EK's Chris Marino recently presented at the annual KM Showcase in Tysons Corner, VA. His presentation, “KM’ing your Content”, provided a glimpse into the common challenges related to the content an organization generates - Findability, Relevancy, Redundancy, Complexity, and Consistency. To meet these challenges, he focused on a variety of high value, yet easily implemented techniques that can provide organizations with findable, shareable, useable content.

1. KM’ING YOUR CONTENT FOR FINDABILITY
CHRIS MARINO
JANUARY 18, 2018

2. HELLO!
CHRIS MARINO
SENIOR CONSULTANT
ENTERPRISE KNOWLEDGE
UX/UI DESIGN
ENTERPRISE SEARCH
WEB DEVELOPMENT
TAXONOMY DESIGN
KM STRATEGY
@toph1990 | @EKConsulting

3. TODAY’S AGENDA
§ COMMON CHALLENGES
§ SOLUTIONS
§ A KM STORY

4. CHALLENGES

5. 5 COMMON CONTENT CHALLENGES
Issue Description
Findability “I can’t find what I’m looking for!”
Relevancy Too much irrelevant, outdated content
Redundancy Duplicate content; multiple versions of identical or similar documents
Complexity High value content hidden within large, complex, multi-page documents
Consistency No common format, style, or look

6. COST OF IGNORING CHALLENGES
§ WASTED TIME
§ LACK OF TRUST
§ LOSING TACIT KNOWLEDGE
TODAY, 80% OF BUSINESS IS
CONDUCTED ON UNSTRUCTURED
INFORMATION – GARTNER GROUP
KNOWLEDGE WORKERS SPEND
FROM 15% TO 35% OF THEIR TIME
SEARCHING FOR INFORMATION –
SUE FELDMAN, IDC
FORTUNE 500 COMPANIES LOSE
ROUGHLY $31.5 BILLION A YEAR BY
FAILING TO SHARE KNOWLEDGE –
PAMELA BABCOCK, HR MAGAZINE.
UNSTRUCTURED DATA DOUBLES
EVERY THREE MONTHS – GARTNER
GROUP
EACH DAY IN THE U.S., 10,000
PEOPLE RETIRE – SOCIAL
SECURITY ADMINISTRATION
40% OF CORPORATE USERS
REPORTED THEY CAN’T FIND THE
INFORMATION THEY NEED TO DO
THEIR JOBS – SUE FELDMAN, IDC

7. SOLUTIONS

8. TOP 5 FIXES FOR KMING YOUR CONTENT
CONTENT TYPES
TAXONOMY AND
TAGGING
CONTENT
SEGMENTATION
SEARCH
GOVERNANCE
HOW DO YOU KM CONTENT?

9. SOLUTION : TAXONOMY
WHAT IS IT? WHY DO I NEED IT?
Controlled vocabularies used to describe or
characterize explicit concepts of information, for
purposes of capture, management, and
presentation.
§ Provides structure to unstructured information
§ Enables findability through “search”, “browse”,
and “search and browse”
§ Allows content from multiple sources and
multiple types to be integrated into singular
experience

10. BEST PRACTICES : TAXONOMY
§ DEFINE AND DOCUMENT YOUR PURPOSE
§ FOCUS ON THE BUSINESS USER
§ USE THE SIMPLEST LANGUAGE AND STRUCTURE POSSIBLE
§ LEVERAGE THE WEALTH OF INFORMATION THAT ALREADY EXISTS
§ LOOK TO USABILITY BEST PRACTICES
“Taxonomy Design Best Practices”
https://enterprise-knowledge.com/taxonomy-design-best-practices/

11. SOLUTION : CONTENT TYPES
WHAT IS IT? WHY DO I NEED IT?
Definition of the type of information or content
you possess within the enterprise as well as the
design of the associated architecture, and
style of the content
§ Allows for easier and more consistent entry of
content
§ Standardizes content, reduces cognitive load,
easier to read
§ Improves overall findability and search through
consistency and tagging

12. BEST PRACTICES: CONTENT TYPES
§ KEEP IT SIMPLE AND START SMALL
§ INVENTORY CONTENT
§ LOOK FOR THEMES AND COMMON THREADS
§ DEFINE NECESSARY METADATA
§ START SMALL (LIMIT NUMBER OF FIELDS, DON’T TRY TO CAPTURE ALL CONTENT)
§ CENTER YOUR USER IN THE DESIGN PROCESS
§ LESS IS MORE; DON’T DESIGN FOR THE EXCEPTION

13. SOLUTION : SEGMENTATION
WHAT IS IT? WHY DO I NEED IT?
Deconstructing lengthy, hierarchical documents
commonly found in Word or PDF format into
more granular, targeted sections
• Allows you to precisely target smaller pieces of
content
• Provides ability to add “Google”-like features to
your search
• Allows version control and syndication of
content elements.

14. BEST PRACTICES: SEGMENTATION
§ LOOK FOR LOGICAL SEGMENTS TO SERVE AS POINTS OF DECONSTRUCTION (SECTION
HEADINGS)
§ MAKE SURE YOU TAG THE NEWLY CREATED SECTIONS
§ MOVE TO CMS FOR VERSION CONTROL, TAGGING
§ CONSIDER ANALYTICS AND USER FEEDBACK TO PRIORITIZE HIGH VALUE SEGMENTATION

15. SOLUTION : SEARCH
WHAT IS IT? WHY DO I NEED IT?
Search is the single place that knowledge
workers go to find and act on the information
that they need to be productive
§ Provides ability to find content over multiple
systems
§ Can lead to discovery of new content that
would otherwise be unknown
§ Provides quick answers to questions

16. BEST PRACTICES: SEARCH
§ DESIGN FOR THE ACTIONS YOUR USERS WANT TO PERFORM
§ IMPLEMENT FACETS (FROM TAXONOMY)
§ DESIGN FOR YOUR USER AND TYPE OF CONTENT BEING RETURNED TO THEM (HIT
TYPES, SNIPPETS, AUTO-COMPLETE, …)
§ CONSTANTLY ITERATE AND REFINE, LEVERAGE ANALYTICS
§ AIM FOR UNIFORM RECORD LENGTH (SEARCH IS MATH!)

17. SOLUTION : GOVERNANCE
WHAT IS IT? WHY DO I NEED IT?
Definition of the value of maintaining your
content, the roles and responsibilities for the
people who do it, the policies and procedures
that guide their actions in a consistent way, and
the communication, marketing and education
necessary to ensure everyone understands its
value and does it well
§ Provides cohesion to your content by keeping
information relevant and current
§ Empowers the appropriate individuals to act for
the long term enhancement of your content
§ Ensures your content trends toward
improvement instead of falls into chaos
§ Provides appropriate analytics (triggers),
policies, and procedures to manage content
consistently

18. BEST PRACTICES: GOVERNANCE
§ USE BUSINESS CASE TO SHOW HOW IT HELP USERS AND ORGANIZATION
§ START WITH TIGHT GOVERNANCE PLAN, THEN LOOSEN AS APPROPRIATE
§ LEVERAGE ANALYTICS TO ENSURE YOUR USERS’ ACTIONS ARE GUIDING THE
ENHANCEMENT OF YOUR CONTENT
§ COMMUNICATE CLEARLY YOUR ENTIRE GOVERNANCE PLAN SO USERS UNDERSTAND
HOW DECISIONS ARE MADE AND HOW THEY CAN WORK WITHIN THAT STRUCTURE
“The Keys to Governance”
https://enterprise-knowledge.com/the-keys-to-governance/

19. A KM STORY

20. EMPLOYEE HANDBOOK
EK EMPLOYEE HANDBOOK
LENGTHY DOCUMENT (46 PP.), COMPRISED
OF DIFFERENT SECTIONS, AND ACCESSED
FREQUENTLY

21. NON-KM EXPERIENCE

22. RESULT VIEW - ENTIRE PDF

23. CONTENT SEGMENTATION
WHAT ARE GOOD CANDIDATES?
§ LARGE DOCUMENTS (PDF OR WORD)
§ WELL-DEFINED STRUCTURE OR HIERARCHY
§ HIGH VALUE (ANALYTICS)

24. CONTENT SEGMENTATION
MAKING CONTENT MORE
GRANULAR TO INCREASE
PRECISION!

25. TAXONOMY AND TAGGING
SERVICE
MOBILE PHONE
HEALTH
TUITION
LONGER DOCUMENT = LESS PRECISION

26. TAXONOMY AND TAGGING
SHORTER DOCUMENT = MORE PRECISION
SERVICE
MOBILE PHONE
HEALTH
TUITION

27. GOVERNANCE
§ LAST REVIEWED DATE
§ ARCHIVE

28. KM’ED CONTENT

29. WE’LL BE ANSWERING QUESTIONS NOW
Q A&
THANKS FOR LISTENING
Q & A SESSION
@toph1990 | @EKConsulting