KM Improves Content Findability
![Stan Garfield](https://lucidea.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/stan-garfield-96x96.jpg)
Stan Garfield
Take your ideas and submitted suggestions, implement them, and then iterate and repeat the cycle. Never stop doing this. One early KM program win (and big improvement that is usually very popular) is to make content easier to find. To do so, leverage multiple methods and multiple channels.
Here are some specific suggestions.
Offer these user interfaces:
- Navigation
- Search
- Facets
- Related (since you downloaded X, try Y)
- A-Z Index
- Tags
- Bookmarks
- Sorted by most visited, most liked, most reused, and newest
Offer these channels:
- Intranet sites
- Blogs
- Mobile apps
- Email subscriptions
- Hardcopy subscriptions
- RSS feeds
- ESNs
- Podcasts
- Video
Take advantage of:
- Mobile optimization
- Photos
- Podcasts
- Video
- Hashtags
- External social media such as Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, SlideShare, etc.
Here are five suggested ways to make useful content easier to find.
- Make the search engine able to limit results by the date of the knowledge object. Defaults can be set to limit results to the last 90 days, one year, or whatever duration is desired. But it should be easy for users to change the date range to include older content in the search results.
- Add an “I reused this document” or “I found this useful” button, similar to a “Like” button but more specific, to all content. Encourage users to click on this button for content they were able to reuse.
- Allow content to be tagged with “recommended” or “good example” or “proven practice” by an authoritative source.
- Allow searching by date, tag attribute, most-liked by users, etc., and display at the top of the results list that content with the most “I reused this document” or “I found this useful” clicks, or the highest number of “recommended,” “good example” or “proven practice” tags by an authoritative source.
- Determine the topics of greatest importance to the organization, curate a list that can be searched and filtered, “pin” them to the top of results lists, and feed them as enterprise search “best bets,” with links to the content deemed to be the best for each key topic.
Beyond organic search results, you can intentionally provide content you know to be useful (option 5 listed above). To do so, determine the topics of greatest importance to the organization, curate a list of relevant content that can be searched and filtered, and feed the entries as enterprise search results. These can be in the form of curated answers— “best bets” (thumbnails and links only), authoritatively-badged content, or quick answers (more complete content plus links) for content deemed to be the best for each key topic. Results can also be dynamically generated using attributes, tags, sorts, filters, human interaction, etc.
![Stan Garfield](https://lucidea.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/stan-garfield-96x96.jpg)
Stan Garfield
The above is an excerpt from my book published by Lucidea Press, Proven Practices for Promoting a Knowledge Management Program, Chapter 9: “Improve Continuously”. Please also read my posts offering advice and insights drawn from many years as a KM practitioner, and you may want to learn how Lucidea’s Inmagic Presto enables users to find, not just search!
Similar Posts
Lucidea’s Lens: Knowledge Management Thought Leaders Part 79 – David Garvin
KM expert David Garvin was a proponent of organizational learning to counter unpredictability in market forces and technology advances.
Lucidea’s Lens: Knowledge Management Thought Leaders Part 78 – Carl Frappaolo
KM expert Carl Frappaolo was the creator of Delphi’s Knowledge Management Methodology (KM2)
Lucidea’s Lens: Knowledge Management Thought Leaders Part 77 – Leif Edvinsson
Leif Edvinsson, Professor Emeritus at Lund University in Sweden, specializes in Intellectual Capital Management of Enterprises, Cities, and Nations
Lucidea’s Lens: Knowledge Management Thought Leaders Part 76 – Seth Earley
Seth Earley works in cognitive computing, knowledge engineering, data management systems, taxonomy, ontology, and metadata governance strategies.
Leave a Comment
Comments are reviewed and must adhere to our comments policy.
0 Comments