For Technical Documentation Teams & Knowledge Base Administrators

How to Crowdsource Your Content and Technical Documentationby Mark FidelmanMindTouch, Inc.

Collaborative Knowledge base

Success today is not about amassing knowledge or information; instead its about absorbing and processing new information and using the knowledge gained to innovate? The Web 1.0 concept of a corporate knowledge base valued accumulated information. Terabytes of data were gathered, categorized, and secured for future generations, like the reference section in a library. Often impressive in scale it is was hardly the incubator of corporate innovation.

Ideas are rarely found in the details of existing knowledge. Rather, innovation is born from new knowledge or perspectives applied to existing ideas. The corporate knowledge base should foster innovation by attracting new knowledge and enabling perspectives. Archived information is only one component of the solution; as it is the knowledge baseline from which innovation evolves.

A visionary can single-handedly ideate the next big thing, but two heads are better than one. And a hundred heads would be even better? Web 2.0 technologies have proven the value of “crowdsourcing” – appealing to all users across the Internet for information, expertise, and ideas to help solve a problem or accomplish an objective – yet, most companies are unwilling to submit critical proprietary information to the whims of anonymous Internet denizens.

To create a corporate knowledge base that leverages the power of crowdsourcing, companies must first attract and engage their “in” crowd of people, including employees, customers, business partners, and industry experts, who have a vested interest in the new information and ideas that will be generated by the crowd. By implementing a MindTouch Collaborative Knowledge Base (CKB), companies can cater to their in-crowd to develop a powerful source of new information and ideas that foster innovation.

Cost Justified

Admit it – you’re tired of hearing experts tell you how to become more innovative. Different vendors offer a wide range of solutions that cost money

table of Contents

Collaborative Knowledge Base...1

Cost Justified ..............................1

The In-Crowd is Fickle ................3

© 2009, MindTouch, Inc.October 28, 2009

2How to Crowdsource Your Content and Technical DocumentationFor Technical Documentation Teams & Knowledge Base Administrators

and promise speculative ROI. Innovation is necessary, but the cost of innovation does not necessarily have to be expensive.

A MindTouch CKB, deployed on our highly regarded collaboration platform, can be ramped from ground zero at minimal cost and scaled to enterprise level as a company’s in-crowd, and ROI, grows. A more aggressive implementation can deliver quantifiable ROI within weeks with expedited user adoption because a CKB delivers hard-dollar savings. Consider a company is already paying to try to collect the information that will be provided for free by the in-crowd. Feedback from customers, product suggestions, potential partner initiatives, and industry trends have historically been gathered, developed, or investigated – sometimes accurately – by company staff at a significant cost. An engaged in-crowd can provide that input, and more, on an ongoing basis with greater clarity. An enterprise CKB has the real potential of replacing the work product of multiple staff members, while contributing ideas and perspectives from hundreds of connected and informed people.

Figure 1. MindTouch Collaborative Knowledge Base homepage

Cost Justify a Collaborative Knowledge base (CKb)

• The corporate knowledge base should incubate, not archive, ideas to foster innovation

• Crowdsource a CKB by cultivating your “in” crowd to make positive contributions

• Build stronger connections between team members, partners, and customers

• Using MindTouch’s open source CKB ensures immediate ROI by producing hard dollar savings and high-value information

© 2009, MindTouch, Inc.October 28, 2009

3How to Crowdsource Your Content and Technical DocumentationFor Technical Documentation Teams & Knowledge Base Administrators

The benefits of collaboration as enabled by the CKB are also well documented. From connecting globally dispersed supply chains to capturing customer motivations to shortening project time-to-completion by eliminating iterative processes, collaboration has been deemed strategically important to the future of their businesses by more than 50% of CEOs recently surveyed. Clients that have implemented a MindTouch CKB also report unexpected benefits from collaboration – stronger relationships across the in-crowd. Employees have greater visibility into each team member’s contribution. Customers feel connected, and that the company values their input. Business partnerships become transparent, so that morale builds as team members can track execution of common goals through each company’s organization.

Web 2.0 is rapidly creating an expectation by customers and partners that companies interact at a personal level. Engaging the in-crowd through a MindTouch CKB can meet those expectations.

the in-Crowd is fiCKle

While people will go to any length to complain or criticize, the in-crowd must be properly motivated to contribute meaningful insight and thoughtful

Figure 2. Safe crowdsourcing thorugh content moderation

© 2009, MindTouch, Inc.October 28, 2009

4How to Crowdsource Your Content and Technical DocumentationFor Technical Documentation Teams & Knowledge Base Administrators

suggestions. A company’s partners and customers are on the bleeding edge of any ineffective communications. They feel the pain, know what a solution should provide, and want to be involved. The CKB empowers that in-crowd to contribute to the clarification and updates of company documentation, and treats them as valued members of the project team.

The MindTouch CKB solution is a robust web-based application that engages users through a simple, intuitive interface localized for 20 different languages. Crowdsourcing of documentation is enabled with drag-and-drop, WYSWYG functionality and version review and tracking. Contributors need to see action taken on their input, and the MindTouch CKB enables the company to respond quickly with powerful content moderation tools that allow “editors” to process and approve individual contributions. Production of company-branded PDF documentation directly from the CKB is enabled, and all content is stored as easily accessible XML.

The entire process is fast, painless, and immediately satisfying for the in-crowd. Input received will benefit the company’s product development, customer service, marketing, and content development efforts, and should influence senior management’s strategic plan. By implementing a collaborative knowledge base, companies transform partners, customers, and users into an engaged community of expert participants in the company’s innovation strategy.

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