What is Document Content Analysis? How it differs from Document Management. (Part 2) - March 22nd, 2011, by Fergal

(This is the second of two blog posts.)

In the first post here, I outlined how document management systems such as Sharepoint are really only as good as the structures set up to organise and store the data. Indeed, even assuming good folder structure, there is still the question of what lies within the documents. I finished the first post posing this question:

“What remains hidden is the content within the documents. Is it really any good?”

In other words, does the below ‘sea level’ doc content have acceptable quality? So, let’s now consider how ‘discovery’ and ‘concept mining’ can help in determining the answer.

Discovery

When reviewing a document, we tend to read it start to end. Under tight time constraints, you might opt to read the first few pages and skim the remainder. This approach to ‘discovery’ is error prone when dealing with voluminous documents in short time frames. You can’t assume every reviewer has equal capability or necessary domain expertise. (more…)

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What is Document Content Analysis? How it differs from Document Management. (Part 1) - March 3rd, 2011, by Fergal

(This is the first of two blog posts.)

We work with corporate entities both in the IT and Bid Compliance space. With few exceptions, these organisations currently use, or are looking to use Microsoft Sharepoint. VisibleThread does use its own repository based on subversion or equally can integrate with Sharepoint, so we work with many Sharepoint customers.

In any case, we’ve seen a number of organisations deploy Sharepoint in ‘vanilla’ form or with low levels of structural enforcement. They often take the basic free copy of Sharepoint called Windows Sharepoint Services and deploy it with fairly minimal configuration.

This can tend to lead to a ‘wild west’ scenario, where pretty much anything goes. The almost certain indicator that you are there is when you ask a colleague for a document and the response is: “it’s out on Sharepoint”. You have no clue as to where it might be; what site? What folder? You may just throw your hands in the air, sigh in exasperation and end up trawling through your e-mail threads or hard drive for the document. Well, at least you found a version of the document, right!
(more…)

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VisibleThread for IT

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