This document discusses the challenges of managing large volumes of content, including accuracy, currency, correctness, time, and cost. It argues that as content and technology grow exponentially, organizations struggle to keep up, resulting in an "ignorance explosion." However, some swarms like content sharing on social media can be virtuous rather than destructive. The emergence of intelligent content that is discoverable, processable, and informative may help integrate knowledge assets, technology, and business processes in adaptive ways.

1. Content Fusion:
or, There’s a Piece of Data
Lodged in my Document Joe Gollner
jgollner@stilo.com / www.stilo.com
Vice President Enterprise Solutions
Stilo International

2. Content Challenges at Hand
Volume
Complexity
Change
Validity
Accuracy
Currency
Correctness
Time
To create
To manage
To find
To use
Cost

3. The Real Content Challenge
Massive growth
In the sophistication of systems
In the volume of content
becoming available
In the diversity of content sources
becoming available
Ironic Consequence of the
Knowledge Age
The Ignorance Explosion
We are not keeping up with the
systems and content we are creating
Technology change is not predictable:
swarm patterns of collective action

4. Not All Swarms are Destructive
Locusts Traders

5. The Virtuous Swarm of Content and Technology
Facebook Twitter

6. The Questions to be Addressed
How is content changing?
How is technology changing?
How are organizations changing?
or
How does content need to change?
How does technology need to change?
How do organizations need to change?

7. Stepping Stones
A Brief History of
Content Technologies
Case Study:
Mommy, where do Airplanes
come from?
The Truth about Content
The Emergence of
Intelligent Content

8. A Brief History of Content Technologies
Paperwork:
The Empire of
Documents
The evolution of
open content
technologies
The current state of
open content
technologies

9. In the Beginning
…were table(t)s…
…and
books…

10. Paperwork: The Empire of Documents
19th
Century

11. Mechanizing Documents

12. Storing Documents

13. Accessing Documents

14. Transporting Documents

15. Transacting Documents
Order entry,
accounting,
inventory,
shipping,…
War
Production

16. Memex
Adapting to the Exponential Growth in
Knowledge Resources
Seeking a new
medium in which
documents would
become more
manageable &
more dynamic
1940 1960 1980 2000

17. Knowledge Application with Technology
Leveraging Knowledge through Automation
The modern organization cannot survive
without automation as a means to
encapsulate & leverage knowledge
1940 1960 1980 2000

18. Augmenting Human Intelligence
Leveraging Automation to Assist Personal and Team Productivity
Douglas Engelbart
Workstation - 1966
An integrated working environment
in which “paperwork” was
performed electronically
& with great efficiency Workstation - 1968
1940 1960 1980 2000

19. The Internet
Connecting Organizations
to form Knowledge Enterprises
Combining the capabilities
of research facilities to undertake
more challenging projects
1940 1960 1980 2000

20. The Vision of Hyper-Text
Envisioning content forms that reflect how people think and collaborate
Theodor (Ted) Holm Nelson
1940 1960 1980 2000

21. Proprietary Content Formats
Limiting the Interchangeability and Usefulness of all data types

22. CALS – Tackling the Interchange Problem
PROBLEM INTERIM SOLUTION GOAL
STDS
Supplier Client Supplier Client Supplier and Client
1940 1960 1980 2000

23. Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML)
1940 1960 1980 2000

24. SGML
SGML
Reflected human communication patterns
Provided substantial flexibility
Automated processing was “difficult”
Adopted in documentation-intensive sectors
Charles Goldfarb
Military, Aerospace and Commercial Publishing
The Father
of SGML
The Key Innovation of SGML:
naming something (understanding) is different than
describing what should be done with it (behaviour)
naming something is the important part
naming something and defining its behaviour
benefits from sophistication

25. The World Wide Web
Where there’s a Will there’s a Way
1940 1960 1980 2000

26. World Wide Web – The Success of Simplicity
Original Objective (1989)
“to allow information sharing within
internationally dispersed teams”
HTML: a simple use of a complex standard
Sir Tim Berners-Lee
The Father
The Key Innovation of the Web: of the Web
deciding what to do (intention) is different than
determining how it should be done (execution)
deciding what to do is the important part
communicating an intention and successfully executing it
benefits from simplicity

27. Extensible Markup Language (XML)
Source: Microsoft
1940 1960 1980 2000

28. The Key Innovations of XML
The Key Innovations of XML:
Fusing the innovations of SGML and the Web
naming something (understanding) is different than
describing what should be done with it (behaviour)
deciding what to do (intention) is different than
determining how it should be done (execution)
Yuri Rubinsky
The Spiritual Father
XML exhibits an unresolved tension between of XML
Sophistication
to meet the needs of application integration
Simplicity
to meet the needs of people interacting with technology

29. XML
The driving focus for XML
has been facilitating a revolution
in the way technology
applications are designed,
developed and deployed
This addressed the failure of
preceding approaches to adapt
to genuinely open systems
This focus explains a great deal
about the character of XML

30. Service Oriented Architectures (SOA)
Source: Microsoft
1940 1960 1980 2000 2010

31. Web 2.0 – The Social Web
The second Emergent
revolution in consequence
web adoption of integration
1940 1960 1980 2000 2010

32. Web 2.0 – All About Engagement
Web 2.0 has been called “The Participatory Web”
Key technical elements include:
AJAX – Asynchronous JavaScript and XML
simple syndication protocols – RSS / ATOM
simplified web services – Aggregator APIs
Folksonomies – collaborative tagging
Processable content – XHTML / CSS / Microformats
Addressable, traceable, dynamic, collaborative content – wiki / blog
Much closer to the original idea behind the ‘web’
The centrality of XML in making this possible is often missed

33. The Semantic Web
Introducing a formal, interchangeable
expression of meaning suitable to
automated processing.
Essential for marshalling radically
distributed services.
Content for Machines
1940 1960 1980 2000 2010

34. Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA)
DITA provides an evolving framework for handling content and its challenges more
gracefully than previously. Application layers are given a chance to adapt.
1940 1960 1980 2000 2010

35. Office Open XML (OOXML)
ISO/IEC 29500:2008
(not without protest)
Ubiquitous XML
1940 1960 1980 2000 2010

36. A Matrix of Derivative Applications
The Next Generation of Derivative Applications
Draw upon massive volumes of content
Rely heavily on reusable
portable application modules,
standard interfaces,
cloud resources,
& open content
Evolve rapidly to meet new
demands and to leverage
availability of new resources
Enable dynamically assembled solutions
& personalized performance support tools
[the digital enterprise connects to the personal knowledge appliance]

37. Mommy, where do airplanes comes from?
A Case Study

38. From the Mind of a Genius, of course!
2
1 3 Most
common
answer
but
4 wrong!

39. The Real Content Lifecycle behind Airplanes
A Library of Engineering Standards is the starting point
Each step in the process
Reuses & references this source documentation
Introduces new content & initiates changes in preceding content

40. The Real Answer Looks More Like This
4
2
3
1 5
6 6

41. The Complex Content Interrelationships
Engineering Standards
Provide content controls, inputs & references for the design process
Become an integral part of all subsequent content
Derive their authority from their status as documents

42. Changing the Way We Think About Content
An Integrated View of Content
Controls
Sources (Inputs)
Outputs
References (Mechanisms)
Notable Considerations
References include revisions
Controls govern validation
Outputs cover the full spectrum

43. The Assembly before the Assembly

44. The Nature of Content Services
Content Services
break down into:
Document Services
Delivery of formatted
documents that
facilitate business
transactions
Data Services
Provide highly precise
inputs to applications
Logic Services
Provide highly precise
sequencing guidance
to people, processes &
applications

45. The Governing Content Architecture

46. Enriching Content Assets to Support the Vision

47. Content Oriented Architecture (COA)
Repository

48. Strategies for Integrating Data, Logic & Text
Legacy standards information is typically “mixed”
Data is often difficult to isolate & Logic is often hidden as implicit
Linked models are preferable (division of responsibilities)

49. Enterprise Content Processes

50. The Truth about Content

51. Content is how we Communicate
Content is the physical form
of human communication
Content is meaningful
because it entails context
Narrative Structures
Implied Associations
Associative Memory Associative Memory
Intended Results
Acquired Perspectives Acquired Perspectives
Imperfect Expression Imperfect Interpretation
Content is typically serialized
due to the ways we
express, store and interpret information

52. The Content Ecosystem
Content connects everything
Content populates an ecosystem where people receive, internalize,
modify, use, create and share that content. In this way, content evolves.

53. Documents as Authoritative Content Transactions
The document has proven to be an indispensible
device for communicating and retaining content
as part of business transactions
Historically documents have also caused problems for content:
redundancy proliferation, format orientation, and potential obsolescence

54. The Four Dimensions of Content Transactions
When content
is deployed within
documents,
it will exist for a
specific time,
assume a particular
format, be related to
other documents,
and be used to
execute business
of varying degrees
of formality.
This framework helps
us to understand
how the documents,
and their content, will
need to be managed.

55. Implications of this Dimensional Perspective
All document types
participate in each
of the dimensions.
Different document
types are mapped
differently into each
dimension.
The coverage of
the dimensions will
be primarily
determined by the
semantic depth
of the content
embodied in each
document type.

56. The True Nature of Content
Content is the persistent physical form of human communication transactions.
It is highly complex because it must facilitate the exchange of semantics ranging from
how we represent experience (data),
through how we communicate with others (information),
to how we record and evolve our understanding of the world (knowledge).
This scale determines the
semantic depth of
the content.

57. Core Definitions
Data
Data is the meaningful representation of experience
Information
Information is the meaningful organization of data communicated in a
specific context with the purpose of informing others
Knowledge
Knowledge is the meaningful organization of information, expressing
an evolving understanding of a subject
and establishing a basis for judgment and the potential for action.
Content
What is “contained” and “communicated” as transactional documents
Manifestation of Data, Information, and Knowledge

58. Content and the Knowledge Dynamic
Ideally, content would fully expose data, information & knowledge in a way
that was both persistent and universally accessible

59. The Emergence of Intelligent Content
The Evolution of
Content Technologies
Makes it possible to encode
content in a way that is:
Discoverable
Processable
Informative
Makes it possible to deploy
tools that enable users:
to create rich content
to access personalized documents
to access applications tailored to their needs
Combines with other factors to produce conditions of emergence
Digitization of knowledge resources & business processes

60. The Meaning of Intelligent Content
Intelligent Content
Expresses its full
meaning in an open
manner
Can be used by people
and by applications
Can be located based
on its content & context
Can be tailored to fit
specific circumstances
Can be delivered as a
combination of
authoritative documents
& application behaviour
(work instruments)

61. The Function of Intelligent Content
Intelligent content
can play the
unique role
of integrating
knowledge assets,
technology
Result
Intent
resources
& business
processes
in ways that can be
streamlined,
systematically
optimized &
adapted dynamically

62. The Significance of Intelligent Content
In the Age of Intelligent Content
The persistence of content
becomes more certain
Technology resources become far
more contingent & disposable
Business processes become far
more adaptable
Radical change become far more
feasible in business models & tools
Knowledge assets truly become the
core assets of the enterprise
Knowledge becomes increasingly
“executable” & this drives evolution
The Fractal Enterprise emerges

63. Some More Questions
What are the practical
implications?
What practices need to be
put in place to work with
Intelligent Content?
What types of solutions
benefit the most from
Intelligent Content?
Comments or Questions:
What are the main obstacles?
jgollner@stilo.com

64. The Virtuous Swarm of Content & Technology
Questions?

65. References
This presentation leverages material developed in the
following papers:
The Emergence of Intelligent Content
(Jan 2009)
Implementing Content Technologies on an Enterprise Scale
(Feb 2008)
The Anatomy of Knowledge
(Oct 2006)
Available at: www.gollner.ca