K-Praxis - Topic: Information Intelligence - Connected Intelligence : inside Microsoft Office 2003-Print

Connected Intelligence : inside Microsoft Office 2003
March 15, 2003

This week Microsoft announced its test version of the Office 2003 , rebranded as "Office System". Office 2003 takes the elements of intelligent information management within the Microsoft Office platform. This close-knit integration of a broad spectrum of information management tools and services is fairly important from the point of view of information and knowledge management........

I had written a Technology and Product Review piece sometime back Forgotten Smart Tags, about how the information and knowledge management community had forgotten about something that is so "close" to a knowledge-worker during his/her normal workday environment - Microsoft Office.

The following two features offered in the Office 2003 are particularly important to anybody interested in IM and KM:

InfoPath

This is an Office 2003 application that streamlines the process of collaboratively gathering and extracting information by creating and working with dynamic forms. The information collected, either can be inserted into a document or integrated with other business processes and CMS systems (e.g., SharePoint) by using XML and Web Services

Research Task Pane

Research Task Pane can provide on-point information for a knowledge worker within an Office application, e.g., Microsoft Word or the new OneNote application. Microsoft, by partnering with other information vendors, is in effect saying that companies can develop their own news and information intelligence solutions by using the Research Task Pane and Web Services.

Talking of collaborating companies, as in the case of Lexis Nexis, which was the first to take advantage of the not-very-clearly-perceived Smart Tag idea in the office XP, three companies - Factive (press release), Thompson Gale and eLibrary - have come out now with their own ideas of providing some kind of paid Connected-Intelligence type of solution within Office 2003.

Concurrently, if you read the messages coming out from Microsoft Research, it looks like that MS is tightly integrating with its research arm and introducing greater automated information management capabilities across its product suite. In a recent interview (Microsoft: from research to reality) the Microsoft Research's Rick Rashid, Rashid elaborates on the connection between researching many of the innovative technologies at MS Research, and percolating the findings of the research into key Microsoft products. In the interview Rashid talks, to a great extent, about Natural Language Processing capabilities being developed and integrated into Microsoft products.

I think it would be interesting to watch Microsoft Research and how they integrate with rest of the Microsoft family of products.

	Making sense of online textual information and information management technologies

	Connected Intelligence : inside Microsoft Office 2003 March 15, 2003 This week Microsoft announced its test version of the Office 2003 , rebranded as "Office System". Office 2003 takes the elements of intelligent information management within the Microsoft Office platform. This close-knit integration of a broad spectrum of information management tools and services is fairly important from the point of view of information and knowledge management........ I had written a Technology and Product Review piece sometime back Forgotten Smart Tags, about how the information and knowledge management community had forgotten about something that is so "close" to a knowledge-worker during his/her normal workday environment - Microsoft Office. The following two features offered in the Office 2003 are particularly important to anybody interested in IM and KM: InfoPath This is an Office 2003 application that streamlines the process of collaboratively gathering and extracting information by creating and working with dynamic forms. The information collected, either can be inserted into a document or integrated with other business processes and CMS systems (e.g., SharePoint) by using XML and Web Services Research Task Pane Research Task Pane can provide on-point information for a knowledge worker within an Office application, e.g., Microsoft Word or the new OneNote application. Microsoft, by partnering with other information vendors, is in effect saying that companies can develop their own news and information intelligence solutions by using the Research Task Pane and Web Services. Talking of collaborating companies, as in the case of Lexis Nexis, which was the first to take advantage of the not-very-clearly-perceived Smart Tag idea in the office XP, three companies - Factive (press release), Thompson Gale and eLibrary - have come out now with their own ideas of providing some kind of paid Connected-Intelligence type of solution within Office 2003. Concurrently, if you read the messages coming out from Microsoft Research, it looks like that MS is tightly integrating with its research arm and introducing greater automated information management capabilities across its product suite. In a recent interview (Microsoft: from research to reality) the Microsoft Research's Rick Rashid, Rashid elaborates on the connection between researching many of the innovative technologies at MS Research, and percolating the findings of the research into key Microsoft products. In the interview Rashid talks, to a great extent, about Natural Language Processing capabilities being developed and integrated into Microsoft products. I think it would be interesting to watch Microsoft Research and how they integrate with rest of the Microsoft family of products.