January/February 2024 [Volume 33, Issue 1]

Features

Overcoming data silos: A range of options

The options are many and varied when it comes to taming silos. The specific approach should depend on the use case, the organization's existing knowledge assets, and the strategic goals.

Modern KM tools and techniques for collaboration

Modern collaboration means and mechanisms ultimately make it easier, less risky, and more productive for organizations to work together within business units, between them, and between organizations. Constructs such as data mesh architecture, data fabric architecture, data access governance platforms, data catalogs, and process automation solutions are based on sharing information between parties—and make doing so tenable.

The future of KM is not simply AI

Until KM systems can achieve trust in AI, a totally AI-centric workplace will be a fantasy. The future of KM will be based on collaborative work habits, fueled by technology that encourages knowledge sharing, enhances productivity, supports employees to have a healthy work life, and accepts that not every aspect of knowledge management is technology-reliant.

ViewPoints

KMWorld 2023 sees a sea change

Most of the papers presented at the 2023 conference did not report on what had changed. Instead, they assumed and predicted that there would be substantial change.

Microsoft’s Copilot: A force multiplier for KM

Generative AI (GenAI) applications will increasingly transform organizations' IT platforms. Companies of any size that opt to create robust apps on their own, however, are in for a protracted, complex, and expensive experience.There's a better way: Buy into what I call a GenAI ecosystem from a vendor in whose tech you are already invested. These ecosystems are comprised of the sum of services customers mostly need to build and launch robust apps.

What you should know about cross-border data transfer laws

Multinational companies are generally aware of data transfer laws, but smaller ones just embarking on looking beyond country borders may not be.

KM in Practice

C3 AI partners with ESG Book to provide ESG teams with sustainability insights

Collaboration will make ESG Book's comprehensive sustainability data available to sustainability teams utilizing the C3 AI ESG application

Questco selects Gradient AI to streamline health insurance underwriting

Questco improves underwriting accuracy, enhances member experience

The University of Cincinnati and Onymos collaborate on innovative document conversion and data validation tool

With Onymos, the University can now quickly and securely scan and enter data from its student body through a simple and secure application

David Weinberger

The five ages of data

Perhaps this latest phase in the history of data will bring us to accept inexplicable complexity as a property of the world. We could view this as pure chaos, but thanks to having lived through the past four ages in rapid succession, we might instead recognize that chaos as being rich with endless mysteries we will never uncover completely.

The Future of the Future

8 billion and counting

The message is clear: No single person or committee or group can weave the best paths through the infinite maze of possible event chains. Only humans and machines working together, side by side, can produce a better result than would ever be possible from either one alone.

Ethical Innovation

The trust problem with GenAI

2023 has been the year of ultra-hyping GenAI, and who is paying for this deluge of marketing? Technology vendors that want us to buy it. Again, it's impressive stuff, but when we shift from selling to buying and ultimately using it, many tough questions need to be asked.