For Information & Knowledge Management Professionals

Pump Up Intranet Adoption With User-Centric Design

by Tim Walters, Ph.D., Matthew Brown, July 7, 2009

Few businesses fully appreciate the importance of an outstanding corporate intranet. Yet Forrester expects that companies will continue their decades-old march toward "self-service" workplaces, making large administrative support staffs either a dinosaur . . .

For Information & Knowledge Management Professionals

Oracle WebCenter Jumps Into The Information Workplace Fray

Oracle Will Leverage Its Applications Position To Become A Player

by Rob Koplowitz, Matthew Brown, July 7, 2009

For organizations with strong strategic ties to Oracle for business applications, content, and business intelligence, the Oracle WebCenter product suite has emerged as a contender in an Information Workplace market previously dominated by IBM and Microsoft. . . .

For Information & Knowledge Management Professionals

Deciding Whether Or Not To Use A Portal Platform

More Than One In Four Firms Are Considering Or Piloting Portals In 2009

by Matthew Brown, Tim Walters, Ph.D., June 18, 2009

It's hard to believe that portals continue to capture such a large amount of investment after 10 years. After all, most products are well beyond version six, and the term "portal" itself often inspires confusion and angst among businesspeople. But Forrester's . . .

For Information & Knowledge Management Professionals

Vendor Landscape: Innovation Management Software

by Matthew Brown, March 2, 2009

Increasingly, companies tap information and knowledge management (I&KM) professionals for help with corporate innovation programs. In fact, some I&KM pros have already extended traditional collaboration tools, like messaging and team workspaces, . . .

For Information & Knowledge Management Professionals

An Information Management Professional's Introduction To Innovation Management Tools

by Matthew Brown, December 3, 2008

Great ideas to improve the bottom line can come from anywhere within a business. Increasingly, companies include upper management, line-of-business people, and external sources like customers, partners, and suppliers in the innovation process. So it's . . .

For Information & Knowledge Management Professionals

Topic Overview: Must-Read I&KM Research For An Economic Downturn

by Matthew Brown, Connie Moore, Rob Karel, October 29, 2008

Financial bailouts, downward consumer spending, and roller-coaster stock markets are starting to put pressure on information and knowledge management (I&KM) professionals. Will industry consolidation mean gut-wrenching systems consolidation? How will . . .

For Information & Knowledge Management Professionals

"Facebook For The Enterprise": Catchy PhraseOr A Strategy For Collaboration?

Progressive I&KM Pros Will Harness Network Links For Business Benefit

by Matthew Brown, July 8, 2008

Can "Facebook for the Enterprise" solve real business problems inside a company? Maybe, but not with a naïve strategy based on a network of professional "friends." Still, Forrester has unearthed a handful of innovative companies building corporate social . . .

For Business Process & Applications Professionals

Search + BI = Unified Information Access

Combining Unstructured And Structured Info Delivers Business Insight

by Boris Evelson, Matthew Brown, May 5, 2008

Search and business intelligence (BI) really are two sides of the same coin. Enterprise search enables people to access unstructured content like documents, blog and wiki entries, and emails stored in repositories across their organizations. BI surfaces . . .

For Information & Knowledge Management Professionals

Give Your Portal Programs A Health Check

by Matthew Brown, April 22, 2008

Enterprise portals have long been essential infrastructure for the information-intensive enterprise. Since their advent in the late 1990s, portals have provided audience-focused access to information and applications for employees, business partners, . . .

For Information & Knowledge Management Professionals

Technology Populism Blurs The Work/Life Boundary  (382 KB PPT)

by Kyle McNabb, Matthew Brown, April 8, 2008

The lines between home life and work life are blurring as enterprise software is making its way home and personal software is making its way into the enterprise.

For Information & Knowledge Management Professionals

Embrace The Risks And Rewards Of Technology Populism

by Matthew Brown, Kyle McNabb, Rob Koplowitz, February 22, 2008

Thanks to an advancing technology-native workforce, ubiquitous broadband, and abundant collaboration and Social Computing tools, information workers can now provision their own software tools, information sources, and social networks via the Web to support . . .

For Information & Knowledge Management Professionals

Microsoft Drives A Wedge Between High- And Low-End Enterprise Search

by Matthew Brown, September 28, 2007

Microsoft has entered the enterprise search market with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS), joining BEA Systems, Google, IBM, Oracle, SAP, and a long list of pure-plays in a volatile search market. Customers are pleasantly surprised by clear . . .

For Information & Knowledge Management Professionals

How To Be A Hero: Develop An Enterprise Search Strategy

by Matthew Brown, September 24, 2007

A decision to implement enterprise search cannot be taken lightly. After all, many companies end up disappointed and frustrated with high-priced products that failed to live up to expectations. Yet, it's surprising how little effort these companies typically . . .

For Information & Knowledge Management Professionals

Information Should Be Front And Center In Information Workplace Strategies

by Rob Karel, Matthew Brown, Erica Driver, June 20, 2007

To date, most enterprises have focused their Information Workplace (IW) strategies on the vast array of unstructured content across the organization — such as documents, spreadsheets, presentations, emails, and images. This focus is an understandable . . .

For Business Process & Applications Professionals

Business Objects Buys Into Unstructured Information with Inxight Software

by Matthew Brown, Boris Evelson, May 31, 2007

Business Objects announced its intent to acquire Inxight Software this week — officially validating the convergence of business intelligence applications that rely on both structured and unstructured information. Business intelligence vendors are known . . .

For Information & Knowledge Management Professionals

How Secure Should Your Search Be?

by Matthew Brown, April 12, 2007

Competition for the best and most attractive secure search solution is heating up. But search security is a complex issue that requires carefully weighing requirements to achieve the best solution at a given price point. Information and knowledge management . . .

For Information & Knowledge Management Professionals

Single Employee Portal Vision Escapes Many Companies

by Matthew Brown, April 2, 2007

Despite significant investment and 10 years of building employee portals, most large enterprises have failed to realize the vision of a single, unified portal for employees. We recently polled 25 large companies to see if their flame was still burning . . .

For Information & Knowledge Management Professionals

Social Computing Upends Past Knowledge Management Archetypes

by Matthew Brown, March 8, 2007

When knowledge management (KM) practices, tools, and architectures burst onto the scene in the mid-1990s, they looked a lot like the old economy businesses that built them, hierarchical and workflow-driven. Now, Social Computing tools are flattening those . . .

For Information & Knowledge Management Professionals

Google Releases Google Apps Premier Edition

A Low-Cost Alternative To Microsoft Office

by Erica Driver, Matthew Brown, Kyle McNabb, February 22, 2007

Today Google unveiled a new solution based on its Google Apps For Your Domain — Google Apps Premier Edition. Google's latest foray into making affordable messaging, collaboration, and office productivity tools targets business people worldwide and takes . . .

For Information & Knowledge Management Professionals

Companies Adopt Employee Portals, Not Portal Best Practices

by Matthew Brown, January 12, 2007

The concept of employee portals — internally facing sites that serve workers' information and self-service needs — reached its eighth anniversary by the end of 2006. In the Employee Benefit News/Forrester Research 2006 Benefits Strategy And Technology . . .

For Information & Knowledge Management Professionals

IBM/Yahoo! Offer Simple And Powerful Enterprise Search . . . FREE

by Matthew Brown, December 13, 2006

The latest in IBM's line of enterprise search products, IBM OmniFind Yahoo! Edition, is powerful, simple to use, and free. IBM just announced availability of a freely downloadable enterprise search product that installs with three clicks, packs the same . . .

For Information & Knowledge Management Professionals

You Own the Corporate Taxonomy; What Now?

by Matthew Brown, December 12, 2006

Taxonomy is the longest "four-letter" word in the English language to most information and knowledge management professionals — especially those who find themselves in charge of a corporate taxonomy project. Many enterprises view taxonomy projects with . . .

For Information & Knowledge Management Professionals

Expertise Location: Your Next Frontier

Getting Knowledge Workers The Expertise They Need

by Matthew Brown, October 2, 2006

Expertise location — the weaving together of diverse content applications to allow knowledge workers to share and receive expertise they need — has great promise in sectors like law, enterprise software, professional services, securities research, and . . .

For Information & Knowledge Management Professionals

Trends 2006 And 2007: Enterprise Search Platforms

by Matthew Brown, September 6, 2006

The drumbeat of large infrastructure vendors entering the enterprise search space has continued the first half of this year. From Microsoft COO Kevin Turner laughably declaring "enterprise search is our business," to highly visible product announcements . . .

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Data Points

by Matthew Brown, Colin Teubner, July 12, 2006

Most visualization tools assume that users are either Xbox gamers or Ph.D.s. Between these extremes are mainstream business users underserved by basic charts and graphs. Even twinkling executive dashboards that use speedometers, stoplights, and gas gauges . . .