Information is every organisation’s most valuable asset and managing this information is essential. The amount of data and information within an organisation is growing dramatically. Efficient management of information can result in better customer service, improved internal communication, better decision making and enhanced productivity.Information management systems provide the foundations to turn corporate data into intelligent, shared information by providing a central information source accessible to all. These systems have changed over time and evolved to meet various business requirements, such as remote working.Document Management Definition: “Document Management is the process of managing documents through their lifecycle. From inception through creation, review, storage and dissemination all the way to their destruction” (Document Management Avenue).Document management systems started to appear in the mid 1980′s. The original aim was to develop a system to enable the paperless office. Scanning all paper documents and retrieving them electronically was about as complex as it got. These early file and find systems were simply electronic filing cabinets.The document management market has been revolutionised over the past 10 years by technological advances. Now document management systems capture almost any type of document not just paper but electronic documents, HTML, e-mails, EDI, XML, etc. They still allow you to store, search and retrieve documents, but the retrieval is now instant from anywhere and the search options much wider.Another major enhancement to document management was the introduction of workflow. Workflow is defined as “an IT technology which uses electronic systems to manage and monitor business processes. It allows the flow of work between individuals and/or departments to be defined and tracked” (Document Management Avenue). It has become an integral part of many document management solutions and meant that it was possible to progress from simple file and find systems to a solution that could ‘manage’ documents; tracking the process of distributing documents, and monitoring and controlling work. The Internet is transforming the way that workflow is used and has led to a new term: eProcess. Research group Ovum defines eProcess as “workflow for the e-business. e-Process extends the concept of process automation to include a company’s partners, suppliers and customers”. Instead of monitoring organisation-wide processes, eProcess is extended to include any external organisations. For document management this means it is possible to effectively integrate documents with their partners, suppliers and customers. This increases collaboration between organisations and improves the efficiency of the supply chain.Version ControlThe definition of document management includes the ability to manage a document through its life cycle from creation to archive. While a document is live it may need to be worked on and altered by any number of people. Version control ensures you do not have clashing versions of documents. Version control gives “control over exactly who can edit documents and enter new documents into the system and avoids any update conflicts” (Cimtech). This involves checking out any documents that are being edited and locking them, allowing users to either save as newer versions or over-write old versions.”In the future, document management will become established as a vital business tool for all organisations looking to share information on an enterprise basis” (Document Management Update)
Summary of document management:
Manage all types of document
Workflow and eProcess
Version Control
An evolved technology that forms the basis for content and knowledge management
Fast becoming a must-have for competitive businessContent management and knowledge management systems are basically extensions of the document management concept and this is where a lot of the confusion arises.Content ManagementDefinition: “a set of tasks and processes for managing content explicitly targeted for publication on the Web throughout its life from creation to archive” (Ovum).Content management solutions are essentially an extension of document management that includes managing web content. Some vendors simply re-badged their products without actually adding any functionality, but the true vendors of content management have added valuable capabilities that continue the scope of document management, beyond the confines of one organisation.An area of much discussion in the market currently is personalisation of content. The prolific use of the Internet and the growth of customer relationship management (CRM) have made it much easier for companies to offer a personal service to customers. Content management systems often incorporate personalisation capabilities although the degree of personalisation can vary greatly, from referring to every user by name to offering the same content to a specific group of users. The technology involved today makes it possible for organisations to replicate the dialogue that a local shop owner might have with its customers, even though they may have many millions. A content management system can also be used like a document management system for capture, distribution and retrieval of information. Enterprise Content Management is a new term that is applied to a system that includes both content and document management capabilities. Content management solutions collect data or information from all required sources, organise it for ease of retrieval and deliver it using a web-compliant system. This can either be over the Internet or Intranet.A content management solution is commonly used to keep a website up-to-date; it is likely to include web-based publishing, format management, revision control, indexing, search, and retrieval. A content management solution captures paper, media, graphic images, email, voice, video etc, and although it is usually associated with managing for the web it can be extended to include any structured and unstructured content for any channel.Another vital difference between document management and content management is the way in which documents are classified. Document management is concerned with the external classification of a document, the index fields and keywords used to refer to it. Content management however, is concerned with internal classification methods such as author, date and time of creation and context.Content management systems have become an essential part of a company’s IT infrastructure and this looks set to continue:”Content management growth is slowed, not halted by the IT recession, while much of the IT industry is in recession, Strategy Partners analysis shows the CM market as continuing to display strong growth of 34.5% for software and services in Europe 1999-2003 after accounting for September 11th and current recessionary factors. This is faster than the worldwide market (29.5%)” (Strategy Partners, 2001).Summary of content management:
Manages all content but usually focuses on managing web content
Web-publishing
Personalisation
A growing market that is becoming more establishedKnowledge Management Definition: “The process of capturing value, knowledge and understanding of corporate information, using IT systems, in order to maintain, re-use and re-deploy that knowledge” (Document Management Avenue).Knowledge management aims to capture all the knowledge in an organisation, from paper documents, web information, electronic reports, employee knowledge or knowledge gained from informal meetings and discussions. Content or document management systems are often the backbone of knowledge management but there is a vast difference in the scope of information captured.Knowledge management allows employees access to intelligent information and includes features such as collaboration, business intelligence, just-in-time e-learning and CRM. On an enterprise-level, knowledge management carries the largest change to the working practises of an organisation. IT solutions of this nature almost invariably require a change to the working environment. Knowledge management, is highly complex and Implementing a knowledge management solution brings about a large culture change at all levels within an organisation.Interest in knowledge management has grown recently for several reasons; the Internet has raised users’ expectations of immediate access to relevant information; organisations are realising the value of their corporate knowledge; the shift in employment patterns, with people spending much less time in a company increases the chance of losing knowledge with an employee – it has been said that NASA wouldn’t be able to put a man on the moon now, as the knowledge was not captured at the time.Knowledge management has a strong link with CRM, (customer relationship management) and a knowledge management system that contains all customer data can be used as a CRM system. This has made these systems especially popular in call centres. The ability to answer a customer query on the initial call not only saves time and the cost of a call back, but also improves customer relations.Knowledge management systems are expensive and notoriously difficult to cost justify. The main reason for this is that a lot of the benefits are intangible. Improving efficiency, productivity, employee access to information and customer satisfaction are difficult to calculate. The benefits can be vast but the financial outlay and cultural change can be off-putting and hence the market is growing slowly:”The KM market is projected to be worth between $1,500 and $4,000 millions in one to two years’ time, based on in-depth user surveys” (Strategy Partners).Apart from the very largest of organisations, there has not been the take-up of knowledge management systems to match the hype.Summary of knowledge management:
Manages all knowledge in an organisation
Often thought of more as a concept then a system
Strong links with CRM
Difficult to cost justify
A new market that is growing but slowlySummary of Document, Content, Knowledge ManagementDocument management systems are now the definitive answer for efficient management of documents. The introduction of content management systems provided the ability to manage web content. Whereas knowledge management extends this concept to manage all knowledge existing in an organisation. So while all three manage information using similar methods, the scope and purposes remain quite distinct.
Document, Content, Knowledge: Part 1, Document Management
3 Simple DIY Natural Skin Care Tips – Turn to Mother Nature For Results
Mother Nature holds the secrets for the best natural skin care tips!It is fascinating how cosmetics and skin care products evolve. The industry swings back and forth responding to what it considers as the consumer demand du jour. Have you heard that the industry is now going green? It is starting primarily with packaging, but the ingredients used in products are also going greener. Skin care companies are now looking to Mother Nature to put results into facial rejuvenation treatments by focusing on formulations using the power of natural substances; embracing a more holistic and organic approach for treating aging skin issues.Needless to say, natural skin care has made a huge comeback during the past decade. Now we are seeing companies turning back to Mother Nature for the answers to effectively address aging skin symptoms.We’ve all hear the term cosmeticeuticals which introduced a treatment benefit into cosmetics and skin care products. Now the skin care industry is evolving to include “Nutraceuticals”. Nutraceuticals can be summarized as the use of natural substances that have medicinal properties to promote health benefits. These natural ingredients are selected for their attributes and properties that are used to treat or prevent a range of diseases, afflictions, or conditions. As modern medicine has documented, Mother Nature does provide astonishing results.It’s not surprising that clinical trials also substantiate that nature has a bountiful supply and an amazing array of natural substances that promote skin rejuvenation. (Wouldn’t the ancient civilizations who utilized ingredients such as dairy products, honey, and herbs as effective skin treatments be surprised by this revelation?)The utilization of natural ingredients is now becoming the cornerstone of the skin care industry when formulating anti-aging skin care treatments. (It’s top secret so don’t tell anyone. Natural ingredients work to rejuvenate aging skin. Astonishing isn’t it?)And guess what?You can make your own natural anti-aging skin care treatments quite quickly and easily while saving tons of money in the process!Here are three simple natural skin care tips to help get you started on your own natural anti-aging skin care routine:
Choose natural ingredients that have healing and anti-aging properties for the best results
Use fresh ingredients: Select the freshest ingredients available to extract the most benefit from the anti-aging attributes of the ingredients when making your own skin care treatments
Select natural ingredients that are beneficial for your skin type Any skin care routine can benefit from integrating homemade natural treatments. You can even use a duel approach by combining a natural approach to rejuvenating your skin with over-the-counter products. Using the natural rejuvenating power that Mother Nature provides to enhance your routine will help you achieve visible results for your aging skin concerns. Among a huge list of benefits, natural ingredients provide essential nutrients to your skin which help it to protect and heal itself. Your own skin care recipes can be used right along side your other skin treatments for younger, healthier looking skin by putting Mother Nature along with these three basic natural skin care tips to work for your skin.
Best Affiliate Program – Black Belt Marketing Success Secrets
If you search the internet you’ll find millions of free and also paid online affiliate programs.Most people have signed up in these online affiliate programs and tried to make money from them but failed miserably.They don’t know why.Are you one of them?If yes, read on to find out how to locate the right top affiliate program and how to promote it to start making money.All affiliate programs are not created equal.Some will make you money if properly promoted and others will not, no matter what you do.Why?Below are some reasons why.(1) The Right Affiliate Programs To PromoteMost people are under the mistaken notion that just because an affiliate program is free that they can promote it and get rich.Nothing can be farther away from the truth.The bitter reality is that if an affiliate program is free, then most likely thousands of people will want to sign up to promote it.Since thousands of people are promoting it, competition will be stiff and so the likelihood of getting rich from it will be slim because there will be more people promoting it than people who wish to buy it.When supply is greater than demand, profitability will nose dive.This is economics 101.So stay away from free online affiliate programs which hundreds of thousands of people are already promoting!The best online affiliate program which will likely make you rich will be the one that very few people are promoting and which is in great demand. The demand MUST be greater than supply.Most likely, such an affiliate program will not be offered free!You will have to pay for it to promote it.When people are required to pay to promote an affiliate program, then most people will not sign up for it, so only few people will promote it.This will then guarantee that the demand for it will be greater than the number of people who promote it and this means that the profitability for it will skyrocket.This is the kind of online affiliate program which can make you rich!There are few people online who are getting rich from online affiliate marketing and this is one of their sacred hidden secrets of success!(2) Build Landing Pages For Your Online Affiliate ProgramsYou must create a landing page at your website for any affiliate program which you desire to promote.At the landing page, you will then include a short introduction of the affiliate program, preferably, your own personal experience of using the program or a short review.Then at the bottom, include the link to the affiliate program website.This affiliate program landing page must be optimized also.You may also add Google AdSense ads and other pay per click ads as well as Clickbank products on this page to monetize it.This way, if your customer doesn’t click and go to the affiliate program, they may click on any of the pay per click ads such as AdSense or Clickbankbuddy or pay per click ad and you’ll make money.If you don’t know how to monetize your website with Google Adsense, Clickbankbuddy ads and pay per click products and ads, please contact us for free help.By having a landing page for your affiliate programs at your website, you have the advantage of not losing all the traffic you’ve built up if the affiliate program is stopped.If the affiliate program which you’re promoting is discontinued, you may replace it with another similar affiliate program and continue generating income from it.(3) Secret To Promote Your Online Affiliate ProgramOnline marketing has become more difficult than rocket science.During the past couple of years, most affiliate marketing strategies which used to work 6 yrs ago don’t work anymore.E-mail marketing has been dead for many years now.And the ISPs have added salt to the injury by creating so many filters which filter away your e-mail offers and so they don’t reach their destinations.Besides, most people don’t read their e-mails anymore.Most people have been bombarded by thousands of spams and offers and they just don’t have time to read these offers anymore.So e-mail marketing is completely dead.Free For All, FFA promotion is dead too.Banner advertising is dead too, unless you have thousands of dollars to promote it at highly trafficked sites.Search engine marketing, SEM doesn’t work any more because the search engines are constantly changing their optimization rules.It takes both Google and Yahoo several weeks to even index your page and include it in their system.You may optimize your website properly and attain a top ten position in a few keywords.But they never last long.In a few months when they update their search ranking, all your positions may likely disappear and your traffic will be gone too.You may try to promote through Google Adword campaign.But the truth is that not all programs can succeed in getting traffic from Google Adword or any other pay per click advertising.If you try to promote an online affiliate program, which hundreds of thousands of others are already promoting using Google Adword and pay per click advertising, you’ll end up squandering thousands of dollars! This has happened to many people already.So stop squandering your money in pay per click advertising.
(There is a better way. To learn more contact us for free help.)You may also try to use article writing to promote your affiliate programs.But very few people know the “SECRET” on how to write a highly optimized interesting article which will attain top ranking in the search engines and therefore produce traffic and sales for your online affiliate program.To succeed in doing this, you must know how to optimize the article, it must be interesting and you must post it where many people will read it.If you write and post an article but it can’t be found in the search engines when people search for the affiliate program which you’re promoting and if people are not reading it at the article directories where you posted it, you’ll not generate any traffic or sales!This is what many people are doing and among the TOP reasons why they are not making any money in their online affiliate marketing.(4) Traffic Is The Lifeblood Of Success In Online Affiliate Marketing ProgramThere are so many naïve people who have spent tons of dollars buying internet marketing e-books, programs and videos from so called internet marketing gurus and as if that is not enough, they have been suckered into squandering thousands of dollars attending seminars organized by these so called gurus only to find out that what they are peddling are outdated and archaic internet marketing strategies which don’t work any more.These suckers never to think about the truth.The truth is that no right thinking businessman will sell a secret on how to generate thousands of traffic daily to you for $50, when he knows he can keep his secret, use them to promote hundreds of affiliate programs and make millions.The real truth is that these so called gurus have no secret that really work. But what they have is a large e-mail list which they have built through e-zine and newsletter publishing for many years.So they make their money by marketing their e-books and affiliate programs to these mailing lists.If you have 50,000-100,000 e-mail lists which you have generated over 6 yrs, you’ll always manage to make a few thousands of dollars marketing any program to them especially if it is about internet marketing!In conclusion, there are still a few online affiliate programs which are easy to market and generate obscene income and there are still many jealously guarded traffic generating secrets which work and which can explode your website traffic and sales and so make you rich instantly.But they are not free. They will cost you some money.If you’re ready to pay to sign up in any of these few online affiliate programs, and to get the powerful traffic generating secrets of millionaire webmasters, then you’re serious about getting rich from online affiliate programs.May these insights about affiliate program, best affiliate program, free affiliate program, affiliate marketing program, top affiliate program, free online affiliate program, best free online affiliate program, online affiliate program, make money with affiliate program help you to attain success in your online business.Copyright Info: This article is copyrighted and you may publish this article at your website, in your e-zine (newsletter, blogs) or send it to a friend as long as you retain the author’s resource box, including the website address, and refrain from altering the content or using it in any re-direction manipulation scheme.If you don’t agree to these conditions, please don’t copy and use this article.Anyone who violates this condition will be subject to legal action and payment of damages for violation of our copyrights. Thank you.