Biographical Information
Judith Lamont, Ph.D.,
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Judith Lamont is a research analyst and a KMWorld Senior Writer
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Articles By Judith Lamont, Ph.D.,
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The growing availability of electronic medical records will lead to increased evidence-based medicine and smarter healthcare...
To realize the potential of remote access to ECM, developers must design effective interfaces to applications that are responsive to the needs of workers on the go...
The economic downturn has made organizations more conscious of legal costs for both in-house and outside counsel. The impact has been reflected in increased attention to fixed-price models, low-cost outsourcing and use of automation. In addition, companies in highly litigated industries are attempting to reduce risk through e-discovery readiness...
Organizations have a broader vision of how BPM can be used across the enterprise. They may still start with one department, as has been typical in the past, but the plan is to deploy BPM pervasively...
Although emerging technologies are contributing substantially to greater exchange of information, much of the progress can be credited to mature KM solutions that are being used more effectively...
Social networking has moved into the enterprise market in a big way over the past year, with blogs and wikis becoming ubiquitous, and more recently, a trend toward enterprise microblogging. According to IDC, the market doubled between 2007 and 2008, although on a small base, and is expected to grow to $1.6 billion by 2013...
"The market for digital asset management (DAM) solutions remains robust, driven by increasing demand for rich media on Web sites, for marketing materials and in technical documentation. Ideally, assets for those purposes are managed centrally and published as needed to different destinations...
Business intelligence (BI) software products are becoming increasingly sophisticated and valuable to companies through their ability to integrate with other applications, including geographic information system (GIS) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) software. Such integration helps companies arrive at the data-driven decisions that are urgently needed in today's economic climate...
Government agencies are using geographic information system (GIS) solutions in combination with other applications to consolidate information and help reduce stovepiping. Those solutions have proven to be highly effective at visualizing information to make data-driven decisions...
As more and more information is communicated through informal channels such as blogs and wikis, the importance of incorporating those electronic documents into a formal life cycle strategy also increases. An area of particular vulnerability is the issue of knowledge retention as the baby boomer generation moves into retirement...
The magnitude of stimulus funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009, combined with mandated requirements for accountability and transparency, has posed significant challenges to organizations that are either distributing or receiving funds. The total amount authorized was $787 billion, not all of which has been distributed. Federal agencies must report on how much funding has been authorized, awarded and spent in each category. States are in the process of allocating the funds to various projects. ARRA requires that expenditures and progress must be tracked and presented on a public Web site....
Financial institutions, healthcare insurance companies and government institutions all have been victims of fraud. Eventually, consumers pay the costs of fraud. The good news about fraud is that about $10 is recovered for each dollar spent fighting it...
Social networking software gives users the ability to create individual profiles that foster interaction among people based on their interests, expertise or work activities. First made available on consumer-oriented sites such as Facebook, social networking is beginning to find a solid niche in the business world...
Through their research and teaching activities, academic institutes are at the forefront of knowledge creation and dissemination. Nevertheless, they have not necessarily been early adopters of knowledge management solutions. In order to manage a rapidly expanding base of knowledge and work more efficiently, however, professors are turning to software solutions to help organize and present information...
When it comes to data sharing by law enforcement agencies, the primary obstacles are not usually technological, but territorial. Agencies understandably want to retain authority over areas, both geographical and functional, for which they are held responsible. Still, at a time when resources are scarce and demands are many, more law enforcement organizations are participating in data sharing systems, and have reaped significant benefits...
Search is an ongoing endeavor in most knowledge-driven organizations. Workers spend a lot of time searching for information, and often don't find what they want. If the search solutions available to an organization are not achieving the desired results, several options are available to enhance performance without the need for a complete overhaul.
Vertical solutions are geared to be functional right out of the box and can often be up and running in a matter of days...
Most organizations now understand that they have a lot of content, that it's growing at a relentless pace and that it must be managed...
KMWorld magazine recently hosted a roundtable discussion that focused on e-discovery. We reproduce the conversation here because of its uniquely comprehensive view of e-discovery, from the nitty-gritty details to the overall impact...
Despite the troubled economy, business process management (BPM) software products seem to be headed for robust growth...
"Going green" has become a topic of increased attention lately, but it's nothing new to knowledge management. By its nature, knowledge management promotes efficiency and optimal use of resources, which often reduces the amount of energy required to achieve a given goal. What has changed is the heightened awareness of those benefits...
Despite today's economic difficulties, there is reason to be cautiously optimistic about the KM industry. Many functions it supports will continue to be needed, perhaps more than ever...
Software as a service (SaaS) continues to make inroads into enterprise knowledge management, its progress fueled by the low cost of entry and minimal impact on internal IT resources. In addition, applications can be up and running in a very short time. That combination is helping to support a substantial growth rate for a number of SaaS vendors despite the overall economic climate...
Products with Web 2.0 capability are making steady inroads into the enterprise environment. A primary factor for success is having a clear understanding of the purpose of the implementation...
The global market for digital asset management (DAM) solutions was more than $330 million in 2007, according to ABI Research and is predicted to reach $1 billion within the next five years...
Content flowing in and out of enterprise resource planning systems gets some help...
Web 2.0 promises to add value to enterprise content management, particularly in creating a more collaborative workplace...
Business intelligence (BI) seems to thrive in tough economic times almost as well it does in good times. Based on a survey of IT and business leaders in Europe, China and the United States, AMR Research predicts that the global market for BI will be $57.1 billion in 2008, with the U.S. market accounting for $25.5 billion of the total. The growth rate is expected to be somewhat slower than in the past at about 5 percent, but increasing over the next several years.
Business is built on relationships as much as it is on information, and an increasing number of software options are available to help establish and develop relationships. They range from contact management products that collect information while running in the background to Facebook-like enterprise solutions for proactive sharing of professional information.
Information life cycle management (ILM) is a critical component of nearly every business. The efficiency with which information assets are managed—from creation to review, distribution and storage—significantly determines success.
Most computer users have had the experience of wanting to view sets of information side by side but being thwarted because the information comes from different sources. An emerging technology for overcoming that barrier is so-called "mashup" software, which provides a unified view of information from different sources. Although a small market now, those products are increasingly providing an alternative to time-consuming manual processes or expensive custom integrations.
The range of software products encompassed by social networking is so extensive and diverse that sorting out the options can be difficult.
Learning doesn't stop when people graduate from college, and, in fact, an individual's most relevant knowledge acquisition often begins when he or she enters the work force. Knowledge developed on the job or in preparation for a job change can give a worker a competitive edge and can benefit the employer through increased performance levels. One of the most convenient delivery formats for adult learners is e-learning, which is usually available "anytime, anywhere."
The case for federated records management (RM) is strong—leave records in their native repositories, but manage them centrally. That way, the records do not need to be physically moved into a single location, yet a single set of retention rules can be applied. Records are "virtualized" so that they all appear to be within the federated records management application, from which they can be searched, placed on hold, or acted on in other ways.
The market for e-mail archiving has experienced remarkable growth over the past several years, driven by compliance requirements and burgeoning volumes of messages. Both Gartner and IDC reported worldwide growth rates exceeding 40 percent in 2006. More modest growth rates over the next few years are still expected to push the market past $1 billion by 2011.
Few people who visit self-service Web sites have escaped unscathed from the frustrations that all too often accompany their use or attempted use. Simple transactions such as checking a bank balance can usually be accomplished efficiently, but more complex needs such as finding information about a health insurance policy or how to obtain replacement parts for a product can throw the visitor into an inescapable loop.
Enterprise content management (ECM) is an increasingly complex sector of knowledge management, with new options and issues arising steadily.
No matter how light a laptop is, carrying it around, opening it and booting up is never entirely convenient for a mobile knowledge worker.
Business process management (BPM) has been one of the most successful types of enterprise applications. Rather than becoming shelfware, it tends to proliferate throughout an organization once its capabilities are demonstrated.
Law offices handle most of their documents electronically, but a substantial minority of their work arrives in paper form, and getting it to the intended recipient can create a bottleneck in the workflow.
Service-oriented architecture provides services, both simple and complex, that can benefit users of a broad range of business applications, and enhance productivity.
The primary technologies that support knowledge management (KM) are well understood and widely used, but have been limited in the past by lack of flexibility. Incorporation of social networking capabilities derived from Web 2.0, however, is now enhancing those foundational solutions and adding greater interactivity into the KM environment.
Digital asset management (DAM) is one of the most dynamic areas of software today, with organizations increasingly seeing its value in reducing costs and producing revenue streams. "These software solutions are now considered ‘must have' products,"...
Business intelligence (BI) solutions have typically focused on analysis of quantitative data to measure and predict organizational performance. The analyses help drive decisions about staffing, R&D, marketing and other business activities. However, quantitative analyses do not always provide an indication of causality...
The U.S. economy is now considered to be knowledge-based, with much of its value derived from intellectual capital and service activities. However, even a knowledge-based economy depends on a physical infrastructure supported by energy, transportation and other tangible components.
Human resources (HR) is both document- and process-intensive—a perfect scenario for using enterprise content management (ECM) technologies.
Compliance is marked by ever-increasing complexity and an abundance of information. Software solutions are helping to ease the burden by automating and documenting the processes that are required for compliance.
Data capture is steadily becoming more intelligent and flexible, and customers are enjoying substantial productivity enhancements from the technology improvements. In particular, invoice recognition and handwriting recognition have both taken off, benefiting from today’s more sophisticated software.
Without good planning, organizations may not be ready for the challenges of the e-discovery process. Among those difficulties are the huge quantities of electronic data, the myriad formats in which the data is stored, and the requirements in the amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) to produce any documents that are “reasonably accessible.”
Few trends in the software world are attracting as much attention as "software as a service" (SaaS).
The case for records management (RM) gets more compelling every day. Perhaps the most commonly mentioned driver is compliance, although that buzzword has a broad range of meanings.
Knowledge management tools and techniques are helping to support e-government initiatives aimed at some of the world’s most challenging issues, including poverty, national security and healthcare.
Business process management, predictive analytics and document management are three core KM technologies that are increasingly finding their way into the public schools.
Enterprise search solutions have traditionally been ahead of Internet search in terms of sophistication and effectiveness. Now some of those technologies are being directed toward the Web, with much success.
Law firms face all the same problems with e-mail that other industries do, only more so.
Decision-making in organizations is based on a complex mix of rational and intuitive thinking. Amidst abundant data, organizations find it difficult to make decisions in which they are confident. One way to help make sense of enterprise data is to use a dashboard to support business performance management...
Enterprise content management (ECM) systems are best known for handling documents that represent the intellectual capital in organizations—documents such as project deliverables, research reports and reference materials. In recent years, however, ECM systems have diversified to accommodate such content...
The Semantic Web is relevant to knowledge management because it has the potential to dramatically accelerate the speed with which information can be synthesized, by automating its aggregation and analysis.
Doctors on TV might get the diagnosis wrong a few times to fill up the broadcast hour, but in real life, things go much better if the doctor is right the first time.
Blogs began springing up more than a decade ago as a way for individuals to maintain online diaries, voice their opinions on politics and vent about consumer products. They proliferated rapidly, and thousands became millions. Tainted perhaps by the image of bloggers as gossipmongers, blogs were not taken seriously as enterprise applications until fairly recently.
Evolving business process management (BPM) capabilities are improving process automation, allowing deeper integration with Microsoft Office, and offering a better understanding of process efficiency through use of business intelligence (BI).
Compliance with laws such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 and the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act HIPAA) entails both process and content. Information must be seen and validated by specific individuals, and controls must be set up, which implies a workflow, whether automated or manual.
Why is the e-mail part of compliance such a headache?
If you are a user of KM software, chances are that a third party implemented your system, not the software vendor.
By most definitions, Web content management (WCM) is a subset of enterprise content management (ECM), which in turn also includes document management, digital asset management (DAM) and records management (RM). Yet in many ways, WCM remains distinct from other ECM components in how it functions in the enterprise.
Law firms have lots of choices when it comes to software; dozens of programs are available for such functions as case management, practice management, document assembly and trial presentation. Those popular products often are a great match for a law firm's needs. However, sometimes a solution based on a generic KM platform, rather than a dedicated legal product, works best.
The U.S. highway system is a part of the nation’s critical infrastructure, one on which our economy and security are highly dependent. A complex mix of legislative, technical and environmental information goes into sustaining that infrastructure. Keeping the highway system running smoothly is an ongoing challenge, best accomplished when information is shared quickly and efficiently.
Since 2002, the Naval Postgraduate School’s Center for Homeland Defense and Security has developed a wide range of graduate education programs that help current and future homeland security leaders with strategies, policies and organizational elements to defeat terrorism in the United States. The CHDS, which is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, offers a homeland security master’s degree that was the
Several years ago, expertise location was a fast-growing branch of KM, helping to find the human repositories of specialized knowledge. Then it seemed to recede as an application of interest, perhaps because some of the solutions were narrowly focused, too hard to maintain or not well integrated with other enterprise applications. But the requirement to locate experts has not gone away.
The records management (RM) market is projected to grow at a robust 25 percent per year over the next five years...
Content management, search and business intelligence are among the core KM technologies being enthusiastically adopted by the academic world. Many of the tools being applied in educational settings help achieve such goals as enhanced customer service and greater productivity.
While knowledge management (KM) practitioners design systems to support their organizations’ goals, and knowledge workers use them on a day-to-day basis to carry out their activities, researchers are engaged in developing new techniques and tools that may eventually be incorporated into these systems.
Over the past year, search technology has shown remarkable progress in both its features and in the interest from prospective users. Initiatives by high-visibility firms such as Google have drawn attention to it, and enterprises are aggressively seeking more powerful ways of accessing their content.
It may seem surprising in this digital age that so many invoices arrive via the U.S. mail, and that so many insurance applications are filled out on a form attached to a clipboard. For many organizations and individual consumers, paper still brings a comfort level that digital data cannot match. But in order to make use of that data, conversion to digital form is a must.
One of the early goals of enterprise content management was to get all an organization’s intellectual capital into one place so that everyone would have access to it. That exercise was useful in revealing what information was already present and what was missing, and catalyzed more systematic methods of structuring and retrieving information.
Service-oriented architecture (SOA) mirrors the goals of knowledge management in synthesizing information from disparate sources into a meaningful view.
An avian flu pandemic could infect 90 million people in the United States and kill 2 million, according to a study released in December by the Congressional Budget Office. The economic effects could be equally devastating, with a reduction of about $675 billion in the gross domestic product.
Recent figures from INPUT (www.input.com), a market research firm specializing in analysis of government business, indicate that federal spending on knowledge management (KM) will reach $1.3 billion per year within the next five years.
Business process management (BPM) is proving to be a versatile and valuable solution for companies across many sectors. Its use can grow incrementally, and eventually interconnect multiple functional areas.
Many technologies that fall under the purview of knowledge management have proved useful after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
The insurance industry made great strides more than a decade ago when it began using imaging rather than paper for its claims processing. However, as the digital age advanced and information accompanying claims became more complex, some of the early systems were no longer up to the task.
Fewer than one in five U.S. physicians use electronic medical records (EMRs) to track their patients' histories, even though such products offer benefits to stakeholders all along the healthcare delivery chain. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), a national health information network could save $140 billion per year by improving care and reducing costs.
Today's workflow products have come a long way from the days when hard-wired routing products sent claims forms along a predictable path. Whether automating the flow of content, transactions or tasks to be done offline, workflow is more flexible, easier to change if processes change and employs far more sophisticated rules. Most importantly, human intervention can be focused on the more complex tasks, while automated workflow handles the rest.