Welcome to the Summer 2006 issue of KNOWLEDGEWISE, as we continue our mission to provide our perspective on the latest trends in Content, Knowledge and Publishing. This issue includes an article on how the aviation industry is embracing S1000D, an XML-standard that will help streamline the production of aircraft maintenance manuals. We’re also offering three survival tips for information services providers seeking to develop a long-term strategy amidst the hype and promise of Web 2.0. In addition, we're also highlighting our first Future Tense symposium with the New York University Center for Publishing. Podcasts and presentations are available for download at our Knowledge Center. As always, we welcome your feedback and suggestions on how we can make KNOWLEDGEWISE even better. Enjoy.
The Editors, KNOWLEDGEWISE
Aviation industry players are rallying behind the S1000D banner as they work together to create a XML-based global standard for technical publications. Over time, S1000D promises to cut time and costs in maintaining fleets of aircraft, while retaining or improving safety and bridging requirements between military and commercial aviation.
The Air Transportation Association, Aerospace and Defense Industries Association of Europe and the Aerospace Industries Association are among the groups helping member organizations working on Version 2.3, which will incorporate civil aviation requirements into the new standard. The version is expected to be completed by mid- to late-2006. Version 2.2 was released in May 2005.
S1000D is designed to replace meticulous cross-referencing between paper maintenance manuals with electronic data searches. As maintenance takes place, each step completed by mechanics will be electronically logged into a data base accessible via the Internet to mechanics and airline executives worldwide.
Keeping track of maintenance records is a staggering job. Northwest Airlines, for example, has a fleet of more than 400 aircraft of various models and years, and its maintenance is completed by teams spread out among its 750 destinations in 120 countries on six continents. Northwest has already deployed an aircraft maintenance documentation system that will support S1000D. To learn more about this project, which was implemented by X-Hive, with help from Innodata Isogen, read the following whitepaper:
http://www.bitpipe.com/data/detail?id=1137778296_217&type=RES&src=KA_RES_20060130
Each aircraft has its own general aircraft maintenance manual, technical service manual for troubleshooting, illustrated parts catalog. These add up to millions of pages of information on jets in a mixed fleet that must be updated with every revision handed down by airplane manufacturers or aviation regulation agencies. All of these details are handled through the airline’s aircraft maintenance documentation system, which also keeps tabs on custom components that are specific to its fleet.
Timing of routine maintenance is governed by the maintenance manual, and aircraft may be rerouted to locations where specialists for specific jobs are based. More problematic are items such as trouble-indicator lights or error-code messages that pop up during flights or at boarding gates. These can cause time consuming, and thus costly, delays while mechanics sift through the various manuals to identify the likely problem and then search the catalogs for the proper parts to fix them.
With S1000D, the maintenance manual, service manual, parts catalog and documentation system are all hyperlinked. Entering an error code delivers to the mechanic’s computer terminal the cause, up-to-date manufacturer-recommended repair procedures and parts involved, even if it entails a customization of that specific aircraft by the airline. The job then becomes part of the aircraft’s permanent log that is available electronically anywhere the aircraft flies.
Electronic maintenance manuals aren’t entirely new. They have been developed for military aircraft. However, the early attempts at creating ones for commercial aviation – based on XML’s forerunner, the standard general markup language – were developed as proprietary programs and were quite costly. They also largely cross-referenced the various paper manuals, which had to be updated manually and searched by hand.
S1000D will put commercial and military aviation on the same standard. This will help aircraft manufacturers that supply both divisions to cut costs in supplying up-to-the-minute maintenance information that is specific to each aircraft that rolls off their assembly lines.
Learn More at http://www.S1000D.org or http://S1000D.blogspot.com.
The term Web 2.0 prompts sighs of derision from some industry observers, while others see it as the platform that will finally unleash the full potential of the Internet. But whether they’re Web 2.0 proponents or skeptics, all content providers still need to plan for a vastly different competitive landscape, one in which third-parties exert increasing influence over content buying decisions and where the competition could come from one-person blogs as well as multinational publishers.
In this environment, successful publishers need to expand beyond existing delivery channels to provide Web services that offer ways to harness the collective intelligence of their audience. For example, Craigslist, the on-line classified ad site, has grown to be the world’s seventh largest Web site and may already be taking a serious bite out of newspaper classified advertising revenue. McKinsey Consultants projected that newspapers could lose $4 billion in classified ad revenue by 2007, about 20 percent less than they earned in 2004. Gannett and Knight Ridder – the No. 1 and No. 2 newspaper groups respectively – are considering offering free classifieds and then developing strategies to earn money from the sales transactions that they generate. Some newspapers are already shifting to Web-based ads to compete directly with Craigslist and similar services.
Flickr photos offers another example of the potential reward that comes from giving site visitors the opportunity to shape content to fit their needs. Launched as a forum for sharing personal photos two years ago, Flickr evolved rapidly into a service that allows members to see images that suit their interests from around the world. By incorporating Asynchronous JavaScript and XML or AJAX, the on-line photo service allows visitors to assign tags to images that differ from those first assigned to them by the photographer who uploaded the photos. As a result, photos are sorted into “clusters” of like topics as perceived by visitors, who can then create albums of images that suit their interests – displayed with ads related to the topics. Although membership is free, many people pay a subscription for unlimited photo storage and relief from pop-up ads. In a matter of months, Flickr grew from 60,000 users to millions by the time Yahoo bought it for $35 million.
To stay competitive in this emerging grass-roots marketplace, companies need to adapt their existing content delivery strategies to support these new models. Here are three tips for companies seeking to thrive and win in this landscape.
Whether Web 2.0 is a valid concept or hype, the functionality and ability to link to content on the fly is changing the way most people use and access content. Content providers that build operating models and strategies flexible enough to adapt to these trends will be the ones best positioned to stay ahead of the curve.
Senior publishing executives wrestled with the implications of how content providers are adapting to new workflow models, single-source publishing and other emerging digital publishing technologies at Future Tense – Emerging Trends in Publishing Workflow Management, a symposium co-hosted by Innodata Isogen and New York University's Center for Publishing.
The recent symposium featured opening remarks by Innodata Isogen CEO Jack Abuhoff and Robert Baensch, director of NYU’s Center for Publishing. Other speakers included Mike Maziarka, InfoTrends; Ed Klaris and Kilian Schalk, both from The New Yorker magazine; Jeff Vargas, Time Out NY; Bill Trippe, The Gilbane Report; Charlie Lillis, Cygnus Business Media; David Jost, Houghton Mifflin; Scott Lubeck, Harvard Business School of Publishing; Michael Jensen, National Academies Press; and Steve Sieck, Electronic Publishing Services.
Several trends emerged from the presentations.
Podcasts and presentations from the Symposium are available on the Innodata Isogen Web site.
The Software & Information Industry Association has announced that Jack Abuhoff, president and chief executive officer of Innodata Isogen, has been elected to a two-year term to the Board of Directors of its Content Division.
The SIIA Content Division Board consists of representatives from member companies who are selected by the membership. Board members prioritize Content Division initiatives for the year and determine the projects, activities and events to be undertaken.
“We’re excited to have Jack join our Content Board,” said Ed Keating, vice president of SIIA’s Content Division. “Innodata Isogen is an energetic advocate for industry standards like XML and standards-based content management and publishing systems. We’re confident that he’ll help to advance SIIA’s support for open standards and intellectual property rights and help us promote an environment that allows both traditional and non-traditional digital content providers to thrive.”
Technical advances provide an unprecedented ability to create and publish content quickly and cost effectively. But creating and maintaining links in the vast range of sources is a growing technical challenge. No matter how compelling the content, broken links leave the reader with the impression that they’re not reading current content.
Unfortunately, many organizations don’t begin to think about link management until after they’ve deployed a new content management system, a shortcoming that can lead to costly pitfalls. In this white paper, Brandon Jockman, a senior consultant from Innodata Isogen, offers tips on how to avoid them by developing a link management strategy that ensures that links remain valid and useful throughout the life of the document.
The white paper also addresses the challenges of link management and offers a set of guidelines that organizations can use to incorporate this concept into documentation and content management systems.
VARBusiness once again named Innodata Isogen to its top 500 list, which includes such industry leaders as IBM Global Services, EDS and Accenture. Companies selected by the business magazine for the list are North America’s largest solution providers. They are culled from some 30,000 companies and evaluated through financial statements, Security and Exchange Commission documents, Internet searches and interviews with company executives and vendors.
Growing at annual rate of 30 percent, the market for publishing BPO in India has grown to $250 million and is expected to reach $1.1 billion by 2010, according to an article Publishers Weekly. The article offers an overview of the market in India and features prominent BPO providers, including Innodata Isogen.
In the article, Al Girardi, VP of Marketing for Innodata Isogen, says BPO “is a powerful, yet disruptive paradigm that will continue to shape how providers define themselves and how they create value for customers. Client expectations are rising and they expect business process expertise from providers, not just cost savings.”
Newspaper publishers are edging closer to delivering news to portable displays as manufacturers fine-tune designs for e-paper products.
Seiko Epson is the latest manufacturer to unveil a prototype e-paper. Its 7.1-inch screen is nearly paper thin, yet gets a 1,536- by 2,048-pixel resolution out of flexible memory chips embedded in its plastic substrate. Less flexible electronic readers recently developed include Microsoft’s Ultra Mobile PC, Samsung’s Q1, Avaretec’s Ahi, Philip Electronics’ iRex, Sony’s Reader and Jinke Electronics’ Hanlin eBook.
Publishers planning to launch large-scale trials of distributing news to e-papers this year include Hearst, Pearson and the Belgian financial paper De Tijd. Microsoft has been talking with The New York Times about using its Windows Vista operating system to deliver news to portable devices.
Google plans to the fight the lawsuit being prepared by French publishing group La Martiniere, which accuses the technology company of “counterfeiting and breach of intellectual property rights” by digitizing 100 of its titles.
The suit, to be filed in Paris, would target Google France and its parent, the American group Google Inc. La Martiniere is demanding 100,000 euros or $125,850 for each book being copied in Google’s book digitization project.
“We disagree with their case, which we will contest in court,” Google said in a statement. “Google Book Search helps users find and buy books – not read or download them for free. It is directly beneficial to authors and their publishers because it enables them to reach a wider global audience, while protecting their copyrights.” Google noted that a court case is not necessary since publishers can simply withdraw consent for use of Google’s service.
France’s publishers union, the Le Syndicat National de l’Edition, has also threatened legal action against Google Book Search. There have been concerns in France that the project could enhance the dominance of the English language.
Biological databases provider the European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI), UK, has announced the launch of the Free European Life-science Information and Computational Services (FELICS), a new project to provide the scientific community with unrestricted access to some of the world's most vital biological databases. This 11.4 million Euro infrastructure project was launched in conjunction with the Swiss Institute for Bioinformatics (SIB), the European Patent Office and the University of Cologne, Germany.
FELICS will provide specific support for mining information from patent literature in collaboration with the European Patent Office. The EBI site currently receives around two million hits each day, which is expected to rise to ten million over the next five years.
The Commission of the European Union has awarded 16.7 million Euro for the project to develop, enhance and interlink many important data resources in Europe and broaden their accessibility to the scientific community worldwide. This award is reportedly the largest ever European award for computational infrastructures needed to support biological research.
OpenDocument standard "defines a genuinely open XML file format for office applications. Suitable for text, spreadsheets, charts, graphs, presentations, and databases, the standard frees documents from their applications-of-origin, enabling them to be exchanged, retrieved, and edited with any OpenDocument-compliant software or tool. The standard will facilitate access, search, use, integration, and development of document content in new and innovative ways.”
Wikipedia has revised its policy that anyone can edit any article. An article in The New York Times reported that the Wikipedia's administrators have protected certain entries from all editing because of repeated vandalism or disputes over what should be said.
Fewer than 100 of Wikipedia’s 1.2 million entries are protected, which means that they can be updated only by a core group of trusted volunteers. Nearly another 200 are semi-protected, allowing updates only by those who have been Wikipedia members for at least four days. The delay helps curb definition wars that occasionally erupt between two or more users. Protected and semi-protected lists change regularly and often restrictions are in place for only a few days and the entry is returned to anyone can edit status. Users at all times can post personal observations on a “talk” page.
Since it was founded six years ago by Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia has grown to be the Web’s third most popular news and information source, according to Nielsen NetRatings.
Innodata Isogen, a platinum sponsor of Online Information 2006, is offering its partners the opportunity to be a part of the company’s high-traffic location at the event, which takes place Nov. 28-30 at Olympia Grand Hall, London.
Online Information draws an international audience of some 11,000 visitors, 250 exhibitors, 800 delegates and 100 representatives of industry press. Over the years, the conference has become one of the major events of the year for those who use, manage or source information, including IT professionals, marketing personnel, publishers, financial professionals and senior decision makers.
Being a part of Innodata Isogen’s partner pavilion ensures a high level of branding before, during and after the event. The company’s platinum sponsor level helps draw attendees to the pavilion. The limited space is available on a first-come, first-served basis. For information, contact Sia Hills, Manager Partner Services, shills@innodata-isogen.com.
Fast Search and Transfer (FAST), a leading developer of enterprise sarch technologies and solutions, has released the next generation of FAST Enterprise Search, FAST ESP 5. The contextual insight capability of FAST ESP 5 delivers precise answers to queries by users, giving them a unified point of access to all structured, unstructured and rich media.
Raining Data announced a new product, TigerLogic FastSOA, at the Gartner Applications Integration and Web Services Summit. The offering’s mid-tier data cache supports open standards and plugs into existing technology environments. Raining Data provides targeted XML-based applications and its customer set includes more than 550,000 active users across 20,000 customer sites worldwide.
Idiom Technologies has unveiled version 8 of the company's WorldServer globalization platform. This release will enable global organizations to benefit from advanced translation technology and take advantage of enhanced collaboration tools and other features that ease adoption, support expanded compatibility and drive measurable return-on-investment and productivity associated with complex translation and localization processes.
Dec 2 - Dec 4, 2008
Online Information 08
The world's leading event for online content and information management solutions.
Jan 27 - Jan 28, 2009
SIIA Information Industry Summit
This annual Summit of industry leaders is one of the very few forums providing strategic guidance to the information industry's senior business leaders, bankers and technologists.
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KNOWLEDGEWISE, a report on content and knowledge management trends, knowledge services and publishing technologies from the work process and technology experts at Innodata Isogen.
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