Knowledge Management | Langemarks Cafe - Still spilling the beans while boiling the ocean

Symantec to OEM Autonomy technology

Sat, 12 Apr 2008 08:58:00 -0500

Blink and you might have missed it, but Symantec signed an important OEM (original equipment manufacturer) deal with Autonomy the other day that was announced with little fanfare. However, it's an important deal, and here's why... Symantec has long wanted to play in the content management sector, for just like EMC they see content management as an excellent feeder for and extension of their broader storage and archiving business. Their first steps came with the ingestion of KVS's Enterprise Vault archiving product into their portfolio. Since that time Symantec has seen growth and potential for their archiving (mainly e-mail focused) business. This potential is driven in part by the fashion for e-discovery in the US (due to new federal rules), but more broadly by server and storage optimization demand for Exchange environments. The deal with Autonomy could allow Symantec to play much more broadly in the content technologies market place. Firstly by boosting their search capabilities (currently supplied via an old relationship with Alta Vista) and potentially bringing them into broader archiving situations (SharePoint) via products such as Meridio. Symantec is a very well known brand, and they currently hold a strong position in the EAM (e-mail archiving and management) sector. With the Autonomy deal, they could begin to make an impact elsewhere -- to their benefit as well as Autonomy's, who remains associated almost exclusively with its search technology. I suspect that this arrangement is more than a simple OEM deal, that it is strategic in nature to Symantec's broader archiving and ECM ambitions. That over the coming year we will see Symantec start to appear more and more as key player alongside EMC, Oracle and HP (who recently acquired Tower), in an ECM market that is becoming increasingly focused on archiving, imaging, and compliance.

Productivity Show with Mission Control

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 17:06:13 -0500

The Productivity Show #39 with Doug Fisher of Mission Control covers my favorite topic of personal effectiveness AND makes the connection to team effectiveness. I also heard a lot of personal knowledge management in the discussion, but mostly it was tangential. Doug Fisher is President of Mission Control, a productivity methodology for increasing productivity and reducing stress. Sounds like Getting Things Done? Well here’s a comparison from someone who has done both; GTD-er’s Perspective on M

How do you like THOSE assets?

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 16:33:00 -0500

There's nothing like promising a Playboy centerfold to drive people (well, men mostly) to an upcoming technology conference. In this case, her name is PAM -- the Playboy Asset Management system -- and PAM will will be shown in all her revealing glory at the upcoming Henry Stewart Digital Asset Management Symposium in New York, May 12th & 13th. And while I'm no Playboy centerfold, I'll be there too (clothed and looking sharp), speaking about my last few months of research into Digital Asset Management. My colleague Kas Thomas and I have spoken to dozens of customers and taken a hard look at 15 leading vendors in the marketplace, and will soon publish a report of our findings. At Henry Stewart, I'll be moderating a panel about DAM Software procurement with DPCI president Joseph Bachana, leading a session about the DAM marketplace, and appearing on the analyst panel to banter about the state of the DAM market. Finally, I'll be leading a post-conference tutorial on Wednesday, May 14th about the content technology marketplace, talking about the differences between DAM, WCM and ECM, and helping you sort out which ones you need (or don't). I hope you'll join me for this great event. In addition to everything you could want to know about Digital Asset Management, the Henry Stewart folks always seem to find really good caterers....

Développeur .Net / Applications Web 2.0/Basé(e) Paris - Salaire motivant - H/F

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 23:30:39 -0500

DÃ©veloppeur .Net / Applications Web 2.0/BasÃ©(e) Paris - Salaire motivant - H/F 9 avr 2008 dans: DSI, DÃ©veloppement, IngÃ©nierie, Internet, Logiciel, PME, Paris, Web 2.0 blueKiwi software, Ã©diteur de logiciel de nouvelle gÃ©nÃ©ration (membre du programme Microsoft IDEES), dÃ©veloppe une solution Intranet innovante qui importe dans l’entreprise les nouveaux usages de l’Internet 2.0 : blogs, wiki, travail collaboratif, rÃ©seaux sociaux, rss, Personal Knowledge Management,… blueKiwi transfo

Special challenges of managing school websites

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 15:55:00 -0500

Today I spent a delightful morning with 75 web managers from "K-12" (i.e., primary and secondary) school districts around the U.S. at the first annual "Education Web Professionals National Conference." It was quite interesting to hear how their needs differ from web managers in, say, higher education. Some observations in no particular order: When every school in a district has its own website, and in many cases teachers can operate their own sub-sites, then multi-site management becomes a very, very big deal. As Web CMS Report readers know, effective multi-site management is a key gating feature that tends to separate less expensive from pricier products (though not all pricey products do it well!). Not surprisingly, most Web CMS projects in this space have begun as experimental Intranet implementations. Most public sites get managed manually. Not surprisingly, web teams strapped for funding have great interest in open source, but even a simpler package like Joomla! can seem complicated to non-technical webmasters (and it won't effectively manage multiple sites). Like many government agencies, some school districts are longer on staff than discretionary funds, but the extent of their technical resources varies widely. I met some specialists from one of the wealthiest counties in the country who had an enviable technology testing lab, and then two minutes later chatted with a staffer from a small rural county who wanted to make more use of his PHP background, but spent most of his days putting out fires as the sole webmaster for the school district. In general, districts make available more resources and attention for instructional technologies than school websites. Many districts license commercial learning content management systems (LCMS) like BlackBoard. But the open source LCMS Moodle is rapidly gaining in popularity. Some schools are stretching Moodle a bit to serve as a kind of Intranet portal and internal "Web 2.0" platform, even though that isn't what Moodle's really intended to do. As in other sectors, most Web 2.0 initiatives (especially blogs) remain mostly behind the firewall. One school district superintendent wanted to blog publicly, but was shot down by her legal counsel, who pointed out that everything she wrote publicly became official policy and carried legal weight. No personal opinions. Too bad. On the other hand there is great potential in podcasting, whatever the pedagogic (and production) challenges. One ambitious district figured out how to develop inventive podcasts in areas where their high school students were under-performing. The podcasts apparently became something of an underground hit, with students listening to them in the privacy of their own MP3 players, where no one could accuse them of being "uncool." Parents often have higher expectations for school websites than the schools themselves. Central district web leaders use parental surveys and focus groups to leverage standardization measures across tiers and schools. Calendars are the #1 requested parental resource. Sports information and stats are another popular area. Parents frequently ask for printable, high-res photos of their little darlings after they appear on a school website (one district pays "Smugmug" $45 a year to handle this for them). However, one school district manager observed that parental focus groups tend to be dominated by power-volunteers, who often are not power web users. But then more sophisticated parents complain when website redesigns end up insufficiently modern/functional. Hard to know how much of that was a stereotype. But student reactions were almost universally predictable: "the site sucks." E-mail remains the most predominant electronic info distribution method, far dwarfing RSS. But school districts have also learned to carefully meter the frequency of these communications (lest parents opt out amid the flood of other mail they get), as well as carefully monitor them for editorial content. Suggests to me that integrated e-mail campaigns must be a more important requirement for CMS buyers in this community. Still, one web manager had mixed feelings about these blasts: "We're training parents to be passive," she argued. If you're in the school website business, I encourage you to check out the nascent group that's forming here.

My first visit to Boston KM Forum

Sat, 05 Apr 2008 22:15:04 -0500

Friday morning, I joined a half dozen other people at the monthly Boston KM Forum breakfast meeting in Waltham. As I understand it, the Friday meetings are set up around a KM-related topic for discussion. Ostensibly the topic today was information literacy as motivated by a study on the "learning-knowledge connection," as reported in Pioneering research shows ‘Google Generation’ is a myth, which is a discussion of the British Library study Information Behaviour of the Researcher of the Future

10 invitations pour Twine

Sat, 05 Apr 2008 05:24:53 -0500

10 invitations pour Twine Personal Knowledge Management - Ressources Knowledge Worker Ca y est j'ai enfin reçu une invitation pour Twine, un service que j'avais signalé en novembre dernier. Si vous êtes interessé je dispose de 10 invitations. Si vous souhaitez en disposer laissez-moi un commentaire avec vos coordonnées ou envoyez-moi un email à christophe.de[a]gmail.com. Christophe Deschamps Outils

Uncle Sam pushes Records Management and Archiving...and Meridio too

Fri, 04 Apr 2008 15:15:00 -0500

The Gimmal Group's Dan Elam recently pointed me to an important and seemingly under-reported guidance memo (pdf) to U.S. federal government CIOs from Karen Evans. Evans serves as a kind of über-CIO for e-government at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). The biggest news comes in the third paragraph: When planning for and acquiring information systems and services, agencies must incorporate records management and archival functions, including the cost of implementing and maintaining those functions, into the design, development, and implementation of information systems. The memo continues that OMB will monitor adherence as part of its overall evaluation of how different agencies make IT investments, presumably through its oversight of the so-called "Exhibit 300" process, where agencies must prepare business cases for large IT projects. Many federal employees look at preparing 300Bs as a hassle, a bureaucratic check-the-box exercise to justify a technology acquisition they already believe they need, and they don't always follow OMB guidance (and occasionally that makes sense, as OMB's guidance is sometimes incomplete or unrealistic). But on the whole the system works, and resembles successful approaches to technology investment review that you see in the private sector. The shocker comes in an ensuing paragraph, where Evans recommends: A recently finalized SmartBUY agreement for records management software provides a secure, scalable, and high-performance solution for the management and control of documents, records, and other enterprise content. SmartBUY refers to a newish government-wide acquisition mechanism, where federal and state agencies can very easily purchase commercial software (typically from resellers) at cut-rate prices. There is actually only a single RM vendor (and in fact, the sole ECM vendor) in SmartBUY: Meridio. Meridio is an Ulster-based software company that built a name for itself providing RM services for (the old) Microsoft SharePoint. Now, as ECM Suites Report readers know, Meridio's solution can be called many things, including "inexpensive" and "developer-friendly" (both fine attributes!), but is less well known for "scalability" and "high-performance." You probably also know that Microsoft, being Microsoft, spurned its once-favored partner by building its own RM services into MOSS 2007. And what did the jilted Meridio do? Turned the other way and quickly sold itself to UK-based search vendor Autonomy, who seems to have ambitions in the e-discovery solutions space. Perhaps most importantly, there is a big difference between RM and Archiving. Even if Meridio works well as an RM product for you, an Archiving solution it is not. You don't need to be a genius to figure out what's going to happen next. Harried federal managers trying to complete their IT business cases are going to budget for a slew of Meridio licenses -- "that's what Karen Evans told us to do" -- licenses that in turn will almost surely sit unused. Meridio/Autonomy will not see all the funds -- the Service Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business reseller gets a piece -- but as a U.S. taxpayer I would look to OMB to point out a more competitive set of choices. Well, let's just assume the Meridio mention in the memo was a hasty mistake. A quick search shows 269 "Records Management Software" products available to federal buyers from two-dozen different suppliers. To be clear, I'm not suggesting that the problem is that Meridio is a non-US-based vendor, but rather, that no single vendor should be promoted in guidance like this. Indeed, the bigger problem is the latent message in the memo: Government agencies have an RM and Archival problem, and here's some RM software you can quickly procure to fix it. Remember that records management is only secondarily a technology problem. Nevertheless, simply raising awareness is a very good thing. Most U.S. federal managers, like managers everywhere, often simply don't consider the long-term archival, retention, and disposition implications of the information systems they develop. And with government trying to move more at "Internet-speed" I don't really blame them. The Meridio meander notwithstanding, I think the bigger impact of this message may fall on the Archiving side, rather than the RM side, though the implications for both should not be underestimated. More generally, I think this dovetails with broader trends in cost accounting that ensure that the expenses of storing and ultimately getting rid of stuff should fall under total cost of ownership. Consider the "recycling and disposal" fee you may pay when having your car's motor oil changed. Economists are increasingly looking at things like solid waste and carbon footprints when evaluating the real costs of various initiatives. So why not the same for information? Surely the cost of an information management system should entail more than just the expense of getting data into a repository and playing with it. At some point your investment calculations need to account for the cost of either storing it long-term or getting rid of it, properly. It's good to see OMB catching up with its European counterparts and providing some leadership in this area.

ECM Technologies and Recession

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 09:51:00 -0500

One topic that keeps coming up in conversations with buyers of content technologies -- and of course those that sell content technologies -- is the topic of a looming recession. It's something that casts a shadow over everything, and impacts almost every major decision-making process. Let's all hope a recession is not with us, but assuming one may arrive imminently (U.S. Fed Chairman Bernanke hinted as much yesterday), how can you best prepare and potentially thrive in such circumstances? Those contemplating big-ticket implementation projects will likely endure a longer time-lag to get approval and budget, and more scrutiny of the business case. You'll also see pressure to reduce project costs, leading to tougher negotiations with suppliers. On the one hand such circumstances are a bit depressing and certainly frustrating, but looked at another way, they can push you to achieve more with less, and ultimately deliver better value. Recall that the roots of ECM are document management and workflow: two functions that were originally designed to automate manual processes. They played a key role in the downsizing/rightsizing change-management area of the late 80's and 90's. In other words they were originally designed to reduce costs and increase efficiencies -- strong factors in a recession. The other side of ECM is long-term content management and archiving, something that can also offer major cost-savings. Reducing the volume of content to be managed, freeing up precious server and network resources, and facilitating more cost-effective storage are all winning strategies. And remember that during a recession, lawsuits fly fast and loose (particularly in the U.S.), as grudges are settled, arguments flare, and perceived injustices challenged. Here again ECM and Archiving technologies prepare companies to fight such attacks, and deliver evidence when required, cost effectively. So, legal preparedness is something all firms need to consider as times get tough. Hence, your business case and general justification for your ECM project needs to focus more on hard cost savings -- and making more of your existing resources -- rather than providing wish-lists and nice-to-have scenarios. Note that ECM systems -- in contrast to many other IT investments - typically offer a solid return on the investment when executed well. In fact, ECM is one of the few areas of IT where ROI calculations can have a modicum of reality about them. (Note: We provide some detailed advice on how to build an ECM business case in the ECM Suites Report) In discussing ROI, though, I'm referring to that part of ECM that emphasizes structured processes and management, rather than a general collaboration service (the SharePoint phenomenon perhaps excepted). And this is why I think good old-fashioned ECM will remain center stage, with a push to automate existing manual processes growing stronger. Some ECM vendors will suffer for sure, but the smart ones will turn the current economic climate to their advantage. They will focus far less on new fads and trends, and get back to basics: reducing paper mountains, automating processes, mitigating against risk, and playing a key role in archiving and storage optimization. Expect to see their focus shift increasingly to e-mail. The volumes, cost, and risks here have become so acute that any firm looking to tighten their belts and prepare for tough times may well need to prioritize e-mail archiving and management. I am no economist and I have no special insight on whether we are heading to a recession or not. But it's surely preying on peoples' minds. From my point of view, many of the things we may focus on in a recession are things that we should focus on at any time -- it's just that the downsides are more severe. Hence we take more time to build solid business cases, justify our investments carefully, and use ECM tools to bring about real business change -- good things to do in any economy. At CMS Watch our goal is to help you through the difficult projects and decision-making that lie ahead.

More Reasons to Love London

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 15:51:00 -0500

Great theater. Awesome Indian food. Hyde Park in springtime. As if that and hub-hub over Heathrow's new Terminal 5 (let's hope it turns out better than Terminal 4, once it's out of beta) weren't reason enough for us to book a flight to London, my London-bred colleague Alan Pelz-Sharpe and I will try to take the town by storm later this month at UK Internet World. Attendance is free and the event offers a huge show floor as well as many educational sessions. I'll be the one with lots of hair and the uncool accent, talking about the current and future state of enterprise search, based on the research conducted for our Enterprise Search Report 2008. I'm planning to highlight what Microsoft's acquisition of FAST means to buyers and existing customers, Google's recent moves, and focus on a few players that are gaining traction in the UK market. Alan, meanwhile, will wittily deconstruct Enterprise Content Management technologies, based on over a year of research he conducted for the ECM Suites Report 2008. But given our time at the podium is short, please send me an email if you'd like to meet up with us while we're there. We both love samosas....

What you can learn from IBM and SAP's legal imbroglios

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 15:27:00 -0500

A couple recent news items find SAP and IBM both in a bit of legal hot water. U.S.-based über-trash-collector Waste Management Inc. is suing SAP for a whopping $100 million, alleging that the ERP vendor demo'ed some very convincing vaporware, covering up a fundamental inability to meet stated requirements. Meanwhile, IBM has been suspended from any new federal contracts by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) -- an extraordinary, if likely temporary, measure -- after some alleged hanky-panky involving a failed contract bid and aggressive appeal. There's talk of potential criminal investigations of both EPA and IBM employees. I don't know how either of these disputes will turn out, but from the news reports alone they raise several important issues for technology customers working with large (I mean really large) vendors. In Waste Management's case, they might have saved themselves a world of trouble by performing their pilot before they signed on with SAP (something we always recommend), but at least they caught the problem early on, when measured in ERP-years. I don't know what IBM did, but it seems like EPA thought Big Blue really crossed a line in their appeal of a failed contract bid. Federal contracting -- like so many things in Washington -- is a bare-knuckles sport. Threats of appeals and possible litigation by losing bidders can keep federal contracts officers awake at night. In this case, it appears EPA struck back. Sure, small vendors can get difficult too. Customers frequently tell us that -- whatever the benefits of working with a smaller, more agile supplier -- their smaller vendors also tend to be more erratic and less predictable. But big vendors can present some tough challenges. They frequently seek to make themselves a permanent part of your infrastructure, and then throw their weight around. Recently I've been accumulating anecdotes of Stellent customers unexpectedly encountering a much tougher crop of account reps at Oracle, after Oracle's acquisition of that Minnesota-based ECM vendor known for its friendly employees. I also find big vendors more likely to threaten "up the chain" -- all the way to C levels if necessary -- to appeal a lost bid or to suggest that a particular problem wasn't theirs, but rather stemmed from the customer's low-level employees failing to follow the vendor's prescribed best practices. Sometimes they're right, but often not. Again, I have no reason to know whether IBM and SAP actually did anything wrong in these two cases, but you should remember that the larger the project and the bigger the supplier, if things go bad, the greater your likelihood of having to resolve problems using extra-normal means. Larger projects tend to beget longer vendor selection cycles and a tendency for customers to rush unduly through the final and sometimes grueling test and contracts phases in an understandable desire to "just get it over with," so they can start the real project in earnest. In actuality, this is where you need to take your time to make sure you've tied up as many loose ends as possible. At the end of the day, you need to make sure you have the same kind of strong project leadership and accountability on your side that you expect your vendors to bring. That keeps you in control, keeps your suppliers' respect, and could well keep both of you out of court...

HP expands archiving, e-discovery, and compliance portfolio with acquisition of Tower Software

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 18:17:00 -0500

So HP finally made a move into the world of ECM by acquiring Tower Software of Australia. On the surface it's an unusual match for HP, as many had expected them to buy one of the top tier players such as Interwoven, Vignette or even Open Text, but on closer consideration it's a move that makes sense. Revealingly, HP does not call this an "ECM" deal and focuses on the e-discovery and compliance benefits from Tower's addition, so it's possible HP has further moves to make if it wants to get serious about offering broader ECM services à la IBM. Tower does have a long tradition in ECM (and has carved out a niche for themselves particularly in the Government sector globally), but primarily in Records Management-centric ECM. That's a focus that ties in nicely with HP's emphasis on archiving and storage-centric information management. Plus, Tower costs only a fraction of what other leading ECM firms would have set HP back. And of course HP has the footprint to manage an Australian-based division well. So those are the positives for HP. But what about Tower's existing customer base? Well in all likelihood there should be no major disruption, since HP does not have the ECM skills or competing technology in-house to disrupt this base, rather simply to continue to support it and help it to grow over time. What is likely to change in the Tower offering is deeper integration with HP's Information Management archiving and storage offerings - and consolidation of the sales efforts in joint accounts. Tower will be absorbed into the Information Management division and the transaction should close in Q2. One slight change will be HP's focus on the Records Management (read Legal and Compliance) elements of Tower (where they are strongest) rather than the broader Tower ECM portfolio. Tower's deep integration with and architecture based upon Microsoft technologies -- and in particular their Gold Partner level status for SharePoint -- makes Tower a particularly appealing acquisition. But it does mean that areas Tower was hoping to grow may well get neglected in the short term, areas such as imaging, collaboration and traditional document management services. HP has made it clear that they want to build a full Compliance and E-discovery solution, and that Tower will be integrated in with the HP Integrated Archive Platform along side e-mail archiving, ultimately as a single offering. But HP is still missing some elements, most notably a top notch search/discovery offering -- something that Tower cannot bring to the table -- so it's reasonable to expect more acquisitions in this area to come. We cover Tower technology in-depth in our ECM Suites Report. We'll expand our coverage further as the the deal closes and HP begins the work of integrating both Tower's technology and their remaining staff into the HP machine. As acquisitions go this one is not particularly brutal or surprising; Tower was likely to get acquired by somebody, and HP was likely to acquire somebody. But acquisitions of small firms by behemoths like HP cannot occur without some upheaval. Most likely for Tower's existing customers that upheaval will come in the form of dealing with HP sales and support staff who will in time want to be involved in the deals, whether they know anything about ECM or not. Things will settle but it will take time, and for now new buyers are urged to tread with caution.

Clickability as Open Source?

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 09:09:00 -0500

I received an e-mail this weekend from a very confused researcher of Web Content Management systems. The first result they found in their search results (Ask, Google) was this paid advertisement from Clickability: Search results from Ask and Google I don't blame this person for being confused -- as readers of The Web CMS Report 2008 know, Clickability is not an Open Source offering. Apparently Clickability's marketing department has confused Software as a Service for Open Source. Unless, of course, Clickability released their codebase into open source and didn't tell anyone about it? I highly doubt it. This is just another example of why we constantly preach that you can't always believe the hype...

Knowledge management for small groups

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 22:03:30 -0500

Doug Cornelius tells us about his experiments with Wikis and Household Knowledge Management. I have often proclaimed the virtues of using a wiki for knowledge management. But does it have place in household knowledge management? Today I have two stories. One is a great success and the other a failure in using a wiki for household knowledge management. I generally categorize this in the bucket of "personal knowledge management," but there is an important element of interaction around the hous

April ECM Workshop in Rome

Tue, 25 Mar 2008 12:36:00 -0500

I'll be running a two-day intensive ECM workshop in Rome this April, geared for the needs of project implementation and selection teams -- as well as the business managers who oversee information management initiatives. Our friends at Technology Transfer are organizing the event, and there are still a couple of places left. The dates are 10th & 11th April, so if the joint pleasures of a spring break in the middle of Rome along with a primer on content technologies appeal to you, then book up quickly, and feel free to e-mail me with questions in advance.

Learning at Work

Mon, 24 Mar 2008 07:20:04 -0500

Note: This is part of a Working/Learning blog carnival hosted at Dave’s Whiteboard This post repeats some themes that regular readers have seen over the past few years, but I’m finding that there is still a great need for individuals to take control of their knowledge-creation and sharing and many are overwhelmed by the Web. I have come to consider that the basic unit of learning is the individual and this person is indivisible. To be successful, all learning activities, products and strategi

JBoss DNA: using JCR to make metadata behave

Sat, 22 Mar 2008 11:04:00 -0500

The JBoss folks have launched an ambitious new open-source project that is so breathtaking in scope, it defies easy categorization, even though (ironically) it is largely about categorization. JBoss DNA is (according to the project website) "a repository and set of tools that make it easy to capture, version, analyze, and understand the fundamental building blocks of information." Notably, the key enabling technology for the project is the Java Content Repository specification (JSR-283). The project description goes on to say: "As models, service and process definitions, schemas, source code, and other artifacts are added to the repository, JBoss DNA 'sequences' the makeup of these components and extracts their structure and interdependencies. Users can then search, analyze, visualize, report, and modify the repository's content using the terminology and structures they are familiar with. Such domain-specific solutions can be created with little or no programming. Sharing this information is possible through Eclipse plugins, web applications, and REST servers." If you're still not getting it, there is a useful slide show on the JBoss Labs site. The system is transactional, event-driven, and rules-based, and (of course) it leverages a long list of well-known open-source building blocks and industry standards. Basically, what it does (if I understand it right) is allow you to discover and manage dependencies and semantic relationships between bits of info that most of us would otherwise call metadata. A core primitive in the JBoss DNA system is the Sequencer, which is essentially a custom event handler that fires when you insert a content item into the repository. It executes rules (which you write in a domain-specific rules language) against the item in question, to extract atomic bits of information about it. In other words, a sequencer does autoextraction of metadata. (Why don't they just say that? Why the cutesy bioengineering lingo?) According to the project's leaders, sequencers are planned for .zip archives, Java bytecode, WSDL, UML, and database DDLs, among other targets. Autoextraction of metadata is a noble goal, of course. In fact it is becoming a key capability in many corners of the content-management world (DAM in particular). But there are problems with the JBoss DNA vision, not least of which is the fact that metadata extraction is notoriously tricky business (and inferring taxonomic relationships gets even trickier). Visualization of this kind of information is also challenging (ask any Edward Tufte fan), a subject on which JBoss DNA is silent. But the greater issue with the JBoss DNA project is that the problem space, as envisioned by the project's creators, is hopelessly broad (King Kong could not get his arms around it) and the DNA reference architecture is bewilderingly baroque, encompassing federation of repositories, a Publishing Server that implements the Atom Publishing Protocol, WebDAV support, pluggable analytics, connectors of all kinds, and scads more. The number of moving parts is large and the footprint will doubtless be massive. The factoring is distinctly J2EE circa 2005, in the most obnoxious sense. If there is one thing IT departments don't need at this point, it's yet another kitchen-sink Java EE architecture to deal with. Earlier, I referred to JBoss DNA as ambitious. Perhaps audacious is a better word. To be sure, many sublime achievements in this world began as audacious dreams. But it is true, also, that audacious endeavors sometimes (maybe most of the time) end up as giant, smoke-filled craters; and JBoss DNA, for all its noble goals, already seems in danger of following that trajectory.

IHMC CmapTools: knowledge modeling kit

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 13:19:00 -0500

The IHMC CmapTools empowers users to construct, navigate, share and critizice knowledge models represented as Concept Maps. cmap.ihmc.us Tags: personal knowledge management

Using Google Apps in the Classroom

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 07:36:38 -0500

Using Google Apps in the Classroom March 21st, 2008 Educause has just released a two-page briefing on the “7 things you should know about . . . Google Apps” (PDF). The Google Apps consist of a collection of communication tools, productivity tools, and web building tools. There is an education version which offers some nice added features and is free to K-12 and colleges. I often mention the Google Apps in my presentations on personal knowledge management because of the ability for students an

43 knowledge management definitions - and counting…

Sun, 16 Mar 2008 14:47:18 -0500

Background For many years I’ve been saying that I didn’t like the term “knowledge management” as (a) it was fundamentally an oxymoron, (b) there was no consensus within the industry as to what the term meant, and (c) in many companies the term carries negative connotations due to a perceived lack of value from earlier so-called knowledge management efforts and/or belief that knowledge management was a fad that we have moved on past or has been absorbed into other disciplines. On top of this add

More Thoughts on the Long Tail of Learning

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 15:49:41 -0500

Spent the weekend considering Karrer’s Big Question for March. I initially wrote a short comment but that was before I read the article that started all this: Minds on Fire: Open Education, the Long Tail, and Learning 2.0. If you haven’t read it, please do before continuing on with this post. There are some deep issues here and I am still considering them. But, I sketched out an outline to help focus my thinking on this topic. The Challenge Need for knowledge is greater than ever - There is

Document Management Systems (DMS) and Knowledge Management

Tue, 04 Mar 2008 00:59:29 -0600

When I first started using knowledge management applications (mainly traditional outliners), I had hoped that I could find the "One True Application" or OTA. The OTA is the single killer-app that contains all the features I could ever hope for, solves all of my problems, and automagically helps organize all my information. Well folks, I've learned that the OTA doesn't yet exist. So, I've taken it upon myself to find a suite of the best open source applications to handle their areas of expertise

Beacon Equity Research Featured Company: Viyya Technologies, Inc. (VYON.PK)

Fri, 22 Feb 2008 10:50:42 -0600

Viyya Technologies, Inc. (VYON.PK) develops Business Intelligence and Personal Knowledge Management software applications that range from a single user service for the active business professional to large multi-user environments for entire Enterprises in both the public and private sectors. The company’s flagship solution, VIYYA™, is a Business Intelligence application that manages mission-critical information by enabling users to customize the way they collect, process, and distribute real-t

Développeur .Net / Applications Web 2.0/Basé(e) Paris - Salaire motivant - H/F

Wed, 20 Feb 2008 05:30:39 -0600

blueKiwi software, éditeur de logiciel de nouvelle génération (membre du programme Microsoft IDEES), développe une solution Intranet innovante qui importe dans l’entreprise les nouveaux usages de l’Internet 2.0 : blogs, wiki, travail collaboratif, réseaux sociaux, rss, Personal Knowledge Management,… blueKiwi transforme les collaborateurs en acteurs de l’information et développe en interne la culture de l’échange [...]