Leaders of professional services organizations know that ensuring the best possible flow of information and knowledge is central to ...

Leaders of professional services organizations know that ensuring the best possible flow of information and knowledge is central to their quality, competitive advantage and bottom line. When information is your raw material, and knowledge your product, you need to know that you are providing your people with the best of both. A Knowledge Management Strategy and Planning engagement focuses on answering the following questions:

• What information and knowledge do your people need to do their jobs?
• Can they find this information and knowledge quickly and reliably, and be confident that what they’ve found is the most accurate and up-to-date?
• How can you improve the systems and processes in your organization to give them the information and knowledge they need, when they need it?

We work with you to examine the processes, people, systems and culture of your organization and how they work together. From this we deliver a practical, actionable operational plan, together with a set of prioritized initiatives that you can immediately begin to implement. This knowledge and information strategy focuses on identifying achievable goals which will have a very real impact on your organization and its productivity.

• Knowledge and Knowledge Management - Position Paper

Classification systems, such as taxonomies and vocabularies, are key to identifying and leveraging the flow of information within your organization. ...

Classification systems, such as taxonomies and vocabularies, are key to identifying and leveraging the flow of information within your organization.

Not only are classification systems necessary to enabling browsing and aggregating of information, but they are equally critical to getting the best return on your investment in portals, enterprise search and other such tools. In a Classification Engagement we can identify gaps in existing classification practices, such as duplication and redundancy, propose methods for creating a unified approach to classification, and assist with the design, creation, and deployment of this classification system across your information systems and processes.

In a global business world where change is a constant reality, business process re-engineering needs to be a standard tool. ...

In a global business world where change is a constant reality, business process re-engineering needs to be a standard tool.

Examining and addressing key processes, especially those which manage critical information flows, can lead to dramatic improvements in efficiency and productivity, both through changes to manual processes and the intelligent application of automation. We look at these key processes not just in themselves, but to see how they fit within your organization’s broader context, and to identify how information collected in one process can be leveraged further on, to provide the greatest possible value.

Fundamentally, portals are the latest advancement in a series of tools, from Lotus Notes through Intranets, that organizations have used...

Fundamentally, portals are the latest advancement in a series of tools, from Lotus Notes through Intranets, that organizations have used to tame the explosive growth of information and information sources. For over ten years ii3 has been helping leading organizations tackle their information management and collaboration challenges through intranets, portals and similar tools. We assist you to realize your portal’s potential by helping identify your most important goals, and selecting the features, systems and processes which need to come together to achieve them. From here we can work with you to connect and integrating underlying systems and develop clear and intuitive user interfaces, to ensure you deliver a portal that works. Finally, we can provide our extensive expertise in deployment and adoption, the most critical - and often the most neglected - part of any portal project, to ensure people use what you deliver.

Truly effective enterprise search is looked to as next "killer application" which, by enabling information workers to find the information they need, when they need it, ...

Truly effective enterprise search is looked to as next "killer application" which, by enabling information workers to find the information they need, when they need it, will dramatically boost the efficiency and effectiveness of knowledge-based organizations. However, simply installing a search engine on top of multiple information repositories cannot result in truly effective search. A search engine which delivers results consisting of thousands of documents, with little context or organization, not only does not solve the problem, but actually exacerbates it. The magic of Google is indeed the bar against which most users measure the quality of a search, whether on the Internet or within the office.

ii3 starts by assessing your users’ needs and expectations to develop a set of scenarios which clearly define what a successful and useful set of search results looks like. From here we can work with you to create an evaluation program so that you can confidently select the product set which will solve your immediate needs, and provide a platform to support your long term goals and objectives.

Every day, it is becomes ever clearer that knowledge management can’t be confined to the walls -and firewalls- of the enterprise. More and more clients...

Every day, it is becomes ever clearer that knowledge management can’t be confined to the walls -and firewalls- of the enterprise. More and more clients are insisting on on-demand access to information and knowledge as a service they expect; e-mail and instant messaging have made electronic collaboration and information-sharing commonplace; and interactive web sites have set the expectation that your site can’t simply be a static marketing brochure, but must become a knowledge hub which powerfully demonstrates the value of your organization’s expertise.

ii3 conceived and built one of the first "extranets" ten years ago, before the term had even been invented. We know what it takes to communicate and collaborate successfully, and how important it is that your client and partner-facing systems be an integral part of your internal information and knowledge management strategy. Whatever your needs, ii3 can help you design, build and deploy a secure extranet, collaboration solution or dynamic web site that will differentiate you from your competitors and build stronger working relationships with your clients.

For most organizations, electronic documents form the raw material, the primary work environment and the key work product they deal with. Often, filing, collaborating on, versioning, ...

For most organizations, electronic documents form the raw material, the primary work environment and the key work product they deal with. Often, filing, collaborating on, versioning, searching, re-using and controlling access to these documents represents a key challenge. For many organizations, the use of well-structured set of network folders is sufficient. However, an increasing number of businesses -from 25 to 25,000 employees- find they need to apply more powerful and scalable document management and workflow practices, and a document management system (DMS) can provide the means to do so.

Implementing a DMS represents a significant change to an organization’s business processes, and a successful deployment can present an equally significant challenge. ii3’s consulting, planning, vendor selection, implementation and deployment services focus on the key goals: successful adoption of the DMS and full leverage of the organization’s investment. Our DMS engagement takes into account our clients’ knowledge and content management strategies, ensuring smooth and seamless integration of the DMS with other workflows, processes and systems, such as portals.

Can you quickly and reliably locate and retrieve the right versions of documents from a past engagement when a client requests them? Are you confident that you can find...

Can you quickly and reliably locate and retrieve the right versions of documents from a past engagement when a client requests them? Are you confident that you can find the documents or e-mails that would indisputably defend your firm against charges of liability? In an age of increasing regulation and accountability, where a single document or e-mail might make the difference between disastrous liability or indisputable innocence, records management solutions are more important than ever before.

Historically, records management has been a labor intensive, expensive and typically ineffective process to collect, store and retrieve paper. Now that most records are electronically produced, a well thought out solution can significantly minimize a firm’s storage costs, while making it much easier to retrieve archived records when necessary.

Information Management strategies need to identify and satisfy requirements for accessing and leveraging reusable information (knowledge management) as well for storing and retrieving paper and electronic records (records management). The tools and processes for supporting records management are very different than those for knowledge management, but it is important to recognize that the two have overlapping requirements and their solutions need to be integrated.

ii3 can help organizations define their records management needs and priorities, and develop practical solutions. Elements we cover include:

• Defining a records retention and destruction policy;
• Redesigning the process for collecting, organizing, storing and retrieving records;
• Integrating paper and electronic records;
• Defining an organizational structure responsible for managing records;
• Evaluating, recommending and deploying a records management solution;
• Integrating a records management solution with key information repositories, such as document management systems.

It has been said that "it’s not what you know but who you know." Whether this is completely true or not, it’s certainly true that ...

It has been said that "it’s not what you know but who you know." Whether this is completely true or not, it’s certainly true that "knowing who knows what" is essential. Information and document repositories, as critical as they are, can never contain the full context and extent of knowledge that resides within the experts in your organization. Identifying and managing accurate knowledge and skills inventories, and making this information available to the rest of your organization, is much more difficult than it may, at first, seem. Biographies and self-maintained profiles quickly get out of date, and suffer from the inevitable bias that we all have regarding our own expertise. ii3’s extensive experience has led us to develop a sophisticated mixed model, supplementing directory and biography information with expertise information extracted from each expert’s actual work product and artifacts.

ii3 can help your organization to identify, design and implement such a model, mining the raw data buried in your existing information, document and financial systems, and refining it into highly valuable knowledge. These automated systems are combined with processes that ensure maintenance of basic self-profile information, putting relevant and accurate expertise information at each person’s fingertips. And of course, we will work with you to ensure that this system is a seamless and integral part of your existing and planned information and knowledge management solutions.

The importance of being a "learning organization," one focused on ensuring that its employees have the latest skills and knowledge needed ...

The importance of being a "learning organization," one focused on ensuring that its employees have the latest skills and knowledge needed to excel in a competitive environment is accepted and understood by almost everyone. In the last few years, learning has come to be seen as in integral part of knowledge management, although certainly with its own particular requirements and challenges. As with knowledge management, a successful learning management program needs to have clear goals, a planned implementation, and a way of measuring success, for both the learner and the organization. ii3 has years of experience developing both learning content for busy professionals, as well as enterprise learning management systems. We consult our clients on identifying the specific needs, systems and processes that will help track learners and their progress, and enable their organizations to maintain and increase their professional competency, as well as achieve their strategic goals.

• RBC: Personal Learning Network

Knowledge organizations now have to publish content, often simultaneously, in many different formats across a broad variety of ...

Knowledge organizations now have to publish content, often simultaneously, in many different formats across a broad variety of delivery channels such as public web sites, extranets, portals, intranets and print publications. Such an effort introduces considerable challenges of consistency, quality, version control, workflow, approval, ownership and many others. ii3 has built and implemented many content management solutions, providing the consulting, planning, execution and deployment needed to make our clients successful. We work with each client to determine who owns and is ultimately responsible for each content area, and then help establish the processes that facilitate how content is created, maintained, stored, distributed across and -just as importantly- purged from the various distribution channels.

When we talk about "knowledge content," most of us immediately think of text-based electronic documents such as papers, spreadsheets and presentations. But a convergence of ...

When we talk about "knowledge content," most of us immediately think of text-based electronic documents such as papers, spreadsheets and presentations. But a convergence of technological advances is creating a new category of knowledge content: audio and video. The advent of cost-effective digital audio and video has made it possible to create, store, classify, search and distribute these media just as effectively as we do with text-based documents. However, we all know that audio and video, in the proper context, can be much more powerful and effective.

ii3’s MediaFlow is a unique and comprehensive model for the creation and delivery of editorialized video content for learning, marketing and knowledge management purposes. MediaFlow provides a full lifecycle solution that allows organizations to deliver high-value video content to employees, clients and partners through web browsers, live presentations, take-away DVDs and portable media devices, such as the iPod.

• MediaFlow overview [1.11 MB PDF File]