AIIM Knowledge Center Blog

Ontology - Philosophy or Business Tool?

When researching our new IOA courses I came across the chapter on Semantic Networks, Topic Maps and Ontologies. Especially the last term intrigued me, so I started a little digging.

Merriam-Websters defines it as follows:
on•tol•o•gy
Function: noun
Etymology: New Latin ontologia, from ont- + -logia -logy
Date: circa 1721

• A branch of metaphysics concerned with the nature and relations of being
• A particular theory about the nature of being or the kind of things that have existence

Socrates, Plato and Aristotle already had some use for Ontologies, although I strongly suspect this is more to do with the second definition and nothing with the business activities we relate to in our Information Organization and Access Classes. The term itself appears for the first time in the 17th century in the works of philosophers. It concerns the existence of objects and their relationships…

And at this point I started to see the relationship with today’s business needs. Rather than a strict list like a controlled vocabulary or a Taxonomy, an Ontology uses a rich semantic relationship between terms and attributes, going into all directions and thereby building a real corpus of knowledge about a certain subject.

An example would be cars. Not only would it contain links to all kinds of cars, but also engine sizes, cars-types, car dealerships, subcontractors, shipping routes from the car plants, etc. As you can see an ontology can very quickly grow very large, but once build represent  a more or less complete overview of all knowledge about a certain topic or “domain”. Ontologies take Taxonomies and Classification to the next level. There are however standards out there to help in representing and using these ontologies with technology.

XML Topic maps have a standard XML-based interchange syntax called XML Topic Maps (XTM), as well as a de facto standard API called Common Topic Map Application Programming Interface (TMAPI), and query and schema languages are being developed within ISO

Web Ontology Language (OWL) Language for defining Web ontologies. An OWL ontology may include vocabularies, relationships, and instances. OWL is used by applications that process information rather than just present it, and facilitates computer interpretability

Resource Description Framework or RDF Schema Extensible knowledge representation language, providing information for the capture and description of ontologies

More information about Topic Maps and Semantic Networks and other ways to improve the “Findability”  can be found in our Information Organization and Access (IOA) training courses.

By Hanns Köhler-Krüner

EuroSOX - The European Version of SOX

In the USA SOX and now the updated Federal Rules of Civil Procedure have been a fact of business life for many years now. Our own research show that Compliance and Risk has overtaken both Customers as well as Cost as a driver for investments. You can download the full report here, if you are a Professional member
In the European Community, a gathering of 26 sovereign States, the various countries have had their own individual laws for some time, or have modeled a compliance framework based on SOX. There is however a European law that will start coming in soon.

Started in 2003 as a 10 point plan by the European Commission as the 8th Directive, the first draft was published in March 2004. In June 2005 it was adopted by the Legal Affairs Committee and 2 years ago the European Parliament accepted it as a Directive. In April 2006 the final adoption of the 8th Directive was passed and now implementation into local law can go ahead.
It consists of in total 3 separate directives which are :

• 4th Directive 78/660/EEC ,
• 7th directive 83/349/EEC and
• 8th directive 84/253/EEC

which together are to safeguard shareholder’s investments, establish Corporate Governance, increase disclosure requirements and also establish separate audit committees.

The directives closely follow  the US regulations, as these affects only publicly traded  companies. It will still take up to 2 years before every countrys' regulations has been updated to reflect these directives in local law. By then every company has to be fully compliant, and if you are doing business in Europe or are traded at any of the many different European stock exchanges, then this is something that you need to look at and be aware of.

Here are 4 suggestions to follow:

• Get management to understand the requirements and buy into the necessity to be compliant
• Get the content of the directive formalized into your own internal procedures
• Establish a Governance Framework with clear policies and procedures
• Follow standards and additional guidelines wherever possible to minimize additional work needed

It may have taken a long time for this to become law, but that does not mean that it is not to be taken seriously. SOX never was just a US based regulation, but now there is a European Directive to follow. Get informed and don't get caught out.

by Hanns Köhler-Krüner

There once was a firm in Nantucket......

There once was a firm in Nantucket
That stored all their content in a bucket
Until a Lawyer came through, citing discovery rules
"Did you search in every storage pocket?"

I know, this is not what you thought it would be but it got your attention, which well it should. Even though you may think things are in great shape because you store everything in a "repository", do you have a consistent structure with access controls and audit trails in place to prove your position? Is your repository an actual ECM system or is it the network storage infrastructure?

These are issues you need to be considering in relation to content, records and especially correspondence via email. All of this and more is open to discovery. All of this may be stored in a repository but it can also be in places outside of the repository like thumb drives or local drives. Even if you have everyone using a central repository and not other devices, is the structure and terminology used to store and manage consistent?

If your information management and gathering effort is called into question, you may be asked to prove that you have policies and procedures in place that are followed by your employees, using a consistent structure and taxonomy for storing and managing information that is also tracked for purposes of auditing and reporting.

Perhaps you are just starting out on your journey to address this or you may have something in place and are seeking ways to enhance your current environment or methodologies. AIIM Education is a great place to turn. The Enterprise Content Management (ECM), Electronic Records Management (ERM), Business Process Management (BPM), and Information Organization and Access (IOA) programs are for you. Comprehensive and concise, these programs deliver a holistic approach you can use immediately. So why wait? Contact AIIM today. www.aiim.org/training

Bob Larrivee - AIIM

BPM..ECM..What's the Difference?

This question is asked repeatedly. Basically, content within an ECM environment is governed or managed by the associated metadata attached to it. (Metadata being data about the data.) In a BPM environment, content is managed or governed by process rules making this a very different approach.

This is not to say they are not complimentary as BPM and ECM are very complimentary to each other even though there may be some overlap in technology. I see BPM as the glue bringing them closer together, binding them in ways that unify disparate systems and strengthen the overall infrastructure to meet the growing demand placed on information management.

Watch for more enhancements by the ECM community to provide additional process management capabilities and from the BPM community to deliver increased levels of content management to their offerings. We may see this not only in new product offerings but also in partnerships that will evolve as the result of consumer demand.

Bob Larrivee, AIIM

Beyond Productivity

I listened yesterday to Gartners predictions about IT investment the next 5 years at their Portal, Content & Collaboration Summit in London. All the investments in ERM, AP, etc. do not help your competitiveness, it just the cost of being able to do business (the baseline). Our focus will now be the information worker (therefore the conference theme “Beyond Productivity), and the investments will be in Portals, Content and Collaboration in addition to Information Access technologies (PCC&IA).

They were using the following numbers to document this interest in Europe amongst decision makers (without any more demographics);

• Portals                           82%
• Content Management      87%
• Search                           65%
• Team ware / team share 57%
• E-Learning                     59%
• Web conferencing          49%
• Instant Messaging          37%

Collaboration for Gartner means Team sharing / Teamware, Web Conferencing and Instant Messaging, and Debra Logan’s top 3 critical success factors for PCC & IA are:

• Access and work within existing culture and engagement
• Look for return beyond ROI
• Understand that there will always be tension between control and collaboration, governance and freedom (your new employees live in Facebook, MySpace, etc, and you will not be able to hire them if you hinder them from using these communities…)

By Atle Skjekkeland.

ECM Employment: The New Generation

There is an increasingly recognized need for expertise and experience in the fields of taxonomy, ontology and folksonomy in corporate environments of all sizes. This need is evident when the discussion of practice ensues and being driven by demands on business for concise and consistent content and records management practices that organize information for the purpose of access and also defensibility when faced with litigation.

How do you know you have found everything if you have no formal or standardized structure with which you store and manage your corporate information? How do you know you have found everything if you do not classify it and add metadata that is consistent across the enterprise?

Taxonomists, Ontologists and Folksonomists, your day is here. The demand for what you do is greatly appreciated and growing in demand for it is you who help the rest of us gain and maintain control.

Technology: How we use it

Imagine if you will, a busy airport waiting area. People are sitting, standing, leaning, roaming and waiting to board for their flight. We see people reading, people using their laptop PC and others making phone calls. It is the latter to which I draw your attention. We all know how to use cell phones. We see them in use all of the time and here at the airport, there are people holding their phone to their ear, using a Bluetooth device and even those using a wired headset designed for hands free operation.

It is amazing how many times I will see someone using the wired headset, pacing around the area while talking, all the while holding the microphone nearer their mouth with one hand and the phone itself in the other. That is right, holding the mouthpiece/microphone closer to their mouth with one hand and the phone body in their other hand. Is this not a hands free intent when we decide to use these accessories?

The same holds true for technology we purchase in business. ECM, ERM, BPM solutions are all designed and intended for use to address specific needs and provide a solution to enhancing our overall business operations. Yet, like the person on the cell phone, we many time do not use these technologies in the true sense for which they were designed nor to their fullest levels of capability. In fact, many times the solutions we purchase are only used to about 70 % of their capabilities if even that.

The point here is that we buy technology for specific purposes and reasons. We go through the time effort and expense of implementation and training but seldom look to see if it is being used as intended or evaluating how we may be able to take further advantage of the features and capabilities once we do assess its use. I have always been a proponent of constant review, refinement and release of solutions so that we can gain a greater value from our investments. First, we have to understand what we bought, the intent in which we will use it and how we can gain additional value once we have it in place.

Letting go of the microphone to let it hang as inteneded and placing the phone in its holster or on a seat nearby would free up your hands to do other things like access information on your PC or just use your hands to make the normal gestures you make when you are on the phone in your office. If you want a hands free device, why not try going hands free to see how it feels. If you want to move forward with ECM, ERM and BPM then why not maximize its potential and review, refine and release enhanced ways of working on a periodic basis. The technology is there; it is the human factor that prevents change.

Written by Bob Larrivee

“Enterprise Search” is dead – Long live "Information Organization & Access”?

Gartner expects the total software revenue for worldwide information access with search technology will realize double-digit percent growth in 2007, surpassing $728 million--a 15 percent increase from 2006's $633 million--according to the Gartner report, "Dataquest Insight: Forecast for Information Access With Search Technology in the Enterprise, 2006-2011.”

There is a growing recognition in the industry that what matters is not how searchable you make your information, but how findable.  The emphasis here lies less on the latest algorithm, and more on the success of your information management regimen and your capacity to incorporate an effective user experience into the search process.

Search is not just search anymore, and Gartner has in recent years been using the term “Information access technology” to include and expand on what they previously called "enterprise search technology”. They use the term information access to include a collection of technologies to help you find information, such as;

• enterprise search;
• content classification, categorization and clustering;
• fact and entity extraction;
• taxonomy creation and management;
• information presentation (for example visualization).

This is a useful expansion of the problem set, but we should keep in mind that many of the tools around extraction, classification, and categorization remain supplementary to the essential professional task of organizing information.

There are three main ways in which people look for information:

1. Pattern Matching (aka search) – same physical attributes of the sought after information, it contains words or phrases, they exist in certain parts (e.g. title, author), certain words exists close to each other (e.g. clustering), etc.
2. Semantic Web Navigation, or traversal – knowing of a relevant asset that is linked to other assets, traverse the links looking at related information; sometimes with weighted links.
3. Classified or Categorized, that is organized by topic browsing. – This is where we use classification taxonomies and related structured organizations of information.

Note that only the first approach relies exclusively on "search."  However, the line between search and browse (either by link or by structure) is getting blurrier every day, as clustering and guided navigation enable new ways for enterprises to facilitate useful access to large repositories.  At the end of the day, all three approaches rely heavily on metadata.  Clearly, to access information properly, first you need to organize it properly.

Members of AIIM's Education Advisory Groups in Europe and US have therefore recommended using the term "Information Organization & Access" (IOA) instead of just Information Access.  And perhaps more importantly, they have identified as a priority the development the professional skills around the organization of information such that enterprises can make it more readily accessible to further their business objectives. This new IOA training programs will be ready September 2007, and more information about learning objectives and agenda is available from AIIM's website:
http://www.aiim.org/education/IOA-program.asp

By Atle Skjekkeland.

This email will self-destruct in 5 seconds…

Tech[dot]Blog has created an interesting list of 10 free solutions for self-destructing email. Self-destructing email is often defined as email that vanishes or becomes unreadable after a certain length of time or upon the request of the sender. It can also prevent saving of the email sent, forwarding, copying, printing, and auto expire the email after a predefined interval.

Do you see any problems with this type of software? Let me know.

By Atle Skjekkeland.

A Global Concern

Legislation and regulation are leaving no room for contemplation about how to address records management and content management. Pressing issues like Freedom of Information, Privacy and more, are driving the need to increase efforts to tighten control over information of all sorts wehter they are in the form of records or content. Add to this the type of information, how it is created and where it resides and you spell a formula for increased RISK and EXPOSURE in meeting compliance standards.

Smart money is being placed on training and a renewed interest in establishing, monitoring and maintaining strong content and records management policies and practices on a global scale. Localization issues are being addressed at all levels of the corporate structure to ensure consitency across the enterprise.

Are you still contemplating what to do or are you ready to take action? Many companies are now looking to AIIM to provide their foundation in training for ECM, ERM and now BPM and IOA practices. Today is the day to begin anew and plot your course to success.

Written by Bob Larrivee