business development underway with Miller Montague

In the meantime, Miller and I are working out lots of details.  We are excited about the work we will be doing in the e-discovery arena.  He is  all set for a certification course next week.  I continue to bone up the industry at large.

So Answer Maven has a lot going on, which is great news.

Today, I want to take a moment to share just a couple of observations that I have made during the last few weeks of work.

  • Quality is important. If the semi-colons and date formats are the major topic of discussion about a deliverable  that’s a great thing.

You may wonder why I say that, the truth is that if that type of detail is the focus of attention the content is where it needs to be.  Delivering the highest quality of content to a client is success.

  • Open Source Search must not be ignored.

The opportunities in this arena are boundless because the community drives improvement.

  • All the old stuff offers new opportunities

Businesses that deliver the same-old same-old underestimate the shifting factors in both client expectations, technical abilities and dreamed of opportunities.  Transitioning business models is a difficult but necessary undertaking.  I understand that it is more difficult for large companies to shift quickly but the out-and-out refusal of a company to transition to new models can be the death toll.

I love having the opportunity to talk with my clients about their transition opportunities.  One recent transition idea was so simple in concept that I was sceptical at first.  As we discussed use scenarios the possibilities seemed like real opportunities.

Much in Answer Maven’s consulting work needs to be transitioned and that work is underway.  Are you busy with the daily grind or have you thought about your transition opportunities?  What is old that you need to make new again?  If you can find those gems and execute the innovations business is good.

Constance Ard July 7, 2010

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Search Isn’t Easy, Neither is Knowledge and Content Management

June 7, 2010

As I was trying out the joys of a netbook while sitting in a comfy chair and catching up on my blogs I came across a phrase in a Beyond Search post that resonated:

Search is in crisis because there is a challenge explaining what search is, how its component parts related to business problems, and neologisms work for a handful of insiders.

A couple of weeks ago I attended an “Art of Networking”  seminar and when asked “What do you do?”  Explaining what an “Information Consultant” does is a true conversation, not a single sentence answer.  I try to begin that conversation with a reply of: I help you solve your information problems.  I use my skills to improve the content retrieval for information seekers within your organization.

The conversation then goes into how people create and use information, how they search for information and what they need to retrieve.  The Beyond Search post about search having a communication issue could be just as easily applied to information.

Most information is created electronically.  Many companies have difficulty in understanding the complex issues related to the easy, or at the very least, efficient, retrieval of that information.  More and more companies of all sizes are using resources such as wiki’s or portals to provide access to the information that should be shared.  Unfortunately, without the structure of, yes, I’m gonna say it, a good custom ontology, and specific guidelines, information consumers within the enterprise will spend more time searching than finding.

Knowing that there is a need for structure and finding a way to create and maintain that structure through appropriate content creation and manage in information usage.  Most companies do not have someone in place to manage those processes.

Many companies need someone to create those processes.  That is where the Answer Maven team comes into play.  We look at the information you create and use in your daily work and the processes you use for that information in view of the whole picture from creation to management to retrieval and all the nuances within those key components including the risk management to protect companies from e-discovery costs.

Defining information management is a difficult task.  Search is a difficult concept to communicate because it’s not as simple as placing a single word into a box and reviewing a set of precise result – at least not without a lot of work in the background.  Information management is about more than file storage.

Processes are necessary and everything goes hand in hand with good search technologies.  If you have content, you probably have an information management challenge.  It doesn’t matter if you are a small business or a Fortune 50 company.  The smartest information management move anyone can take is ensuring that an information professional has assigned structure and processes for your content.  The next step is ownership but we will save that discussion for another day.

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Finding Information: It Always Comes Back to Management

April 26, 2010

Being able to use information is about more than having it available.  As content explodes and information users have more data to shift to in order to retrieve the actionable information, the tools and processes behind information become more important.

Certainly having good infrastructure and search enabled applications are important for your basic functionality but usable information required more than search.  It requires good data that is well-organized and maintained.  Even the smallest organizations can be frustrated by the amount of information contained in their data repositories.

All electronically stored information is not actionable.  Retrieving data quickly and accurately to be used in completing a report and  making daily business decisions is the critical mission for information management.  This can not be accomplished with technology alone.

Processes must be implemented to ensure that content that is created and stored is worth the storage space.  In addition, using items such as custom taxonomies, properly implemented for each content piece will increase the relevance of stored information.

Archiving and retention policies and a complete understanding of the workflow are also necessary to getting the right information.  Without the proper infrastructure and the right content management policies, organizations can place themselves at risk for several business problems, not least of which is litigation exposure.

At minimum, companies should have an ESI archiving policy that reaches beyond email.  In addition, ensue  that if you have an information process in place, your employees know and understand it.  Training isn’t just about keyword search.  It must include the protocols about creation and storage.

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Sometimes You Just Have to Work: And Marketing Just Has to Wait

January 26, 2010

As an IIP (Independent Information Professional) one of the first things you hear from your mentor is: “Don’t forget to market.”  Marketing is the easiest thing, besides bookkeeping to let slide when you work alone.

This blog is one of my marketing methods and boy has it slid lately.  I’ve been thinking about lots of things but once the work is done, the brain is too tired to make sense of my muddled thoughts about information access, content management and next-generation corporate libraries.

My first book.

So today I’m going to set work aside for a few moments and market.  Since October of 2008 I have published a book (Next Generation Corporate Libraries and Information Services), started a new contract position and landed a big project as well as taken on some steady research work for a handful of clients.

This is all good news for those of you who may have a need for a person capable of taking a special collection library and make strategic decisions about access to information either analog or digital.  It’s also good news for those who want to know how to position yourselves into a stronger role within your organization in today’s knowledge economy.  And let’s not forget those of you who just need to know how to organize your content, improve your processes and establish some protocols so that the critical data is easily found and the irrelevant or outdated stuff is swept away.

During the process of working on the projects I have undertaken I’ve increased my knowledge and the clients that come after will benefit from my ever continuing education.  A few central themes in the content management and product delivery process, no matter the industry remain constant.

  • Management is always  a problem.
  • Communication is always an issue.
  • Fast and careful execution is a key to success.

So if you have an information or content problem, need to understand what is causing delays in executing your much needed business process and product improvements, or just need a bit of research done you can bet that the Answer Maven will work first and market later to help you.

by Constance Ard 1/26/2010

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Classification – Ever Important

December 27, 2008

Saturday, December 27, 2008 7:30 am EST

In follow up to my post “Wikis Add to Information Overload” I want to talk a bit more about classification and structure.

Portals, Intranets, KM systems, Wiki”s and other information tools often are out-of-control before a problem is noticed.  (I define information tool as any item used to create data i.e. Word documents on a home computer.)  Soon users are asking themselves, where is that grocery list?  I can’t find it.

File folders are the natural order enforcer for those Word files on the home computer.  Classification is natural but my classification is not the same as yours.  So you search and you don’t find, so you recreate.

In a company this can lead to information explosion.  Of course it’s better to deal with this problem before the explosion, but that is rare.  The business of doing business always takes precedence to classification.  Even on this blog, my tags were getting out of control and I had too few categories.  Recently, I realized the importance of expanding my categories and limiting my tags.  The themes of my musings are generally the same so my tags should be consistent.

Similarly, in any information tool used to control data classification is important.  The possibilities seem infinite but principles of classification apply.  Business purpose of the tool being organized governs the work.  Then the work begins based upon business unit, information purpose, and/or subject matter.

Cross-references and upper-level categorizations are important.  Granularity in classification can defeat the purpose.  What you might ask is the purpose?  The purpose is to make information findable so that it can be used and re-used.

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Finding What You Need, When You Need It

July 15, 2008

The May 2008 Neilsen/NetRatings Global Index Chart indicates that the Current Digital Media Universe is 548,528,042, a 1.62 % increase since April.  As the amount of information created, published and accessed over the Internet grows, so too must the abilities of the information consumer.

With this information explosion, the information consumer who needs to make a decision by end of business, needs to locate the information to analyze and inform the decision.  The information on the number of manufacturers in the automotive industry who have gone from concept to production for alternative fuel power is there but can the C-levels get it?

Do you have the support you need?  Is the structure of the web so transparent that you feel comfortable with a Google search and the surface results or do you think maybe, just maybe an industry think tank may have just the data you need but those think tank results aren’t in your first two pages of results.

Perhaps the data needed was presented in an internal meeting several weeks ago but damned, if you can put your hands on the file right now. Or perhaps the presentation to stockholders you are working on needs bits and pieces from various reports that have been delivered over the past year.

Intranets and company portals have their own wealth of data.  Unfortunately, enterprise search is known to underperform.  This is due in part to security constraints, content management practices and system limitations.  Having a comprehensive federated/enterprise search system is such a wonderful dream.

Taxonomies, tag clouds, indexes and categories are all ways to try to make the dream come true.  There are information professionals who work everyday to manage the wealth and organize the data.  Some work in their very own universe, those portals are leaps and bounds ahead of the hard-copy file, especially for multi-national or multi-office organizations who collaborate.  Others, like Google, work to organize and make available the “whole” web.

In my opinion, its just too big.  The information you need may live in the “deep-web” or the company portal or just might be available with a simple keyword search or …the possibilities seem endless.  Do you have an expert helping guide your content management policies/strategies?  Do you have individuals available that employ expert information retrieval skills so that you can make that decision knowing you’ve reviewed the most relevant data.  Are you, as an information retriever, employing the best strategies to find the needed content?

It seems overwhelming, but the truth of the matter is that if you have a relatively good taxonomy and use sophisticated search strategies and your results are from verifiable sources you may just be skimming the surface of available information, but you are getting the answer.  And getting the Answer is what it is all about at the end of the day.

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