1. Innovatia
Energizing Knowledge
Into Performance
Connie Twynham

2. Energizing Knowledge
“The desire and the ability of an organization
to continuously learn from any source and to
rapidly convert this learning into action – is
its ultimate competitive advantage.”
Jack Welch - CEO of GE
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3. Agenda
• Who we are and what we do
• Business Challenges and Best Practices
• Real Costs, Risks, and Benefits
• Demonstration Scenario
• Demo
• Information Life Cycle Today and
Tomorrow
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4. Who we Are
• Founded in 2000,
roots in Telecom and IT
• Employ 400+ people
• Serve over 1,500 customers in 29 countries
• Wholly owned subsidiary of Bell Aliant -
Bell Aliant (TSX: BA.UN)
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5. Credentials - Industry Recognition & Leadership
• Recognized by Our Customers
– Strategic Supplier to Nortel three years
running
– “Most innovative Supplier of the year”
• Recognized by Trainingoutsource.com as one
of the Top 20 eLearning outsourcing
companies in the worldwide
• Founding member of Center for Outsourcing
Research and Education - (CORE)
• Our ASP eLearning infrastructure – leverages
WBT’s Gartner Magic Quadrant LMS
• Multi-Million dollar R&D commitment to
evolving our Knowledge Solutions
Methodologies
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6. What we Do
Knowledge Management Across
the Product or Process Life Cycle
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7. An Information Challenge
• In 2006 there were 161 exabytes of information on the
internet.
• What’s an exabyte? (Information gathered from a wiki)
– Billion gigabytes. A million million megabytes.
– 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes (Quintillion)
– 161 exabytes in book format - 500 million miles of books.
• In 2010 the estimate is 1,000 exabytes.
• Information overload……but you/your resources still can’t
find what you need to do your job?
• No wonder!
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8. • A significant portion of the information created
is redundant
• Resources are spending time creating, reading
and/or wading through much more than necessary
(wasting time and money)
• 1 hr/week*52 weeks*$50hr*50 people= $130K yr
• Can your company/your clients afford that?
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9. Lowered Memorization/Lower Risk?
• The DND dictates that all functional checks on F18 aircraft are carried
out using checklists and procedures. – why?
• Safer - things change. Trained technicians may not have used
information learned in the classroom therefore key steps may be
forgotten.
• ISO, TL9000, and ITIL include access to up to date, accurate
information as an auditable component to a QM system – why?
• Prices change, product numbers change, install times change, SLAs
change ------- therefore the quality of the service will change if old
information is used.
• Memory ………..or access to usable, up to date, accurate information?
• The lowered levels of memorization and the increased use of Fingertip
Knowledge have huge implications for how learning activities and
information products are designed and delivered.
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10. Growth of Mobile Devices
Three billion mobile subscribers worldwide
• Shipments of mobile phones will reach 1.13
billion units in 2007 and grow to 1.46
billion units by 2011
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11. Information Ecosystem
Our customers are used to…
• Searching, assembling, and customizing information
• Searching a variety of resources at once
• Working with others to come up with answers
• Getting access to information anytime, anywhere
Yet we often still give them…
• Static, fixed training and manuals that only we can change
• Disconnected sets of information, not always does our
training match the documentation
• Too much of the wrong information, or at the wrong time
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12. The Challenge of Mobility
Fitting into our users’ lives
• People expect ‘ambient findability’
– information that is accessible
anytime, anywhere
• People consume information
without thinking about it, while
doing other things
• They don’t care if it’s training,
reference materials, user guides or
iPod movies
• People have less time, shorter
attention spans, and constant
distractions
Overcoming technical limitations
• Small screens with varying
resolutions
• Slow network speeds
• Varying device capabilities
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13. Implications for Information Development
Design information for a small screen
• Make topics very brief and to the point
Design information to be consumed in short bursts
• Adopt a minimalist approach
• Design modular information
• Link thoughtfully between related topics
Minimize network use (and maximize battery life)
• Decide what information to deliver over the network
• Avoid heavy use of graphics and multimedia
• Make appropriate trade-offs between ‘push’ and ‘pull’
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14. A Business Challenge
• Rollout of new applications/services
• Consider all the new automation tools that exist today in
every industry – health care, education, retail, government,
telecommunications, information technology, insurance,
transportation, etc.
• How many struggle or fail because of insufficient timely
information that addresses workflow changes, procedures,
and other impacts?
• Companies with best in class implementations generally
spend 15-17% of project budgets on training and dynamic
information sharing.
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15. Best Practices – Training and Documentation
Organizations Can Help
• Facilitate collaboration between technical
and business people
• Understand how the org will change and determine
the necessary knowledge and skills
– Address system changes – how do I use the application
– Address non-system changes – how does my job change
• Establish a communication plan to keep people informed
throughout the project
• Train/Inform….make sure end users can adopt
the new technology
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16. Best Practices
• Create reusable content and provide
a mechanism for review and input
• Automate training tools and team development tools
especially for virtual teams
• Implement infrastructure, tools,
and processes to support geographically,
and culturally dispersed groups
• Purposely plan your documentation architecture
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17. Doc Planning/Architecture
• Client Demographics
• Audience and Purpose
• Content
• Templates and Tools
• Process and File Management
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18. Client Demographics
• Business Model
• Technical Skill Levels of employees
• Language and Culture
• Future Strategic Direction
• Pace of corporate growth
• Varying levels of internal process maturity
• Roadmap
• Stakeholder Agendas
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19. Audience and Purpose
• Who are the audiences?
– Documentation -Technical (engineering and
administration) and/or marketing (sales
collateral and quick start user overviews)
– Training – Sales/maintenance/end users
– Technical Support – website FAQs, 24 hr
lines, CRM trouble tickets
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20. Content
• Usability – accurate, complete, accessible
• Structure – consistent, logical, modular, redundant, intuitive
navigation, searchable, relevant
• Writing – simplistic, voice appropriate, standard
• Visuals – effective use of tables, graphics, lists
• Localization – How many languages? People absorb
knowledge three times faster in their own language.
• Portability – single source, easy conversion, translation
conscious
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21. Templates and Tools / Process and File Management
• Standard Template for each medium – web,
CD, Help
• Authoring tools – proprietary, common, supported,
training in place
• Documented development process
• Systems and processes for file management
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22. Classic Information Update Scenario
• IPTV is a fairly new service in the market, Lots of competition, lots of
changes with new technology
• A main office implementation technician who had been using our
IPTV professional services for some time had noticed that there is an
opportunity to revise equipment requirements.
• He calls our professional Services Support line. Support works with
the technician to understand the issue goes to documentation and finds
that based on the spec the number of routers required is 6 when it fact
the technician tells him that really only 5 are required and that in that
model the ROI .
• Our Support engineers works with Product Managers and verifies the
new information. PM initiates a change.…Let’s go have a look at what
we got.
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23. DEMO
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24. Traditional Multi-Channel/Multi-Silo
Initial Extract or
EFFORT
Knowledge Capture Convert Content Development Cycle Assemble Publish
Tech Pubs
[ Knowledge Silo ]
eLearning
[ Knowledge Silo ]
Support
TIME
Documents Training Materials Tech Support Data Base
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25. Innovatia Single-Source Model
Single-source Multi-channel Sequencing
Collaboration Store and Manage and Transformation Publish
Support
eLearning
Tech Pubs
Documents Training Materials Tech Support Data Base
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26. Innovatia Single-Source Model: Updates
Single-source Multi-channel Sequencing
EFFORT
Collaboration Store and Manage and Transformation Publish
Support
eLearning
Tech Pubs
TIME
Documents Training Materials Tech Support Data Base
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27. Single Source Information Model
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28. Behind the Scenes
• DITA-enabled CMS (SiberSafe)
– Custom elements for eLearning output
• DITA Open Toolkit publishing
– Custom XSLT transformation for eLearning XML,
WML outputs, Knowledgebase and PDF
• Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
– Typical support portal
• TopClass Learning Management System
• XML-based Adobe Flash presentation engine
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29. More Information
• Innovatia White Papers
– http://www.innovatia.net/corp/whatWeDo.jsp
• Connie Twynham,
– VP Business Development
– Next Generation Knowledge Solutions
– Connie.twynham@innovatia.net
– Office - 706 268 2056
– Mobile - 770 296 0593
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