Knowledge Management Is Nothing New

by Rick Sandlas

While new companies with new software try to cash in on a $5 billion market, Los Angeles-based developer Cuadra Associates is staying the course - and providing a solid, established method for realizing Knowledge Management's promise.

According to current Gartner Group estimates, the global business community will spend upwards of 5 billion dollars annually by 2001 on one of the latest buzzword technologies in IT, "Knowledge Management". Even though a concise definition of knowledge management or a firm grasp on what it can actually contribute to the bottom line is only beginning to emerge, one California software company, Cuadra Associates, has already made it clear that knowledge management is what they've been providing for their clients since 1978.

Knowledge Management is the process of collecting and making usable the full range of information and knowledge that an organization is likely to need, which is essentially what industry analysts for years have been defining as Document Management. That knowledge may be reflected in reports, e-mail, drawings, photos, memos, contracts and other media that have been created or collected by its employees, as well as by "collective experience" (ideas, knowledge, and skills that those employees have developed and may be represented only informally in working papers, forms, etc.), or may not be documented at all.

The goal is to allow companies to tap this vital knowledge base and, by making it available to employees and management in a useful form, to improve and expedite the process of making decisions. In short, knowledge management allows an organization to develop a collective memory, much as a person does, learning from mistakes and success to generate more success.

Knowledge management as a concept both excites and confounds CIO's. While it is obvious that managing the knowledge flowing throughout an organization will improve operational efficiency and impact the bottom line, the path to implementation is considerably less clear.

Further complicating the matter, a number of new software firms have hopped onto the knowledge management bandwagon touting new products. Despite the excitement surrounding the possibility of harnessing the collective experience and talent of their human capital, some business are left feeling a little uneasy investing in systems that were seemingly developed overnight.

However, Dr. Carlos A. Cuadra, founder and president of Los Angeles-based information management software developer Cuadra Associates, feels his firm is different from those just trying to cash in on the currently hot IT topic. "Knowledge management is a concept we've been talking to companies about since the late seventies," Cuadra explained. "It's become a hot topic recently, but we've been helping our customers collect and use the knowledge resources at the heart of the knowledge management concept since day one."

The recent rise of the phrase "knowledge management" in the trade press reminds Cuadra of a character in a Moliere play who, after hearing a definition of the word "prose," exclaims: "Why, I've been speaking prose all my life!" "Knowledge management is simply a catchy new buzzword for what users of our STAR product have been doing for over 15 years: determining the value of organizational assets and documents that flow around their workplace, and representing the value of information collections for use by colleagues and other constituencies," added Cuadra.

Cuadra, who founded the industry publication Annual Review of Information Science and Technology, has more than 30 years of information technology experience and is a respected industry observer. His company, Cuadra Associates, has been developing increasingly powerful versions of the STAR information and text retrieval system since 1983.

Many organizations that deal with archive, document, and other collections take advantage of the adaptable text retrieval capabilities of the Cuadra STAR system, which is designed to maintain databases using variable length fields and myriad search options that can be easily customized - without calling in a programmer.

STAR is already attracting attention as the press coverage of the knowledge management trend picks up speed. In the September 1998 issue of Inform, a magazine of information systems industry analysis, Richard Medina described STAR as "the benchmark for records center capabilities among the products we evaluated." Medina went on to say "[STAR] provides the most flexible system for records managers, with a powerful back-end for information classification and storage."

To help organizations make sound knowledge management decisions, the Chicago-based consultancy Doculabs, a well known IT industry analysis and testing firm, outlined a pragmatic approach for judging knowledge management software in a 1998 report. According to Doculabs, the simplest route to judging the growing field of products proclaiming their suitability for knowledge management is to examine such systems on the merits of the functions they must provide. Stacked against these qualifications, STAR's position as an elite foundation for knowledge management systems is apparent.

Gathering is the process of actually collecting and putting data into the management system. Though it sounds simple, not every software product is capable of handling the complex data forms inherent in business operations. First, the knowledge management platform must support the storage of multiple formats, since the information managed won't necessarily come only in the form of company memos and word-processed documents. From images to e-mail, it can be a complex process-particularly if the system also has to track the content and location of paper records.

"Data acquisition is one of STAR's core strengths," Cuadra commented, "and we've developed extensions for the back-end that make it even easier for users to get essential data into the system and work with it."

STAR's WorkSaver module automates the process of getting documents and other electronic data-e-mail, word-processed files, spreadsheets, etc. into the knowledge management system. With WorkSaver, administrators can selectively 'work-save' any e-mail or word-processed document, which is then stored in the system as full ASCII text, with metadata (structured data) and a link to the original document.

For all other electronic files, such as spreadsheets or images, the metadata also enhances retrieval, and the link to the original file allows for quick retrieval of the source electronic file. Employees can easily use full-text searching to locate documents-even by a phrase they contain-and then use the hypertext link to access and work with the original. WorkSaver is designed to interface with the range of electronic file formats seen from a Windows directory.

Well-designed knowledge management systems aid employees in both contributing to and using the system. In addition to allowing for the customization of profiles-appropriate for capturing information characteristics applicable to different types of documents and uses-knowledge management systems must also support the organization of information in a way that reflects different user groups' missions, business practices, and security privileges.

"STAR's major strength in organization is its ability to support the use of authority files," Cuadra explained. "Authority files allow users to set certain criteria or keywords for describing documents or other information. When a document is stored, entered, or work saved into STAR, the system can compare its contents with the authority file classifications and add appropriate data to the record on the basis of its type or category."

For instance, users can create an entry in the retention authority file for their legal documents, stipulating that documents in that class gets saved for 10 years. When such a document is work saved, and the originator specifies the "legal" category to describe the document, this selection will trigger a process defined in the authority file for that category.

For example, if all legal documents are to be archived after 10 years, STAR will compile the date the action is to take place and, at the appropriate time, the document will appear on a list of items that should be archived at that time. When a document matching the criteria for documents in the legal category is worksaved, STAR automatically calculates a disposition date based on the appropriate criteria in the authority file. "It automates the process of calculating disposition dates and provides an assured way of beginning the records management process with active electronic records," related Cuadra.

Dr. Cuadra also notes that if the mail room, file room, and desktop automation doesn't take into account the ultimate volume of received, sent, and internally used information, an organization will end up with a digital mess that isn't any easier to manage than an old-fashioned paper mess.

Distribution is the method by which the data that has been gathered into the system is made accessible to users. It's important to find software with powerful search and sort functions, so users can get at the data they need to assist them in their tasks as quickly as possible. Full-text searches combined with metadata and related system-provided data can significantly enhance retrieval and help users to locate relevant documents and other resources by key and contents, even when users don't know exactly what they're looking for. For example, a document might be located by searching for a phrase, a name, or by a given range of dates.

"STAR's first advantage in the distribution of information is in the quality, power, and flexibility of its searching," said Cuadra. "In twenty years of development, the engine driving STAR has become quite powerful and robust, enabling users to take advantage of almost any search logic yet devised, both for searching structured or tagged information and full text."

Users have a variety of search options, whether accessing the database through STAR Client for Windows or the STAR Web interfaces. "The system allows anyone to sit down and perform efficient, effective searches, whether they know about Boolean operators and proximity searching or not," Cuadra reported. At the same time, advanced users are not limited to a simplified interface; the STAR system provides search capabilities to users of vastly different skill levels.

STAR also offers a method of 'pushing' data to clients, an important capability that is overlooked in some systems. STAR uses technology called "Selective Dissemination of Information" (SDI), which allows staffers to create the equivalent of saved searches and schedule those queries to run at a given time. STAR will then automatically e-mail the results to selected recipients - a simple way to keep a project team, for instance, up to date about new information in the system that pertains to their work. Or, users can tap into the knowledge base simply to review all recently filed materials from today, last week, or during the last month.

Any well-designed knowledge management solution will also include methods of collaboration, according to the Doculabs report. Employees must be able to send messages, manage workflow, and route data from the system to other users. Any system that forms the base of an organization's knowledge management process should either offer collaborative features or the ability to integrate with other software (e.g., Lotus Notes) that provides this functionality.

STAR allows an organization to maintain a master directory of all types of information, including revisions, changes, and correspondence (both e-mail and paper) so that users can track all the information concerning a topic, no matter what the format. STAR provides task-oriented applications that track the status of particular routine processes ("workflow").

Another essential knowledge management capability is referred to in the Doculabs report as refining. Data in the system should be reviewed and updated regularly - even constantly-during use to ensure that users can access the most up-to-date, useful information available. The best knowledge management foundations make it easy for users to summarize, categorize, and amend the data they contain.

STAR provides a service for flagging data in the system for later review. Coupled with the SDI features, this allows users who enter data into the system to flag it so it can be sent to those in the organization responsible for reviewing new entries in the system, or to those with expertise in that area.

"Allowing users to flag data in the system simplifies the refining process," Cuadra said, "and helps to make sure that items in the database are seen by the right people. Making sure that happens is the key to ensuring your knowledge management system is constantly growing and improving."

"Our users have found STAR useful for managing records of all kinds," Cuadra emphasized, "from electronic documents, to digital images, to full text and paper records."

Cuadra credits his company's long experience with a variety of public and private sector organizations, with a broad spectrum of knowledge management needs, as well as experience designing complete library, museum, and records management application packages for its customers, for Cuadra Associates' advanced state of readiness in knowledge management.

"Knowledge management allows businesses to take full advantage of the human and information capital they have in place, ensuring that present and future employees have access to the organization's 'corporate memory' of processes, data, and decisions," stressed Cuadra. "We've been helping our customers do exactly that for over 15 years, and we've taken advantage of that experience to continually make our software more capable along the way."

In a market swelling with new and untested systems, that kind of experience may be just what any fledgling knowledge management plan needs.

For more information, contact Cuadra Associates at 11835 W. Olympic Blvd., Suite 855, Los Angeles, CA., tel. 310/478-0066, fax 310/477-1078, email hq@cuadra.com, or visit their Web site at www.cuadra.com.