The internet has transformed how information is published…
There are no “gatekeepers” anymore. Anyone, anywhere, can create and distribute all manner of content to a global audience. It happens in real-time and at almost no cost. The breadth and depth of content that is freely available today is testament to transformative power of this new publishing model.
It has left traditional media struggling to adjust to the “new order”…
But while the web has redefined the way content is published, it has had a far less significant impact on the way it is consumed. Advances in information management and discovery simply haven’t kept pace with the explosion of new content – and new content channels – that advances in publishing have enabled.
But I believe that gap may soon start to close…
I gave a talk yesterday at Enterprise Search Summit West discussing some of the changes in the content arena that advances in technology are starting to enable, and the impact those changes could have on the way we discover and consume content.
During the talk, I called out three key attributes of this evolving “discovery framework” that I would like to share with you here:
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It needs to be Persistent: Given the continuing growth in content production, discovery can’t be a transactional exercise. It needs to be a continuous process – a framework that makes us aware of any content specifically relevant to our interests. For this to happen, it needs to create a sufficiently rich contextual framework around all the content we need to connect with, allowing for effective filtering and ranking.
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It needs to be Pervasive: The content we need to work with every day comes to us in many formats, is delivered across many channels, and is stored in many different information silos. Discovery needs to happen seamlessly across all of them, and still provide granular insight within each of them. To become really effective, it needs to be a natural extension of every aspect of our daily workflow. – not an isolated portal or a bolted on feature.
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It needs to be Personal: While having common, global taxonomies is an essential dimension to information discovery, on their own they aren’t sufficient. We all think about information differently. We may look at certain subjects with expansive depth and breadth, while barely acknowledging that others even exist. The taxonomies we use to discover and navigate information need to reflect this personal perspective. These global and personal taxonomies can effectively coexist – but they do both need to be there.
This is an incredibly interesting and rapidly evolving area of knowledge management. It offers the potential for totally new ways of navigating and consuming content.
The days of the traditional content portal are numbered…
I am planning put together a video (or several) covering the full presentation I made. Stay tuned.