Collaboration software allows people to work together
electronically to accomplish a task, such as writing a report, planning
a PR event, or completing an IT project. The trouble is that collaboration
can take many forms, from a simple e-mail exchange to a complex workflow
with many steps and participants. In this article we look at how collaboration
software affects the productivity of individuals, work groups, and the
enterprise as a whole in four different workflow scenarios. Next we
discuss the pros and cons of five different technology strategies from
the perspectives of both enterprise and business unit productivity.
Finally, we comment on the results of our own and our members' experiments
with collaboration tools.
This month's entries include articles on four enterprise
architecture case studies, the value of human "curators" in
the age of Google, how to select collaboration software, and a call for
IT departments to facilitate innovation by lead users.
NEW FEATURES
New features for 2006 include:
Demonstrations — Free, one-hour demonstrations
of the Montague Institute's teaching Lab and A - Z indexes. For a list,
see the 2006 calendar. Members only.
Point of View (POV) articles — Monthly
commentaries on one of the Digest
articles. This month's POV is about metaphors
in user interfaces.
Teleconferences — Four teleconference
roundtables are scheduled for 2006. For a list, see the 2006
calendar. Members only.
Two A - Z indexes — The Knowledge
Base Editor's Digest now has its own A
- Z index. Topics in the Digest index are cross-referenced to topics
in the Montague Institute ReviewA
- Z index.
Collaboration software can improve work group productivity,
but it raises a host of editorial and business management questions. In
this 3-hour teleconference roundtable, Montague Institute founder Jean
Graef will lead a group of experienced practitioners in a discussion of
these issues.
COURSES The following courses can be taken at any time via the Web. Participants
receive expert individual coaching. There's no need to wait for a group
to form, but we strongly encourage team participation within a company
or business unit. Instruction revolves around a real world project of
the participant's choosing. Project data is entered into an online
lab (metadata repository) and can be exported or hosted at the conclusion
of the course. Companies can also choose to license a custom version of
the Lab software to install in house. Some courses have prerequisite requirements,
but often they can be met by on-the-job experience. For a complete list
of courses, see Knowledge Base Publishing Course
series. The most popular courses are listed below.
A hands-on course that shows you how to develop, evaluate,
and use information models and metadata management tools. Models and tools
include ontologies, topic maps, thesauri, metadata repositories, crosswalks
and metadata maps, XML schema and style sheets, and application interfaces.
A hands-on course that covers the fundamentals of
business taxonomies: how to do a needs analysis, create a controlled vocabulary,
develop a thesaurus, and use taxonomy components in navigation. Includes
personalized assistance from our instructors and supervised work on a
real project in the Web-based Lab.
A hands-on course that covers the creation and use
of authorities as well as the development of two independent thesauri
that are linked through cross references. Includes personalized assistance
from our instructors and supervised work on a real project in the Web-based
Lab.
