Case study: The J.D. Edwards "Knowledge Garden"

February, 1999

For J. D. Edwards, an international supplier of enterprise software, knowledge base publishing emerged as an outgrowth of a now-familiar scenario. Although lots of information was available on the company's intranet, employees couldn't find it. Keyword searches returned too many documents, and headings based on the company's organization chart didn't help. To make the intranet more usable, a team of three people with advanced degrees in philosophy, English literature, and law set out to build a "Knowledge Garden" [screen shot, takes a little while to load] using Microsoft's Site Server software. They describe their approach in a new book, Managing Knowledge: A Practical Web-based Approach by Wayne Applehans, Alden Globe, and Greg Laugero (Addison-Wesley, 1999).

Focus on the sales process
One of the book's most practical aspects is its focus on a specific business process -- in this case sales. Using a business process as the starting point made it easier to:

• measure return on investment (the project saved about $900,000 in salaries and printing costs the first year);

• develop a workable classification scheme (the new top level categories are employees, products, and sales/marketing);

• identify key knowledge base publishing staff (knowledge "analysts" and knowledge "authors").

According to the authors, the Knowledge Garden forced departments, such as writers and art departments, to work differently and in unison. "None of these things came naturally," according to co-author Alden Globe. The real feat was building a publishing organization within a company where writing and editing were not core competencies.

Four-part publishing process
Although only about 100 pages in length (with lots of white space and graphics), the book gives insights into how this feat can be accomplished. The process has four parts:

1. Pick a business process and learn how it works.
2. Break the cycle down into every event where people need to act.
3. Identify the people who use information at each point.
4. Select the content necessary for them to act.

For example, the sales process might have four major parts: prospecting, qualifying leads, conducting a demo, and closing a deal. Sales reps, involved in all parts of the process, need information such as competitive intelligence, specifications, and release schedules. Technical consultants, involved in only the demo and closing phases, need similar, but perhaps more detailed, information.

Developing a common vocabulary and standard "content types"
A key part of building the Knowledge Garden was building a "common vocabulary" to organize and describe the documents in all repositories. (See Tip of the iceberg: below the waterline in knowledge base publishing). According to the authors, this can be an intellectually challenging and time consuming activity but it's crucial to the ability to find information quickly. For example, finding marketing information and technical documentation should not require users to know two different product names -- Marketing's version and Documentation's version.

In addition to a common vocabulary, a standard list of "content types" is necessary to move information to the right audiences at the appropriate level of detail. For example, an engineer wants to see documents of the type "technical specifications," while customer service people want to see documents of the type "Tips and Techniques."

Profiling people
How did the J. D. Edwards team develop a common vocabulary and list of standard content types? They interviewed and "profiled" the people involved in the targeted business process. They asked questions like:

• What documents do you keep on your hard drive? Which ones do you make absolutely sure to back up?
• What non-corporate information do you use regularly (S.I.C. codes, databases, industry reports)?
• How do you typically learn about new enhancements to products? How would you like to learn about them?

Then, they used the content management features of Microsoft Site Server software package to enter the categories and content types. Authors use a Web-based form to tag the information as they submit it for publication, using the pre-defined categories. For more information, see "Microsoft Site Server 3.0: Organizing and Sharing the Contents of a Corporate Intranet."

Content ownership
To avoid internal squabbles, the "Knowledge Garden" team assigned "ownership" of content types to specific departments. For example, Product Development "owns" the "what" and "when" information about what products can do and when they become available -- release schedules, technical specs, "how-to" documents, and designs.

We liked the book because it is one of the few that deals with the practical aspects of knowledge base publishing from an interdisciplinary perspective -- content management, information retrieval, technology, and the bottom line. However, it took an interview with one of the authors plus a reading of related articles to get a complete picture. And the authors omit an important group of participants from their list of competencies to include on the publishing team. They mention writers, graphic designers, IT professionals, and competitive intelligence researchers but leave out librarians!

Created on February 28, 1999 l Updated on August 7, 2005