Jinfo: Jinfo for knowledge management

Jinfo for knowledge management
Jinfo Blog

17th October 2016

Abstract

What are the key themes for effective current awareness and how do the latest knowledge management practices fit into that? How will Jinfo's new Research Focus on data analytics help frame the next evolution of KM? Jinfo's director of research, Robin Neidorf, reports.

Item

If there were a technology-only solution to knowledge management, it would have been perfected by now. Instead, we know that effective KM requires the right combination of strategy, technology and human behaviour.

Interestingly, this same combination of factors is at the heart of success for delivering effective current awareness. I might not have made that explicit connection, had I not reviewed the last few months of Jinfo resources and spent time reviewing the last Research Focus, "Content and technology for current awareness", through a knowledge management lens.

In fact, co-producer Steve Bynghall's summary article on the Research Focus highlights many of the exact themes I regularly hear from customers regarding their knowledge management efforts:

Plethora of products and technologies: The scope and maturity of the market for technologies and products to support KM grows every year - a boon to those seeking solutions, but also a potential distraction and expense.
Understand your users: Knowledge management, like current awareness, is not something created in a vacuum and then overlain on your user base. You have to build the system, including the processes for interacting with it and getting value from it, with your users in sharp focus... ideally, in partnership with you.
Shifting role of information professional: A "command-and-control" information world no longer exists (if indeed, it ever did). Users can and should do more for themselves than ever before. Yet in this self-service world, there is a far more strategic role for information professionals to play - setting strategy, contributing to system creation, review and reporting against articulated goals.
Hello, data: Ordinary business throws off an enormous amount of data as a by-product; with emerging approaches to KM (like current awareness), this data can become the raw material for building knowledge. At the same time, it's critical that the systems and processes we create to support KM also generate usable data, to measure how well we are achieving the aims.
Here comes AI: Artificial intelligence crops up in KM discussions, no less than in current awareness discussions. There's no doubt that AI is fast becoming the next area in which information professionals of all kinds need to build a working knowledge and perspective on the role it can (or won't) play in KM strategy.

Our new Research Focus, "Data analytics - ready your information service", is likely to be equally compelling for anyone thinking hard about the next evolution in knowledge management. We know that more knowledge is hidden in all the internal and external data our businesses touch and process every day. Perhaps we're getting close to the point when the right combination of analytics technology, strategy and user behaviour will make it visible and actionable.

Recent Subscription content of particular interest to our customers involved with knowledge management:

Articles

Reports

Webinars - recordings available to view for anyone with a Jinfo Subscription

The State of the Industry for Content Platforms

Upcoming research and events

The Research Focus, "Data analytics - ready your information service" runs from October-December and encompasses three months of research, reports, webinars and Community sessions examining how information professionals can play a central and strategic role in supporting their organisations as they evolve, ensuring that information services is at the heart of the data evolution.

Webinars: