The document discusses the development and implementation of amdocspedia, a cross-corporate knowledge sharing platform aimed at breaking down information silos within Amdocs. It highlights the transition from localized methods to a centralized knowledge base, facilitating global knowledge sharing while ensuring content relevance and accuracy. Key features include intuitive categorization, user engagement tools, and a focus on continuous content improvement through user feedback and collaborative efforts.

1. Creating a Cross-Corporate Knowledge
Pool - Amdocspedia
Avigdor Sharon October 2009
Enterprise Knowledge Architect
IT, Global Knowledge Solutions Group
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2. What is this presentation about?
> Learning from the experience of Amdocspedia - creating a
cross-corporate space for sharing knowledge and experience
> How to move from local silos and methods of managing
professional information to one shared and consistent pool
> Allowing teams to work locally but affect
globally
> Increase knowledge sharing between groups
> Make professional information easier to find
> How to make sure content is up to date,
correct and relevant
> Making it easy to write and use content
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3. About Amdocs
> The market leader in customer experience systems innovation
> A broad portfolio of offerings which spans all business processes
and business- and operational-support systems (customer
experience systems)
> Unique combination of software, consulting services and global
strategic sourcing (managed services)
> Helping customers to deliver a simple, personal, valuable
customer experience at every point of service in more than 1.3
billion experiences every day.
> A global enterprise
> Amdocs' customers are among the largest, most innovative
communications companies in the world.
> Learn more at amdocs.com
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4. About the speaker
 Avigdor Sharon, Knowledge architect, Amdocs Global Knowledge
Management
 Internal knowledge & collaboration services portfolio
 Implementing knowledge sharing & collaboration vision, methodology and processes
 Facilitator, Association of Knowledge Work (kwork.org)
 Board member, Israel Knowledge Management Forum
 Member and forums facilitator, Smart People magazine
(www.smartpeoplemagazine.com)
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5. Who’s using Amdocspedia?
> Phase I – implemented for product and technology experts
in one major group
> Enthusiastic adoption - 18000 visits monthly by 1500
professionals, Over 400 new content pages per month
> Phase II – corporate-wide
> Increasing use of tags to organize and
access pages
> Merging professional tip collections
> Creating “homepages” and simulating
hierarchical content structure in a flat
content realm
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6. How is it built?
> An enhanced wiki knowledge base
> KWizCom WikiPlus - an extension of the MOSS 2007 wiki
> Developed as a co-project between Amdocs and KWizCom
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7. Why did we implement it?
> Professional knowledge sharing across unit boundaries
> A single, shared, cross-corporate knowledge base instead of
many separate knowledge silos
> Professional know-how and good practices sharing between
related projects
> Matrix organization. Many expert
groups. Distributed worldwide
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8. How did it start?
> The initiative started both top down and bottom up
> Corporate KM methodology, directive from business unit managers
> Requirements from experts in the work groups
> Some teams employed local solutions, each different and
unique. There was need for a comprehensive solution
> Started an integration and
implementation process,
working with groups to meet
their needs, yet bring all to
a consistence
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9. The journey
Study of needs, mapping groups, managerial leadership, knowledge champions,
round table meetings
• Feb. 2007
Starting “out of the box” SharePoint Portal 2007 wiki – Amdocspedia 1.0
• April 2007
Step by step implementation, working with groups, Defining requirements with
knowledge champions and users
• April 2007
Designing WikiPlus
• June 2007
Development
• August 2007
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10. The journey (Cont’d)
User pilot of Amdocspedia 2.0 with leading knowledge
champions and “power users”
• In parallel with ongoing use of Amdocspedia 1.0
• Fine tuning of usability and configuration
Migration of content and switch to Amdocspedia 2.0 (Wiki
Plus v1.0)
• April 2008
• Amdocspedia 1.0 still available but read only
Upgrading to Wiki Plus v1.2.50
• Sep. 2009
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11. An integral part of the knowledge
solutions portfolio
> A suite of integrated tools and processes
> Clear guidelines - what to use, for which purpose
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12. And the “One Intranet” architecture
Amdocs Intranet Portal
Operational
Sites Business Business Amdocs Business
The Mall Unit Unit Network
Travel
Portal Portal (Wigloo)
Genie
Global
Support
Project & Workgroup Sites Groups
Online
forms
(Collaboration Platform) (Communities)
Learning
Services
Document
Folder
Enterprise Content Services Discussion
Forum
Document Center, Forums,
wiki pages Events
(Tips, How-to) Amdocspedia, Search, … Calendar
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13. Amdocs Knowledge Champions Network
> Management - sponsorship and guidance
> Managers and Knowledge Champions – Leaders and drivers
> Local Trustees – use as part of ongoing work
> Knowledge champions create and structure the main pages, other
people add tips and other information gradually
Group
Management
KM & Portal
Leaders
Dept. Dept.
Knowledge Knowledge
Trustee Trustee
Project Project Project Project Project Project
Trustee Trustee Trustee Trustee Trustee Trustee
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14. Example 1 – Making user guides more effective
> Moving guidelines from online help and documents into
interactive tips cards
> Integrating pages using a consistent template and internal
“breadcrumbs”
> Taking screenshots and embedding them inside the Wiki
articles using the immediate image copy & paste capability
> Readers can rate tip cards, discuss them and even add to
them
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15. Example 1 – Making user guides more effective
Readers can subscribe to And make comments or
changes in this page discuss it
They can even contribute to it
Or rate it
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16. Example 1 – Making user guides more effective
Internal breadcrumbs simulate multi-
level structure
Quick and easy to follow “help
cards”
Tags allow for intuitive
categorization
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17. Example 2 – Creating shared good practices
& tips collections
> Merging disparate tips collections from multiple local
collections into global collections
> Using tags for even more intuitive
research
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18. Example 2 (Cont’d)
Automated table of contents
Edit only a specific section
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19. What you can use the Wiki for?
> The wiki is a very flexible media – it can have different uses
and can be tailored to your unique needs
> A place for organizing work guidelines and learning materials
> A knowledge base for customer support
> An interlinked “encyclopedia” / dictionary
> Professional knowledge sharing between experts and projects
The wiki is actually a large shared notebook that everyone can write
into or read. Its flexible organization (folksonomy) make associations
between content items easy and intuitive
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20. Using the Wiki – the challenge
> Make it simple and appealing - embedded into the way
people work, part of the regular work process, not an extra
effort
> Replaces other means of recording and sharing information
with easy to use, shared and interactive tools – yet people
need to learn a new approach
> Need to drive experts and teams to understand they benefit
from sharing
> The wiki evolves intuitively over time – need to resist the
temptation to define and plan everything in advance
Simplicity and flexibility do not come easily. It is a different state of mind
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21. A learning experience
> Sharing success stories
> Round tables between teams, learning from experience
> Shaping good practices on the basis of accumulated
experience
> Constant content improvement cycle - using, reviewing,
learning, fine tuning
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22. Recap - New features in Amdocspedia
(compared to MOSS 2007)
> Intuitive and flexible categorization, using multiple tags
> Multiple tags for pages
> Master tag cloud and tag index
> Easy email and RSS subscriptions for pages and/or tags
> A discussion area for each page
> Improved content editor
> Easily add images, create links and attach related files
> Create and manage tables
> Create image maps
> Create table of contents and edit sections within a page without
editing the whole page
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23. More features…
> A library of master wiki page templates
> One step duplication of pages to create similar pages
> Content lifecycle management
> New reporting capabilities, such as report of the top contributors
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24. Adding images
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25. Adding and managing links
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26. Adding tags
> Plan tags carefully to allow for intuitive categorization but
avoid needless “noise”
> Auto completion, based on the existing tags
> Can add multiple tags, separated by commas
> New tags will appear in the tag index
> The most used tags will appear in the
tag cloud
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27. The tag index
> Quickly browse and discover topics
> Subscribe / unsubscribe to any topic
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28. Content lifecycle management
> Every page has an owner
> Owner can assign other
persons as owners
> Review cycles
> When a page is edited,
the review cycle resets
> If the date of the review cycle is approaching, an email alert
is sent to the owner
> If the review cycle expires and there is no review and
editing of page, the page is marked as “out of date”
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29. Content lifecycle management (Cont’d)
> A page that was not updated or approved after its review
cycle (usually 6 months) has expired
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30. Making sure content is up to date, correct
and relevant
> Every page has an owner
> Knowledge champions network
> Knowledge champions subscribe to tags to receive email alerts
about page changes in their areas of expertise
> Every change is saved as a version, with the name of the
person who did the change
> Page owners and Knowledge champions can remove incorrect
new page versions
> Rating and comments by readers
> Content lifecycle management – review cycles
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31. What made it a success?
> Quick implementation, early gains
> Think with the users, plan together with them, use it yourself
> Integrating the wiki and placing it in context of:
> How people work
> Business needs
> A comprehensive suite of solutions
> Focused planning, define what to use the wiki for and what
not to use it for
> A partnership model
> Worked with leading managers and knowledge champions
within the groups - network, round tables, both top-down and
bottom-up
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32. What made it a success (continued)
> Creating an intuitive network of topics
> Taxonomy as part of the content
> Tags and wiki links instead of rigid trees
> Combination of central high level control and full
contribution ability to all users
> One shared environment, but still with a “local” feed
> Group and category homepages
> Interlinks between related pages
> Use tags effectively to create a sense of local areas although
the structure is flat and wide
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33. Thank you
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