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Press Release: New Work and the need for cooperation

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As a result of New Work, decentralization, flexibility and digital information, virtual collaboration tools are considered irreplaceable.

Cooperation and increasing individualization

Employees increasingly want to decide individually about their work process and flexibly determine their working time and location. By taking these wishes into account, companies can acquire motivated, productive and loyal employees. Cooperation and efficiency must not be impaired. Thanks to digital tools this can be achieved. Real-time communication and collaboration platforms create new forms of cooperation.

“Building, maintaining and sharing knowledge is an important part of successful collaboration”, said Lars von Thienen, who proceed this issue with his tool, “To find digital information on a decentralized basis is a task of digitization and the changing cooperation. For example, the digital knowledge assistant “Noggle” offers a way to answer this by presenting decentralized documents in a central search result and by cognitively sorting and linking knowledge. Finding knowledge and experts in the enterprise is realizable.”

Digitization of the working world

The digitization of the working world and processes is in progress. IT systems are getting better at analyzing information. Information is more and more digitally available and will remain structured over an extended period of time. In the medium term, all necessary documents will be available digitally and thus independent of the location. This is how digitization affects cooperation. An increasing flexibilisation, decentralization and de-marginalization of work is developing.

New Work – Cause and Target

New work, the fundamental change in the world of work, is idea and movement at the same time. Work-Life-Balance and the industrial internet of things find their fusion in this term. Knowledge growth, demographic change, digitalization and globalization have an impact on the society as well as on companies and are the cause of the discussion about New Work.The target is to change the design of work.

New work is the future of work. Companies need to adjust culturally and technically.

The digital transformation for digital document management

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How digital document management facilitates remote working and a connected culture

In a constantly evolving digital culture, work is no longer just a place that we go, stay for the allotted amount of hours, and then leave behind on our way out of the office door. Being constantly connected to each other, both socially and professionally, always having access to the world at large, and with limitless information at our fingertips, work is now an ongoing activity; from checking our communications in bed, to working on reports during our daily commute, work is now something that we can do at unconventional times, and from wherever we happen to be.

Today, work isn’t just a destination – it’s a concept that we (often literally) carry with us, and rarely switch off from.

Catching up on just one more email…

Of course, the digital era is both cause and effect for remote working and the pressure to always be available; it is the very boom in technology itself that has enabled us to receive, undertake and submit work without physically being at our desk. Because these options are now open to us, more and more workers are carrying out tasks in their own time, either by choice or perceived necessity as an addition to their heavy workloads and packed schedules. With ever-growing demands on our attention, it’s important that the technological systems we use support and maximize our endeavors, and enable us to filter out information noise, improve productivity and enable content sharing for the best use of our time.

The actively mobile Millennials

Less from obligation and more from preference, a new generation of employees actively expects remote working and digital connectivity as part of their role, wishing to work from a location, device and timetable of their choosing – or at the least, working with the latest tools. Even if they are required to be consistently present at their place of work, this demographic will not be impressed with outdated modes of internal file organisation, or sluggish systems. Having become so familiar with innovation within their personal lives, younger workers anticipate the same crossovers in their careers, looking to harness the capabilities and convenience of gadgets, apps and software to provide them with a level of flexibility and productivity unavailable to previous generations – a mindset that employers, and the technology they deploy, need to increasingly strive to facilitate.

The win-win of connecting people and information

Remote working and increased digital connectivity isn’t just an advantage for employees; businesses also benefit from these rapidly changing ways of keeping in touch and accessing content. Workers who are empowered to find the files they need on the move, and who have the freedom to ping ideas to their peers remotely, are likely to attain higher levels of productivity, and be happier with their working circumstances. Embracing digital approaches to accessing and sharing work also attracts young, tech savvy workers who bring their own visions and fresh ideas, complimenting an existing and experienced team.

Giving workers access to office assets – wherever they are.

Workers may have less of a physical presence within the traditional office space, but what about the information we usually store within our workplace buildings and business spaces? Working remotely may suit your employees, and your organisation, but they will still need access to the host of documents and knowledge that form the backbone of your business, and that are kept on-site – even when your workers are not. By selecting the right digital document management solution, you’ll be giving your employees remote access to a solid base from which to source the information they need, research topics and receive recommendations, and share and collaborate with colleagues on ideas and projects. Even when remote working isn’t enabled, using technology to bring together files from disparate locations via a secure network will save time and effort in sourcing relevant content, and create a connected digital document management structure for interpreting information, immediate exchanges of ideas and knowledge sharing.

The digital transformation for digital document management

With worker expectations shifting, and a technology-led climate dictating the way we work and do business, organisations need to implement a digital strategy that responds to these changes and keeps pace with the marketplace.

Knowledge and information, and the documents that contain them, are still the core assets of your enterprise and its culture, and ensuring that you have the right digital approach to curating, locating, utilizing and sharing these files is key in giving your workers the data, and inspiration they need, at their fingertips.

A tech savvy workforce demands that manual processes for document management are automated, and that the ongoing boom in digital content production is supported for improved workflow efficiencies and convenient retrieval. In truth, document management is changing at unprecedented speed, and in order to fulfill the needs of your highly-connected workers, and to provide maximum efficiencies for your business, you need to be adopting the appropriate technology to harness the power of the digital working landscape and ensure you’re keeping up.

Noggle is the knowledge management solution that empowers any time working.

With an increasingly varied approach to working, you need digital document management software that keeps your workers connected to the knowledge they need, as soon as they need it. Noggle creates a secure peer network that syncs and connects disparate locations, so that locating and retrieving files is now the work of moments, not minutes, allowing employees to find and share document libraries. Search and share new depths of content for the digital age, and easily collaborate on inspiring ways of working for a truly connected culture.

To see how Noggle could make a difference to the way that you manage the files that matter, just install our free trial!

How to share, retain and protect knowledge in the gig economy

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The gig economy. The sharing economy. The collaborative economy.

Whichever name you opt for, ‘on-demand’ employment is changing the way we work. Uncertain economic times are forcing companies to constantly strive to achieve better productivity using fewer resources, shifting to a transactional model of using increasingly short term and less demanding forms of labour with contractors and gig workers. In order to cut costs, freelancers are seen as a favourable replacement for the ongoing commitment of full time employees, with many workers now finding themselves reluctantly working in the gig economy for want of secure, skilled positions.

But by regularly exchanging lasting employee development  for ‘pay as you go’ stop gaps, are companies losing the core of the wider strategy they wish to execute – the institutional knowledge that is embedded into the long term workforce and culture of an organisation?

The risk of frequent changeovers

These frequent changeovers at the front-line of a business means there is a risk that valuable knowledge is retained only at the top of the hierarchy. With so many gig workers now coming and going through the doors, temporary workers are bringing, and taking, knowledge which is just that – temporary. Every time a new joiner leaves again, knowledge is lost. The type of knowledge that is escaping can be categorised as that which can be written down, and that which can’t, the latter being the form that will simply ‘leak’ out of the organisation without better knowledge retention activity.

As such, is this ‘knowledge leakage’ negating our interest in fully training and engaging with temporary staff, knowing as we do that they will be leaving us shortly? Without emphasising the need to retain knowledge at ground level, no matter how long a contract is, independent workers become interchangeable, learning nothing of the institutional knowledge that is integral to the entire operation.

As well as discouraging us to impart value through knowledge, it may be that the use of gig workers isn’t giving us the ultimate value in receiving knowledge in return.

“Are you a giver or taker? Success is not about competition- it’s about contribution.” by Adam Grant

Adam Grant just recently gave a TED Talk about strategies to promote a culture of generosity and keep self-serving employees from taking more than their share. Watch here: TEDTalk

Contractors may be hired in a targeted manner based on the outcomes they can produce and the skills and experience they bring, but is such a short time frame limiting our ability to truly discover and utilise the extent of what our freelancers really know?

A centralised approach does not work

In this light, a centralised approach to document management does not work – our attempts must be to encourage our gig workers to be transparent in the sharing of their knowledge. Contractors are unlikely to submit their documents and ‘give away’ their knowledge to centralised areas where they have no control over the end user who accesses it once they have moved on. In this new sharing economy, it is essential to have the best systems at our disposal for efficient accessing, retrieval and transfer of the things we know, and the documents they’re stored in.

But it isn’t just external knowledge workers that need to be given the most relevant and practical tools for sharing their information within a gig economy. The most accurate insights and information are often to be found from within the company – the internal workforce and management structure that experience the product, customers and business transactions on a daily basis, over the course of years are likely to provide the best ideas for the progression of the organisation as a whole. When continually outsourcing for strategies and concepts, businesses run the risk of actually outsourcing all of their knowledge, and overlooking the assets of their own network of thinkers and employee intelligence. Ensuring that these resources are located and utilised correctly with transparent information sharing will allow organisations to keep institutional knowledge alive during a gig economy, and leverage the knowledge of in-house and temporary workers alike.

Noggle is the knowledge management solution that works with the gig economy.

In a contractor climate, you need document management software that suits the way we do business today, not yesterday. Noggle creates a secure peer network that syncs and connects disparate locations, so that locating and retrieving files is now the work of moments, not minutes, allowing you to make the most of the knowledge brought to you by freelancers and employees alike. Search and share new depths of content, and easily collaborate on inspiring ways of working. To see how Noggle could make a difference to the way that you manage the files that matter, install our free trial.

Cognitive Search Engine: How To Overcome The Knowledge Disconnect

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How To Overcome The Big Knowledge Disconnect With Cognitive AI: Cognitive Search Engine

Our cognitive search engine with cognitive document retrieval features knocks down barriers between you and your documents. Use our natural and contextual search features that augment users’ experiences via the power of machine-based AI. Plug them in and stop searching – start knowing.

Document Recommendations

Cognitive Search Engine Features

The document recommendation engine can detect all related documents for a given document. If a document is selected from the search results, the engine pulls up all related or similar documents from available libraries regardless of the filename or file type. Our recommendation intelligence is based on full-text/content-similarity deep-search algorithms. It can even pull up new versions of existing documents that have been edited by your colleagues and saved in completely different locations. You can’t locate these documents with simple search queries on your own. For example, imagine that you find an old PowerPoint document and you want to see the latest version of the document and its Excel calculation sheet. They might be anywhere on the network, but our recommendation engine detects them instantly. [read more…]

Cross-Library Search

The mCognitive Document Search and Retrievalanaged library-sharing feature enables organizations to make their documents retrievable by approved people through distributed-search functions. With this feature, users can easily and quickly retrieve useful, relevant documents stored elsewhere on the network or on local computers. The cross-library search saves time and helps avoid the high cost of reinventing the wheel when a document exists somewhere else but cannot be located locally. The embedded “request document” function makes knowledge sharing as simple and secure as sending emails. Cross-library searches speed up the retrieval process and make document retrieval a collaborative activity via our cognitive search engine.

Topic Detection and KnowledgeMap Clustering

Cognitive Search Engine - Clustering Feature

One search aid that helps information workers to retrieve relevant content from large content libraries is clustered cross-document relationship information. This cognitive search service returns visually enriched content topics for all documents in the current search results. It helps to overcome information overload by organizing collections of documents into clearly labeled, hierarchical, thematic clusters in real time, fully automatically, and without external knowledge bases. Instead of browsing linear search results, the KnowledgeMap is a cognitive, non-supervised search-result visualization tool that presents essential information about the structure of topics within search results. The clustering algorithm scans internal relationships and linguistic patterns among all the documents found. In doing so, it unearths new groups or cross-document relationships that might guide you to new, interesting topic areas that enhance the initial search request. The amount of time users spend trying to make sense of long lists of search results is shortened dramatically. With clearly labelled folders, users can navigate straight to the documents they need and easily skip irrelevant ones.

Topic Exploration Service

With the KnowledgeMap topic clustering engine, query refinement is just a mouse click away. Topic clusters generated by our cognitive KnowledgeMap can help users refine their initial queries and drill down to a specific subject. This cognitive feature allows users to automatically rephrase search queries to pull relevant documents out of the selected topic clusters.

Intelligent Duplicate Filtering

As documents got copied, shared, and reorganized over time, more copies of the same file become available in different folders. These files generate “noise” in your search results and make the results list inconvenient to read and browse if it includes duplicate files from different locations. Our duplicate filter  is intelligent enough to keep only the version to which you have direct access. For example, a file might be available three times in your libraries: in the library on your local computer, in a network library (e.g., archive), and in a shared library from your colleague. Our intelligent duplicate filter shows you the file to which you have direct access and filters out the duplicate network file and the duplicate file from your colleague. You can always be sure you’re finding the smartest way to access the document without noisy search result listings.

Recent Work Linking

This feature extends the recommendation engine to drill down into your recent work. Our recent-work-linking algorithm scans your recently used files (e.g., Word documents and presentations you have recently worked on) and scans all available libraries for similar and related documents. Noggle presents a recommendation list for relevant files in your libraries that are related to your current work. In the blink of an eye, this cognitive search engine feature presents all documents from your libraries that might help you during your work activities.

Intelligent Open Engine

Noggle is not built on absolute storage paths. The proprietary Noggle document fingerprint holds all the content/full-text-based information needed to retrieve document regardless of file-naming conventions and storage locations. You can move files during the lifecycle, and the “intelligent open” engine for the document fingerprint will always try to locate the document and open it. This cognitive feature attempts to locate files via different mechanisms. First, the absolute file path is tested. Then, a similarity search is performed to locate a duplicate or similar version in your libraries. Finally, if not found, a document request is sent to the file owner if the file cannot be located in your environment. You can always get to the document no matter whether you have it, it has been moved, or it is part of a shared library. With just one click, the cognitive intelligent open feature guides to the physical document.

Image Text Recognition

The text recognition engine reads text from image files. Optical character recognition (OCR) detects text in an image and extracts the recognized words into an indexed character stream. This feature analyzes images to detect embedded text, generate text, and enable searching. This allows you to scan or take photos of important printed documents and save them in an indexed folder (e.g., simple TIF scans from printed “paper” documents). If these scanned or photographed files are included in a special library, our text recognition makes them retrievable via simple text searches.

Encyclopedia Document Trails

This service allows users to generate topic-specific document trails just by dragging and dropping a document from a library or search result into a Nogglepedia topic. Once you drag and drop a relevant document out of your Noggle library and into a specific Nogglepedia, a proprietary document “fingerprint” is generated. This service isn’t based on moving or sharing the document itself; the document fingerprint holds all the relevant information in an enriched, compressed format. These digital document encyclopedias can be privately shared in the managed Noggle network to empower swarm intelligence, such as research groups collecting fingerprints from private or corporate documents. These fingerprints bundle the available knowledge on special subjects. From each fingerprint in a Nogglepedia, all our cognitive search engine and retrieval services, such as recommendations, can be executed with just a mouse click.

Drop-In document linking

This service allows users to drag and drop any available document into the Noggle application to retrieve related documents, such as an email attachment or a local file. This file might not be part of any indexed library, but Noggle instantly scans the document and performs a concept-based full-text search within your document libraries. Therefore, you can drop any file into the Noggle client application, and this cognitive search engine and document retrieval service will perform full-text concept matching

 

Additional License Information:
You need a professional license for the following services:
Shared Cross-Library Search, Intelligent Open/Document Request, Collaborative Encyclopedia Document Trails

 

Further reading and references on “Cognitive Search Engine”:

Document Encyclopedia for the Digital Age: KnowledgeBox

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Document management and knowledge sharing for the digital age

Knowledge Document Encyclopedia in the Digital Age

Document Encyclopedia

Our KnowledgeBox is a collaborative document encyclopedia for the digital age. A KnowledgeBox holds digital fingerprints of important documents from a particular branch of knowledge. Unlike a document library, which focuses on storage and document retrieval, KnowledgeBox topics focus on factual document information about the subject for which the box is named.

But a KnowledgeBox isn’t just another shared storage location or SharePoint to put documents into. Once you drag and drop a relevant document out of your Noggle library onto a specific box, a proprietary document “fingerprint” is generated. So it’s not about moving or sharing the document itself: the document fingerprint holds all relevant information in an enriched and compressed format. This allows that document or similar and related ones to be retrieved with just the fingerprint information, as the KnowledgeBox only stores the document’s fingerprint. This fingerprint is very small compared to the original file, but it holds all the full-text information needed to retrieve the document. So it doesn’t matter where the file is located or stored: with a Noggle document fingerprint, you or your colleagues can retrieve the document or similar ones regardless of the physical storage location.

With the managed Noggle peer-to-peer sharing functions, you can empower swarm intelligence such as research groups that are collecting fingerprints of private or corporate documents. These fingerprints bundle the available knowledge on special subjects. Without disrupting document access rights, you can share this knowledge to help others retrieve relevant knowledge and get connected.

Just as Wikipedia is a collaborative public platform for writing articles, KnowledgeBox is a collaborative private platform for linking document fingerprints on special subjects.

The following video shows how it works:

The document encyclopedia helps to:

  • Make your knowledge portable via a document encyclopedia
    Access your important knowledge and documents on any device without having to move files or documents. No need to know about storage locations. The Nogglepedia fingerprint will retrieve a document regardless of where it’s stored or whether it has moved to another location.
  • Securely share your knowledge encyclopedias with peers, colleagues, and friends
    As you only share Noggle fingerprints, the process is completely secure, as the documents stay where they are. In addition, it  has a low footprint for storage and bandwith.
  • Collaborate on specific knowledge areas
    Connect to knowledge encyclopedias to add important document fingerprints and receive fingerprints from others.
  • Save current research results and continue a deep-search later
    Quickly collect documents of interest for specific topics and do a further deep search later, e.g., with similarity search functions.

1913—first came the Encyclopædia Britannica, the oldest and one of the largest contemporary English encyclopedias.

2001–Wikipedia for public content showed up.

2016–for private knowledge sharing, When in doubt, look it up in the Encyclopedia Noggle, a.k.a. KnowledgeBox!

 

References:
* Wkipedia definition for Encyclopedia

Why noggle helps to avoid collaborative overload

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Why nHBR_ColOverloadoggle helps to avoid collaborative overload

In the Jan./Feb. 2016 issue of the Harvard Business Review, Rob Cross, Reb Rebele and Adam Grant wrote an article on the topic “Collaborative Overload”. They recommend to leverage technology to make informational ressource more accessible and transparent.

 

„Collaboration is taking over the workplace. As business becomes increasingly global and cross-functional, silos are breaking down, connectivity is increasing, and teamwork is seen as a key to organizational success. … Performance suffers as they (people) are buried under an avalanche of requests for input or advice, access to resources. … Informational and social resources can be shared—often in a single exchange—.. That is, when I offer you knowledge or network awareness … An exchange that might have taken five minutes or less turns into a 30-minute calendar invite that strains personal resources on both sides of the request. … Leverage technology and physical space to make informational and social resources more accessible and transparent. … Efficient sharing of informational, social, and personal resources should also be a prerequisite for positive reviews, promotions, and pay raises. … Collaboration is indeed the answer to many of today’s most pressing business challenges.”

Exactly what Noggle provides. Noggle is a peer-to-peer “exchange” for information libraries. To make your information ressources transparent and more accessible. A productivity tool to fight against collaborative overload.

Make it happen with Noggle.

Link to the full article:
HBR Article “Collaborative Overload”

Why information sharing can make you a winning team

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“How Too Many Rules at Work Keep You from Getting Things Done”

TED Talk by Yves Morieux

“Organizations spend 40-80% percent of their time, wasting their time. E.g. for undoing and redoing, writing reports. When people dont coorporate, dont blame the people, look at their work situations. We need to create organizations in which it becomes individually usefull for people to coorperate. Remove interfaces, middle offices and complicated coordination structures.”

See in his talk why peer-to-peer information sharing and collaboration with Noggle can help to make you a winning team, even if others may have better information. Why? Because Noggle integrates collaboration with information sharing without complicated central coordination structures.

 

 

“Thanks to coorperations the whole is worth more than the sum of the parts. Contribute to the effort of others.”

Noggle is a productivity tool focussing on peer-to-peer information retrieval. Start contributing to the effort of others without complicated rules. Start making your team the winning team. Start focusing on getting things done with Noggle.