Posts Tagged ‘Knowledge Management’

Summarization is an effective form of text mapping

Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008
 

With the Context Organizer for MindManager a text summary is instantly converted into a MindManager map without any loss of relevant text content.

The automatic map generation frees the user from tedious map charting while providing more opportunity to focus on shaping the visually mapped information.

 

Summaries lead the mind to focus on essential content. This enables faster evaluation and comprehension.  While summarising, the reader effectively engages in efficient contextual comprehension by gaining both the big picture and the detail expressions.

 
Summarization reveals text structures, while contextual associations are clearly revealed through highlighted keywords.
 
The Context Organizer provides the reader with the most relevant keywords as a guide to the most significant statements within the body of text.  The keywords work as quick filters enabling users to focus on the most relevant sentences of interest.
 
Further, the use of keywords navigates the reader through summarized content providing a superior visual format which is a more practical manager to rapid comprehension of content in context.
 
The advantage of using summarization for text mapping is that summarization provides the most accurate and direct text representation in the form of the most relevant keywords and sentences.
 
This direct approach by Context Organizer is superior to other graphical techniques which are abstract representations of text and always require further explanation.  Information mapping is a record of the reader’s comprehension, or lack of it. It’s not uncommon for graphical mapping to have little to do with the text, and the formats often used make it difficult to interpret, leaving too much for the reader to extrapolate and/or reconstruct.
 
Graphic organizers indeed have their place, I do however believe that summarization as a text mapping technique, effectively complements graphic organizers, by bridging the gap between texts and corresponding abstracted diagramming.
 
A summary as a text map provides superior expression for creating accurate and complete visual maps. This is one of the reasons that Context Organizer integrates seamlessly with Mindjet MindManager.
 
With the Context Organizer for MindManager a text summary is instantly converted into a MindManager map without any loss of relevant text content. The automatic map generation frees the user from tedious map charting while providing more opportunity to focus on shaping the visually mapped information. This is a unique and valuable addition that significantly enhances MindManager’s effectiveness.
 
Download Context Organizer today.

  

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A summary is worth a thousand of words

Thursday, August 28th, 2008
 
A summary is a shortened version of the original. The main purpose of such a simplification is to highlight the major points from the genuine (much longer) subject, e.g. a text, a film or an event. The aim is to help the audience get the gist in a short period of time. (Wikipedia)
 
The way we learn, remember and quickly recall has a strong relationship to the way we are able to process information without overloading our senses.
 
If our goal in understanding information is to quickly extract and convey meaning, then the use of summaries is essential. Summaries can be the key to understanding and reducing complex information to indispensable facts.
 
We can say that summaries are the bare models of thoughts and that summarized information represents the authorʼs best goals and intentions.

The act of instantly summarizing a web page can be an accelerator to quick understanding. By seeing the keywords in context, we, the readers, can quickly understand, connect and retain new information.

 
Summarization is relevant to all information workers, irrespective of their expertise. When we read, we always have to parse the text. We read and re-read to extract the main statements. We underline important ideas and arguments according to the main statement. We work hard to assemble all the pertinent facts in logical order. And once all of this is done we then check if the summary reflects the original conclusions.
 
All of these hard and time consuming tasks can be greatly facilitated with the use of Context Organizer. With the click of a button, the essential keywords, sentences and context are revealed and highlighted. The keywords serve as a back-of-the-book index to the key statements and facts.
  
You may think about the Context Organizer summaries as an instant help in making sense by focusing on the key facts and conclusions only.
 
Context Organizer summaries allow busy professionals to save time.  It helps them to daily sift through copious amounts of information and rapidly review, compare and analyze information.
 
 
You can download and try out Context Organizer for free.
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What is a Knol?

Thursday, August 7th, 2008

 According to Google:

A knol is an authoritative article about a specific topic.
The goal behind the Knol is to provide more complete and versatile treatment on the different aspects of the subject being covered. In short CONTEXT is provided to better understand the subject.  
So for example, if you were to read about a specific subject such as insomnia - you would be able to learn about variety of aspects about insomnia ranging from introduction, to sleep promotion, types of insomnia, diagnosis, medical and non-medical treatments, etc. – all in one article complemented with references.
From experience we know that content without context is difficult to value. Perhaps Knols are good attempts to improve understanding by conveniently providing well-researched context to content.
So far there’s no common format or standard on how to create Knols, how to comment on entries and how to collaborate on entries. However, Knol is an early beta project and it will certainly evolve so for time being we should keenly observe if it is going to help us in dealing with information quality.
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2008 is being dubbed the “year of information overload”

Tuesday, July 15th, 2008

 That’s according to research firm Basex, which chose "information overload" as its 2008 "Problem of the Year."

 According to 2007 study by Basex, information overload is costly; they estimate that the costs of information overload is about $650 billion a year in the USA alone.
 
 
Interruptions consume 28% of knowledge worker’s day. One recommended solution is to use filtering tools that help users to quickly understand, prioritize and organize information. Basex argues that the human brain is not effectively wired for paying attention to multiple things at once and handling constant interruptions.
 
According to Jonathan Spira, the author of the “Information Overload: We Have Met the Enemy And He Is Us” report, we should resist the urge to immediately follow up on every e-mail, phone call or IM. Spira recommends that knowledge workers distinguish the urgent from important things before deciding on interruptions in their thought process.
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Common sense knowledge management advice

Thursday, July 3rd, 2008

"The Writing Organization: Knowledge Management Made Easy" By: Tim Leberecht 

1-Sentence Summary*

Depending on their role, employees can blog about customer experiences, sales tactics, strategy, product improvements, organizational design, competitors, market trends, and even gossip."

Isn’t this obvious? And yet this common sense advice is seldom practiced… I wish that every organization acts on Tim Lebrecht’s advice. 

By encouraging employees to write about their problem solving, customers, and management issues organizations can tap into a very rich source of tacit knowledge.  
 
Freely shared experience helps in identifying common challenges and solutions. It is a quick and perhaps a fun way to build corporate culture in a non-elitist way. It may also be a very good way to improve morale because it gives everyone forum and voice in decision making process, makes things more transparent and fosters collaboration.
 
Indeed, Tim points out a common sense approach to knowledge management and knowledge sharing.
 
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