Inmagic White Papers
Expand Your Knowledge With Inmagic White Papers
Inmagic has put together a number of acclaimed white papers to assist you in learning about content and information management. Maxus invites you to register, download, read, and learn....
To download one or more of these white papers, please click here. Research has become a major part of many knowledge workers’ jobs. IDC surveys show that the average knowledge worker spends roughly 24% of his or her time looking for information. To accomplish a research task efficiently, knowledge workers must have tools that ease the process. General-purpose applications often do not serve them well. Most users are forced to spend far too much time searching
separate silos of information to find what they are looking for, switching among separate systems – each with its own user interface (and, often, separate user authentication process). They spend too much time weeding through search results that are off the mark, just to find the handful of links to the content they really need. And they spend too much time in triage: discriminating between high-quality content
sources and lower-quality (untrustworthy, and even useless) information. This paper examines the content management and retrieval requirements of information-intensive organisations for which research is a critical activity and assesses Inmagic’s new Presto solution – Inmagic's research asset management system.
More than ever, success for many organisations depends on quickly finding and acting on various kinds of research assets: those high-value internal and external information assets that professionals at all levels use to gain insights, plan and execute. Yet even sizable organisations with otherwise sophisticated capabilities vary considerably in how, and how effectively, they manage their diverse research assets. By working with hundreds of organisations, Inmagic has identified best practices for research asset management – a critical competency in today’s information-driven economy where nearly everyone is a “researcher” in some way. In this white paper, Inmagic shares seven themes for the effective management of research assets, and also explains how organisations that are implementing those best practices gauge their impact and calculate their benefits.
This paper explores the forces that are driving changes in the nature of the information centre and how creating a Content-Capable Corporate
Infrastructure can channel these forces into a unique opportunity. It discusses the steps needed to effect this change and create a pathway that
elevates the role of the information centre and the information professional to become key strategic resources for the organisation and its stakeholders. Whether you are in a large or small company serving as a line-of-business manager or an IT professional, chances are there are repositories of word processing documents, presentations, e-mail, even Web content within your organisation that you cannot leverage – or even access – effectively. Perhaps you have implemented a search solution only to find that valuable information is physically captured and searchable but without organisation it is logically lost. You are not alone. This white paper discusses why search alone is often insufficient to address the challenge of supporting effective access to internal content, especially large stores of unstructured content that is too often found in isolated silos throughout the organisation. Some businesses are addressing this problem by developing taxonomies that organize and classify the content. While such an approach may be the best ultimate solution, it is a time-consuming, labour intensive and costly project. Too often, small to medium businesses or divisions within large enterprises do not have the taxonomy or information science expertise necessary for such a project and are needlessly at the mercy of full-text searching alone. However, new advances in machine processing and document analysis make it possible for those organisations with limited budgets or very specialized content to apply automated categorisation tools that organise the content for efficient and effective access, allowing companies to leverage their information resources for more effective decision making. This white paper is a case study that describes the technological and organisational aspects of implementing knowledge management in a legal firm in Canada. This paper looks at the important role that XML and service oriented architectures [SOAs] are beginning to play in content management, content integration and the publishing of content. The authors discuss what service oriented architectures are, trends that are driving the adoption of SOAs, and look at specific ways in which service oriented architectures are evolving, finally examining some of the challenges that must be addressed when implementing SOAs. Examples and case studies from Inmagic, Inc., are used to illustrate ways in which organisations are adopting XML and Web services to address their content management challenges. This white paper describes how law firms can leverage intelligence to inform strategy and decision making and maintain an edge in the face of increasing competition. The paper then goes on to show how the application of competitive intelligence can help law firms in assessing the investment risks of mergers, acquisitions, and strategic alliances, analysing patent generation, leveraging patent portfolios to generate revenues, scrutinising corporate governance.
If organisations want to fulfill their potential they will have to provide users with powerful tools for creating effective ad hoc and persistent access to highly relevant content to make the best decisions possible. Many organisations today address this through implementation of enterprise-wide content management systems – systems that focus not on the needs of individual business groups, but on those of the enterprise as a whole. Such systems are seldom attuned to the particular requirements of individual business units within the organisation. Such groups benefit enormously from content management solutions designed to meet their local needs. For managers to make the best business decisions possible, they must have access to the most up-to-date information from both internal and external sources. To accomplish this end, the solution must have a flexible way to create common information formats and share both the format and the data on the World Wide Web, intranets, and elsewhere. Finally, the best content management system will be built on a scalable and reliable platform, and will be based on current standards for operating systems, databases, and programming
interfaces and approaches. The result is the best of both worlds for the business users: access to enterprise systems for corporate-wide content and access to local, self-managed content for their specialized information needs. This paper reports on an analysis that concludes that Inmagic Content Server addresses these key requirements: it can be self-managed, it is easy to use, it effectively combines internal and external content, and is built on a reliable and scalable platform. CRM is widely known for its applicability to Sales and Marketing groups. However, since information management is arguably most effective when an organisation's users are viewed as its customers, Customer Relationship Management can be a very effective tool for information professionals. This paper defines the theories of CRM, illustrates how CRM applies to the information profession and outlines which technologies directly contribute to successful CRM programs in the information industry. A market milestone report that defines the emerging software segment for taxonomy management, this white paper covers the automation of the spidering and classification processes. It includes a full report on the software that is available to enhance the performance of search engines, text mining, natural language search applications, ontology, summarisation, and taxonomy. A good integrated library system helps you measure your organisation's return on information investment, save time, and better serve your users. But effectively acquiring the benefits of an integrated library system requires a different set of skills than you may be used to utilising. White paper author Lynda Moulton, formerly the Director of Integrated Library Systems at Inmagic and now an independent consultant, discusses her more than 20 years experience in helping special libraries acquire these systems. Let her counsel set you on a clear path to success. If you want to really know how to manage the growth of your intranet, then use this white paper to learn Howard McQueen's 7-Layer model of expertise and technology that must come together to create effective and scalable intranets and extranets. By following the five steps outlined in this white paper you can positively redefine your position within the
contemporary enterprise: Step 1: Identify the information problems you need to solve; Step 2: Promote yourself by embracing your new role in the enterprise; Step 3: Lock in your profile by implementing a short-term and inexpensive project that will demonstrate your department's new role in the enterprise; Step 4: Irrevocably establish your credentials as a major player in your enterprise by building on
the success created in step 3; Step 5: Make every member of the enterprise rely on the information you and your department
provide by effectively promoting your new services. Denise Dodd is the Manager of Competitive Intelligence for Blue Cross. Her department has made strong inroads in its ability to exert a positive influence on all portions of the company. This stunning success was achieved through the process of bringing a major competitive intelligence initiative to fruition. Blue Cross is so impressed with Denise's results that she and her department have been asked to be on the initial team that will establish a corporate knowledge brokering initiative. She attributes her success in recasting the department's role in the enterprise to their ability to show a vastly expanded group of internal customers and senior management the department's core value. Her paper presents six steps to enable readers to enhance their role as a key knowledge broker. To download one or more of these white papers, please click here.
by Melissa Webster and Susan Feldman
by Susan Stearns
by Lynda Roberts, Manager, Library Services, Bull, Housser & Tupper
by Marc Strohlein, Vice President & Lead Analyst, Outsell, Inc., and Susan Stearns, Vice President of Marketing, Inmagic, Inc.
by Cynthia Cheng Correia, Director of Information Services, Fuld & Company
by Bill Trippe
by Claudia Chidester
by Delphi Group
by Lynda Moulton
by Howard McQueen
by Kathy Adams
by Denise Dodd