Innovatia Energizing Knowledge

Into Performance Connie Twynham

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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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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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• 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)

Who we Are

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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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What we Do

Knowledge Management Across the Product or Process Life Cycle

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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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• 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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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, SLAschange ------- 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 andinformation products are designed and delivered.

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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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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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The Challenge of MobilityFitting 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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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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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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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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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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Doc Planning/Architecture

• Client Demographics• Audience and Purpose• Content• Templates and Tools• Process and File Management

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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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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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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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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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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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DEMO

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Traditional Multi-Channel/Multi-SiloInitial

Knowledge CaptureExtract or

Convert Content Assemble PublishDevelopment Cycle

[ Knowledge Silo ]

[ Knowledge Silo ]

Tech Pubs

eLearning

Support

Documents Training Materials Tech Support Data Base

TIME

EFF

OR

T

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Innovatia Single-Source ModelSingle-sourceCollaboration Store and Manage

Multi-channel Sequencingand Transformation Publish

Tech Pubs

eLearning

Support

Documents Training Materials Tech Support Data Base

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Innovatia Single-Source Model: Updates

TIME

EFF

OR

T Single-sourceCollaboration Store and Manage

Multi-channel Sequencingand Transformation Publish

Tech Pubs

eLearning

Support

Documents Training Materials Tech Support Data Base

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Single Source Information Model

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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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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