Kaplan puts the hocuspocus in content management
Kaplan puts the hocuspocus in content management
March/April Edition, 2008: Launch party, clown suits and a solution nicknamed MAGIC, the editors at professional education services Kaplan realised that while it helps to have Interwoven on board a project to reinvigorate their content management, a little bit of magic can never go astray…
A team of editors are working to create education courses and professional development programs for Kaplan’s 500 business customers. While knowledge sharing and information access has become the key to developing their smart materials - their clients may not realise the products are also aided by magic.
“We called our project Magic,” says Elena Blair, manager of knowledge systems at Kaplan. “When we launched it we had a magician train a small team on a number of magic tricks which created a really good atmosphere and feel for the project.”
Magic, is not just a name however, it’s also an acronym depicting Kaplan’s move to eliminate the disparate information repositories disrupting the free flow of knowledge by using Interwoven’s WorkSite solutions. The acronym stands for Management, Analysis and Generation of Information Collateral.
“So when we talk about the document management system, people get exited and talk about MAGIC,” says Blair.
When the job is to create, edit and publish high quality education material, it helps to have information available at the click of a button. Rather than continually researching and recreating information that could already exist elsewhere, it was quickly realised an effective solution could make the jobs of content providers easier and more efficient.
Blair says while the content was available, there was no system at Kaplan for managing the information. “We still had the disparate processes in place,” she says. “We had so much content, but we didn’t know what it all was.”
In many cases the information is there, but after rapid growth and a number of acquisitions along the way, Kaplan has not only seen name changes but also the merger of staff members, processes, systems and repositories of information. Sitting somewhere on a network drive, a lack of ability to effectively search and access the data made a cross pollination of knowledge impossible.
“If someone wanted to create a new course, the chances are that someone else would have already written bits and pieces of it elsewhere, but we had no way of discovering that information,” says Blair.
Incorporating incoming knowledge into the company’s existing infrastructure has not been easy. When coupled with an increasing amount of data developed in varying formats including multimedia, word, PDF and even paper, centralising this knowledge has eluded the simplicity of simply storing the information.
A review was undertaken in 2006 with a focus around the existing information management infrastructure and how it could be reworked to include incoming knowledge while also scaling for future growth. Kaplan identified it was an electronic library and content collaboration system they needed. The system would require outside assistance and would not just cover the storage and collaboration of such material, but also the search and retrieval aspects to ensure the most could be made of content.
Before Blair started with theorganisation, a thorough process had been undertaken to select an appropriate solution and implementation partner. Kaplan found Interwoven and its WorkSite solutions, while also signing with implementation partner, Office Information Australia (OIA.) Later, with Kaplan’s growth and decision to make the most of their current information, the company created the new role of ‘Content Coordinator,’ hiring Blair as the first to take the reigns on information.
Blair was quickly put to work in determining just what was out there. “My main project was to do an audit of all of our information assets and come up with an information management strategy involving the implementation of the Interwoven solution,” she says.
With WorkSite contentcollaboration and documentmanagement implemented across the editorial team, the system started to capture content associated with particular education products, ultimately encouraging and enhancing the power of knowledge sharing across staff. The process was aided by WorkSite’s incorporated version control and use of controlled vocabulary metadata ensuring the search capabilities were simple enough for information to easily be retrieved. Integration with the Microsoft Office Suite also helped, with staff able towork with Outlook and their existing desktop applications.
Metadata, it was quicklyrealised, was an essential element in the process. Sourcing information was soon made simpler by incorporating author, language, material purpose and complete data metadata specific to each document “Metadata would also enable us to incorporate customer data fieldsand automatically index documents, making them easier to find, share and reuse,” says Blair.
Ensuring uptake from users was vital to the project’s success. With asurvey undertaken before and aftergoing live and contact made directlywith users, Blair believes it was the launch party that secured user interest in the new solution. It’s at this point the magic comes in, a term Blair and her team carefully crafted to ensure the system could be easily discussed.
“That’s what change management is all about. It’s not about pushing the information, but rather getting everybody involved and excited about what it can offer,” says Blair.
However the excitement generated around the new Interwoven system did not come without its ups and downs. Blair admits the initial scope of the project may have been a little too ambitious. “We wanted to roll out the system to the entire business and while that is still relevant, we just didn’t have the time to address all aspects of the business,” she says.
So rather then going too far and too soon with Magic, the team have focused on the content system, ensuring its tricks are done thoroughly and properly, with everyone involved.