The premise\nestablished in previous blog posts of this series was that modern workplace can\nplay its strengths on the best way as a combination of collaboration,\ncommunication and process management, delivered on desktop, tablet and mobile\ndevices, to be used and consumed from residential and mobile workers, anytime,\nanywhere. And, as we have seen, it all revolves around content. So, the first\nlogical question would be \u2013 what is, actually, content?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Content \u2013\nwe can remember it from the ECM definitions \u2013 can be structured and\nunstructured. Structured content can be spanned through all different range of\ntechnologies \u2013 databases, ERP\/CRM\/HR\/LOB\u2026 solutions, and even loosely governed\nsolutions such as SharePoint lists. Unstructured content is everything without\nclearly defined structure, including Emails, file shares, and SharePoint\ndocument libraries. Even if structured content has always been in the main\nfocus of IT, researches made in the recent years have shown that most of the\ncorporate knowledge is actually stored in unstructured content \u2013 emails, Excel\nsheets, Word documents… That was the very reason for the rise of metadata\nmanagement, search, and the other methods that should boost content and\nknowledge findability inside the unstructured content. We got to know this as\n\u201cknowledge management\u201d (another loosely defined term, I agree). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The key\nproblem with all knowledge management solutions was a necessity to actively\nseek for that knowledge, inside unstructured content. That was often a\ntime-consuming activity without any promise of success. The user would have to\nassume that the knowledge already exists inside company, either in some\nunstructured data repository, to which she might or might not have access to,\nor in a non-written form, as knowledge that her colleagues possess. Even if the\nassumption that the knowledge exists would be correct, the challenge of\nlocating that knowledge has remained the largest issue. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If someone\nwould count total amount of hours and money that the world economy has lost in\nsearching file repositories, email attachments and SharePoint libraries, the\nnumber would probably be expressed in billions of dollars. A reversed premise,\nthat knowledge (\u201cthe right content\u201d) could proactively find a way to those who\nmight actually need it, was unthinkable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, what\nwould happen if we would actually be able to reverse the premise? If the\nemployee from that comic from the previous blog post<\/a> would not have\nto walk over to his colleague, to inform him about that document being uploaded\nin the document library? What if the colleague would still be proactively\ninformed? If he would be immediately and automatically notified about relevant\nchanges in the document, and reasons for those changes, without need to\nactually compare the document versions and look for the changes? That would\ndecrease redundant collaboration time significantly. Now, what would happen, if\na third colleague, working in an office in a remote location, but working on\nthe same or similar topics, would also be informed that something of her\ninterest is happening? Would we dare to call this proactive knowledge management?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unthinkable?\nNo, it is not. This is exactly what private (consumer) social networks do every\nday: proactively serving us with information according to our interests. And\nthat is the real, and actual promise of the modern workplace in the knowledge\nmanagement arena, and the key of its success: it can, and it will, when\nproperly used, make collaboration significantly easier and more enjoyable. It\nfills the abovementioned \u201ccommunication gap\u201d in the collaboration story. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is a\nfact that most of the content is contained inside Microsoft product range, and\nthis is not going to change for quite some time. True, there are more popular\nERP systems than NAV, more popular CRM systems than Dynamics, but, as already\nmentioned, 70% of the knowledge (relevant content) is stored in unstructured\ncontent repositories. Just think of email (Exchange), file shares (Windows,\nOneDrive) and collaboration platforms (SharePoint). Google is making some\nattempts in this field, but in general, the field is heavily dominated by\nMicrosoft. For the good reasons, too. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That being\nsaid, Microsoft has been missing chances after chances to point on content-driven\ncollaboration and knowledge management, and first with Teams they managed to\ncreate a modern workplace solution which revolves around content and contextual\nwork. However, Teams do not automatically include relevant external\nrepositories (even such as SharePoint sites which are not connected to Teams),\nneither does it offer a streamlined Teams governance.  <\/p>\n