Center for Creative Leadership Brings Library Online

About the Center for Creative Leadership
For more than 40 years, the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) has been providing executive leadership education and research to clients around the globe. CCL annually serves more than 20,000 individuals and 2,000 organizations – including more than 80 of the Fortune 100 companies – across the public, private, nonprofit and education sectors. In addition, they have provided information to nearly two million people through CCL publications.

The Problem
Over the course of 40+ years, CCL has amassed an impressive collection of leadership-related articles, instructional aids, videos, books and other information that is used primarily by its staff to create topic-specific, customized classes worldwide, as well as by the public and current/past clients. Though CCL has long managed its collection on Inmagic’s DB/TextWorks, there was no way to share or provide that information electronically to the 600 staff members and past/present clients spread out across 120 countries on six continents. Information was stored in different locations, or "rabbit holes" of knowledge, that had become increasingly difficult to keep track of. And information was only accessible to CCL users when staff members were available to access the library, find the information, and send it.

The Solution
In order to catalog and consolidate their institutional knowledge and intellectual assets, and make information easily accessible throughout the organization, CCL implemented a Presto for Social Libraries solution incorporating Inmagic Presto for search and retrieval and Inmagic Genie for administration of the CCL knowledge catalog and library infrastructure.　

The Results
Users are now able to access information stored anywhere, at any time, from any location across the globe, electronically. In addition, CCL was able to use Presto to tag each piece of information to form a collection of competencies. They now have more than 400 competencies within the collection, so that if a user wants information related to "self-awareness," for example, the user simply executes a single search using the term and all materials – books, movies, articles, etc. – related to that competency are located.

In addition, CCL’s catalog of more than 9,000 books and movies is now browsable and the materials are available for loan to clients and the public when they visit the CCL campuses. CCL is also planning to use Presto’s social functions to facilitate communication and collaboration within groups, as well as across functions.

"The reaction from our users has been overwhelmingly positive. One user said that the ease-of-use and accessibility almost brought tears to her eyes! Though we value our IT people, we’re happy to be able to service ourselves."
– Marie Tretiakova, Knowledge Management Librarian

Congratulations, CCL! And special thanks to Inmagic partner Ann Stringfield of InfoCrofters for introducing Inmagic to CCL and facilitating the partnership.

Faceted search coming to a DB/TextWorks near you

By Phil Green

Last week we had a meeting with a long-time DB/TextWorks customer. They wanted to learn more about Presto for DB/TextWorks and were impressed with the features and capabilities. Then they asked, “Okay this looks good, but what’s coming down the road?” At this point, we opened the next version of Presto (version 4.2) and gave them a sneak peek at the faceted search capabilities and the customer went from impressed to silent. Finally they said, “You just changed the decision from should we do this, to how soon can we do this!”

After that meeting, we realized that all DB/TextWorks clients should be in on the secret:  Psst, Presto for DB/TextWorks will include faceted search in the next release! Or, to put it in simpler terms – you can add faceted search to your DB/TextWorks OPAC by upgrading from WebPublisher PRO to Presto for DB/TextWorks.

If you'd like to see Presto for DB/TextWorks in action, please join us for our Product Roadmap Webinar on May 21st. You can register here. We’ll discuss the current and future states of Inmagic’s products and provide an in-depth look at Presto and Presto for DB/TextWorks (and that soon-to-be-released faceted search feature). Maybe faceted search will change you from an "if" to a "when." 

 

Faceted search makes librarians shine (Or, "Why you need a librarian to make your search engine really work.")

By Phil Green

I have been working with an early version of the next Presto release. The feature that has me salivating is faceted search (also sometimes referred to as "guided navigation"). Wikipedia defines faceted search as "a technique for accessing information organized according to a faceted classification system, allowing users to explore a collection of information by applying multiple filters." Basically, if you’ve used an ecommerce site lately, it’s the right- or left-hand navigational aids that help you narrow your search by brand, price, key feature, etc.

Faceted searching is very useful for helping users more easily and quickly find the information that they want – way more efficiently than with full text search alone. This is why almost all ecommerce sites have implemented it. For example, Amazon (King of Ecommerce!) has a particularly good implementation. Ecommerce sites are able to make excellent use of faceted searching because they have facets (or, in database terms, fielded information). For example, I recently purchased an external, USB 3.0, solid state hard drive on Amazon – and getting to the list of available products using faceted search was incredibly easy. I did a quick search, then used the faceted navigation to narrow my results. A few keystrokes later, I was looking at just the drive I wanted to buy!

So why doesn’t Google (King of Search!) use faceted searching? The simple answer is that they don’t have fielded data. They are operating at the level of Web pages and not with well-curated database records (like the ecommerce guys). Which brings me back to my sub-title, and the second reason I like faceted search. Because it makes the work of special librarians shine like no other feature I have ever used. To make faceted search work well, you need two things:

• First, the database must be carefully constructed to have the fields (facets) that are critical to understanding and describing the items contained in the database. (For example, in ecommerce those would be brand, price, etc.)
• Second, these fields (facets) must be filled with high-quality content so that guided navigation works well.

In talking to industry consultants, I’ve heard that the ecommerce guys hate guided navigation systems. Why? Because they are such a pain. Full text search is easy. Just feed your information into the search engine and you’re done. Full text search isn’t fussy. No structure to your data? No problem! Low quality inputs? No problem! But to make faceted search work, you have to carefully architect the system and then fill it will high-quality data.

In other words, you often need librarians to help you build a high-quality database.
 Well, guess what? This is what Inmagic clients do every day. When our customers build a knowledge repository, catalog, or archive, they carefully structure the database to have fields (facets) that will truly describe the item – then they use validation lists and controlled vocabulary to fill the database up with high-quality content.

This means that our customers’ databases already meet the requirements for an excellent faceted search experience, which means I can’t wait until our customers have access to the next version of Presto (or Presto for DB/TextWorks) because the results will be amazing. With faceted searching – finding is a lot easier, and the value of your librarian is on display with every search!

Please stay tuned for a follow-up post on the difference between faceted searching and on-the-fly content classifiers (which provide guided navigation, but not true faceted search).

　
 
 

“If only HP knew what HP knows, we would be three times more productive.” Lew Platt, CEO, Hewlett-Packard

As part of our "One Team, One Company" effort, we'd like to introduce our loyal readers to another great blog that's recently come on the scene -- our parent company, SydneyPLUS, is exploring all things knowledge management including products, innovation, and project, people and content management. Below is a recent post from CEO Ron Aspe about tapping into organizational knowledge.

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By Ron Aspe

A KM strategy may not actually achieve 3X productivity, but impact - whether it is measured in profits or even in lives saved - can be dramatic, with amazing results as shown by the examples below:

• A mountain rescue organization proactively communicates warnings of adverse conditions to equipment retailers, guides, the media and individual subscribers. Four novice climbers decide to stay home rather than risk death.
• A professional services firm repurposes prior work and increases their billings by 1% -- resulting in 10% increase in profitability.
• A software company reuses existing intellectual property to enter a new market segment. The lowered development costs result in a triple digit ROI.

Lew Platt and hundreds of other CEOs all know that if only they could tap the skills and knowledge within their own staff, it would be transformative. Imagine the impact if anyone in an organization who undertakes an assignment could easily discover if it’s been done before, if so by whom, and exactly how.

The Eureka project at Xerox is a great example of knowledge management delivering a stunning ROI. 15,000 service technicians contribute to and search a system containing 50,000 tips and techniques not documented in service manuals. Use of this system resulted in 10% reductions in labor and parts costs. Assuming a 10% profit margin and flat revenue, a 10% reduction in costs would result in a 100% increase in the profitability of Xerox’s service business.

If you aren’t sure this will work in your smaller organization, consider the following: if you’ve found a great local automobile mechanic, you can bet s/he uses Q&A forums. Mechanics are often paid "book time." That means that if the estimating guide used by the services manager says it takes three hours to fix something, the mechanic will be paid for three hours. Even for those who aren’t paid in this manner, performance is often measured against book time.

Like all professional services people, mechanics know that time is money, and that someone, somewhere has already solved, or is trying to solve, the problem they’re working on. They need to be efficient, and access to Q&A forums is proven to improve productivity. The mechanics don’t know everything -- they simply know where to find the answer.

If you want to increase the impact of your organization, no matter how you measure it, knowledge management has paradigm shifting potential. And that takes us back to Lew Platt’s assertion. How would your organization benefit if only it knew what it already knows?

Click here to read more posts from Ron and SydneyPLUS.

What’s up with Inmagic’s products? We’ll tell you.

Last month we held an Inmagic product roadmap update webinar where we went into detail about product enhancements, new releases and future plans for DB/TextWorks, WebPublisher PRO, Genie, Presto Social Library, Presto, and Presto for DB/Text. For those of you who couldn’t join us, here’s the highlight reel of the webinar, as well as a link to the archived webinar if you’re looking for the whole shebang.

View the archived webinar here.






DB/TextWorks (v14 preview)

• Updated image and PDF viewing
• Improved spell-check system
• Ability to create and use multiple named profiles for import, export, and email
• Ability to update records when the new entry is already present in list
• Windows 8 compatibility

WebPublisher PRO (v14 preview)

• Validation list editing on the Web
• Additional flexibility for query logging (e.g., textbase-specific, and the ability to start a new file after various conditions)

Genie

• Genie v3.5 was released in June of 2012
• Genie v3.6 is in development, planned features include: editing and updating of validation lists, easier navigation during editing sessions, orders enhancements
• Compatibility with Windows Server 2012 upcoming for maintenance clients

Presto Social Library v2.0

• New Presto and Genie integration via Presto DB/TextWorks connector is now available
• More robust integration
• Changes made to Genie content via DB/TextWorks will synchronize in Presto
• New ILS option for PSL via SydneyPLUS ILS

Presto v4.1

• DB/Text Connector
• Improved search speed
• Advanced control of screen layout
• PDF thumbnails
• “Slide show” widget for homepage
• Download as CSV

Presto for DB/TextWorks (see blog post for more details)

• Advanced Web publishing for DB/TextWorks
• Build and maintain your textbase in DB/TextWorks
• Publish to the Web with Presto for DB/TextWorks
• No need for WebPublisher PRO

As always, feel free to contact us if you have any questions or would like more details on any of our product advancements or future plans.  sales@inmagic.com

To winfinity* and beyond! How Presto for DB/Textworks helped solve a 20-year-old dilemma

By Jason Buggy

I recently celebrated a birthday milestone, the big 4-0.  Sometime around midafternoon I received a very well-written email with the subject heading, “Another step in the mellowing process.” The email was from my Dad, who turned 82 in November.

For the majority of Dad’s life his mode of communication has been the phone, written word, or in person; I tease him about quill and parchment being his very first medium.  Needless to say, he has completely bought into electronic messaging.  I’m pretty sure the reason for his rapid adoption is that email was quick and easy to learn. 

The Rub

It got me thinking about the challenges our DB/Textworks customers had working with their IT departments – the process was neither quick nor easy for our typical DB/Textworks users.  I distinctly remember a conversation to that effect that took place my first year at Inmagic (2003).  The discussion took a turn when the client asked if IT would play a big role in supporting the implementation.  When I replied that very little IT support was needed for DB/Textworks, she breathed a sigh of relief and said, “thank goodness.”  Naturally, I asked her why the concern and she didn’t hesitate to explain. “I’m not on the IT totem pole,” she said, giggling. “I’m not even part of mound that rests underneath the totem pole.”  She loved the idea of creating her own textbases and configuring her own reports without depending on a technical expert to help her perform what would be her day-to-day activities.

Fast forward to June 2012 and, my oh my, how things have changed.  We experienced the ultimate in winfinity* with a long-time Inmagic legal client in NYC.  The end user had been using DB/Textworks for 13 years and loved it; the IT department was looking for something that had a Web-based front end and could potentially scale for use in the firm’s other departments.  The conversation led to Inmagic Presto. The solution appealed to IT but had more features than were needed  for the primary DB/Textworks user.  And the primary user was reluctant to give up the desktop reporting that he had come to know and love with DB/Textworks.

 An Idea Takes Shape

For Inmagic, the solution became obvious – what if you could continue using DB/Textworks to perform daily tasks, while allowing the rest of the organization to search and identify content from a front-end, Web-based application that incorporates social features, RSS feeds, alerting and content collections?  And Presto for DB/Textworks was born.  The IT folks are happy because they now have a Web-based, .NET, SQL back-end MS Gold Partner solution; the end user is happy because he can continue to work with the same product he knows and likes; and the information seekers win because they now have a way to access the full library of information. WINFINITY*.

*when everyone wins

 

Build it and they won’t necessarily come

By Erika Halloran

“So, I deployed this awesome thing, and everyone just logged on and started using it immediately.”
                             -said no one, ever.

 

Over the years, I’ve had the pleasure of supporting a number of software and application projects through to completion.  The project leaders spent countless hours fine-tuning their implementation, and creating what they envisioned as a perfect solution for their users. 
A carefully constructed paragraph was sent via email or added to a monthly newsletter, letting the users know that it was ready.  “Great news!  The implementation is done and our new application is ready.  Just log on!”

Then they wait. 

And they wait.

As it turns out, a successful deployment does not end when the software is configured.  Guess what…  the users don’t care.  Yes, I said it.  Users don’t care.

If I’ve learned anything during my years in the software world, it’s that no one cares... until they care.  And then it’s “urgent!” And when it’s “urgent,” the users are not amused by the exciting images you’ve placed on the home page.  They’re not interested in pretty slideshows, useful RSS feeds, better cataloging or the different ways you can search and retrieve content.

The key to all successful product launches is adoption, and the most successful deployments are almost always accompanied by thoughtful and carefully executed marketing campaigns.  But you’re thinking, “I’m a researcher, not a marketer.”  Well, I’ve got news for you.  You are both.  If you want people to get excited, you need to create excitement.  These days, people are faced with so much noise that they will (perhaps unintentionally) ignore your great news – no matter how great it is.

So don’t stop at “we are now live.”  Get excited.  Name your application.  Create a campaign.  Send them a gift.  Run a contest.  Play a game.  Give them an incentive.   Heck, bribe them to log on!  You will not be sorry, and neither will they.