The Solution

To address the challenge of carbon emissions created due to content storage, EK designed a web application that uses AI technologies to identify duplicate content and evaluate options for handling it. The application dashboard displays aggregate statistics on the presence and type of duplicate content, allowing users to make a decision as to whether it should be retained, updated, archived, or deleted. This provides a clear view into duplication and its connection to CO2 emissions, promoting a cultural shift among employees to increase awareness about carbon footprint and the role they play in contributing to a wider sustainability strategy.

One of the striking aspects of this effort was the sheer magnitude of the IM team’s content collection, estimated at 500 million documents and many petabytes of information. The EK team worked with our stakeholders to gather and prioritize requirements and build the application with this scale in mind, including a number of key components:

• Identification of content storage locations;
• Indexer to crawl the content collection;
• Data pipeline to convert content to a vector database that allows for closer examination;
• AI model to continuously identify duplicate content within designated content locations; and
• Method of showing scope and impact of duplicate content to the end user.

The technical team leveraged Azure Open Source AI and Power BI to design a prototype dashboard to quantify duplicate unstructured and semi-structured assets based on scans, indexes, and queries. EK also used reusable code wherever possible to further minimize computing power and carbon emissions. Leveraging the metadata and textual content, AI-based analysis can rate the likeness of other information previously indexed. 

The team created a value statement and strategic roadmap that will continue to provide guidance to the company on continued expansion of their Green IM tool. It included consideration of the complexities of their environment for topics like scaling, rollout, and customer footprint growth, underscored with the importance of change management as a critical component. As part of the roadmap, the team was also able to identify opportunities to selectively introduce proactive and reactive automation in order to help users reduce their content duplication throughout the course of their normal day, such as warning notifications when uploading content that meet a certain similarity threshold with an existing content item in a given repository (proactive) or enabling system triggers to remove duplicative content through the dashboard interface itself (reactive). The ultimate future state goal, as identified in the roadmap, is to enhance the web application and make it actionable in supporting push-of-a-button content deletion through the application itself, promoting a pure “don’t make me think” content experience and further behavioral change.

The EK Difference

EK leveraged our history with the company, our understanding of their strengths and challenges, and a balanced team of technical and strategy subject matter experts (SMEs) to proactively propose the idea of a “green” application, based on their enterprise effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The EK team also developed a customized scorecard to evaluate the pilot’s success and ensure alignment to the company’s strategic objectives, including measurable factors like:

• The ability to calculate carbon footprint with at least 80% accuracy;
• 75% of non-technical users report being able to use the application on their first try with minimal training; and
• A solution that abides by all architectural and security requirements established by the technical team.

This comprehensive understanding of the challenge, paired with the delivery of a tailored mechanism for assessing the proof of concept’s success, enabled EK to perfectly position the organization to take on similar efforts in the future.

The Results

EK identified potential pathways to quickly address carbon emissions within the IM team, with an initial focus on reducing the amount of duplicate content within their repositories. 

In partnership with the client, EK identified a pilot set of 226 million of the company’s approximately 500 million total documents to prove out the concept.

With a 15% target deduplication rate this company has the potential to remove over 34,000 kilograms of CO2 from the environment through a reduction in physical server usage, directly supporting their objective to remove greenhouse gas emissions from operations that they are capable of controlling.

Beyond providing tangible, quantifiable statistics upon which to build a business case for larger ESG initiatives, this initiative also provided the IM team with a repeatable framework for running similar “green” efforts in the future, as well as faster and more accurate decision making through less clutter and quicker access to content.

In doing so, EK was able to demonstrate the technical and business viability of an AI-driven content deduplication tool. The pilot use of this tool demonstrated the accurate identification of duplicates based on conversion to a vector database and AI modeling to identify – and fine tune – duplicate content.

 

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“Knowledge graphs, presently, are one of the keys to successful implementation of Knowledge AI. I was happy to share EK’s experience putting these exciting concepts and technologies into practice for our clients,” said Hilger.

Database Trends and Applications is a magazine covering data and information management, big data, and data science. In addition, their website connects visitors with white papers, webinars, and other learning opportunities in the field. The magazine and website deliver advanced trends analysis and case studies serving the IT and business stakeholders of complex data environments.

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Enterprise Knowledge (EK) has been listed on KMWorld’s inaugural list of leaders in Artificial Intelligence, the AI 50: The Companies Empowering Intelligent Knowledge Management. KMWorld developed the list to help shine a light on innovative knowledge management vendors that are incorporating AI and cognitive computing technologies into their offerings.

As a services provider and thought leader in Enterprise AI, Knowledge Management, and Semantic Search, EK is one of the few dedicated services organizations included on the list. EK was uniquely recognized for our leadership in this area, including our AI Readiness Benchmark and range of functional demos that harness knowledge graphs, natural language processing, ontologies, and machine learning tools.

“As the drive for digital transformation becomes an imperative for companies seeking to compete and succeed in all industry sectors, intelligent tools and services are being leveraged to enable speed, insight, and accuracy,” said Tom Hogan, Group Publisher at KMWorld.  “To showcase organizations that are incorporating AI and an assortment of related technolo­gies—including natural language processing, machine learn­ing, and computer vision—into their offerings, KMWorld created the “AI 50: The Companies Empowering Intelligent Knowledge Management.”

Lulit Tesfaye, EK’s Practice Leader for Data and Information Management stated, “We are thrilled for this recognition and extremely proud of the cutting edge solutions we’re able to deliver for organizations looking to optimize their data and Knowledge AI initiatives. This recognition demonstrates EK’s ability to leverage our real-world experience and define the enterprise success factors for maturity and readiness for AI, bringing the focus back to business values, and the tangible applications of AI for the enterprise. Allowing organizations to go past the common AI limitations is what helps us show where we are leading.”

EK CEO Zach Wahl added, “Thanks to KMWorld for this recognition and congratulations to my amazing colleagues for their thought leadership. Alongside our recognition as one of the top 100 Companies That Matter in Knowledge Management for the sixth year in a row, this demonstrates EK’s leadership position at the nexus of KM and AI.”

About Enterprise Knowledge

Enterprise Knowledge (EK) is a services firm that integrates Knowledge Management, Information Management, Information Technology, and Agile Approaches to deliver comprehensive solutions. Our mission is to form true partnerships with our clients, listening and collaborating to create tailored, practical, and results-oriented solutions that enable them to thrive and adapt to changing needs.

About KMWorld

KMWorld is the leading information provider serving the Knowledge Management systems market and covers the latest in Content, Document and Knowledge Management, informing more than 21,000 subscribers about the components and processes – and subsequent success stories – that together offer solutions for improving business performance.

KMWorld is a publishing unit of Information Today, Inc. 

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With our focus and expertise in knowledge, data, and information management, Enterprise Knowledge (EK) developed this proprietary Enterprise Artificial Intelligence (AI) Readiness Assessment in order to enable organizations to understand where they are and where they need to be in order to begin leveraging today’s technologies and AI capabilities for knowledge and data management. 

Based on our experience conducting strategic assessments as well as designing and implementing Enterprise AI solutions, we have identified four key factors as the most common indicators and foundations for many organizations in order to evaluate their current capabilities and understand what it takes to invest in advanced capabilities. 

This assessment leverages over thirty measurements across these four Enterprise AI Maturity factors as categorized under the following aspects. 

1. Organizational Readiness

The foundational requirement for any organization to undergo an Enterprise AI transformation stems from alignment on vision and the business applications and justifications for launching successful initiatives. The Organizational Readiness Factor includes the assessment of appropriate organizational designs, leadership willingness, and mandates that are necessary for success. This factor evaluates topics including:

• The need for vision and strategy for AI and its clear application across the organization.
• If AI is a strategic priority with leadership support.
• If the scope of AI is clearly defined with measurable success criteria.
• If there is a sense of urgency to implement AI.

With a clear picture of what your organizational needs are, your Organizational Readiness assessment factor will allow you to determine if your organization meets the requirements to consider AI related initiatives while surfacing and preparing you for potential risks to better mitigate failure.

2. The State of Organizational Data and Content

The volume and dynamism of data and content (structured and/or unstructured) is growing exponentially, and organizations need to be able to securely manage and integrate that information. Enterprise AI requires quality of, and access to, this information. This assessment factor focuses on the extent to which existing structured and unstructured data is in a machine consumable format and the level to which it supports business operations within the enterprise. This factor consider topics including:

• The extent to which the organization’s information ecosystems allow for quick access to data from multiple sources.
• The scope of organizational content that is structured and in a machine-readable format.
• The state of standardized organization of content/data such as business taxonomy and metadata schemes and if it is accurately applied to content.
• The existence of metadata for unstructured content. 
• Access considerations including compliance or technical barriers.

AI needs to learn the human way of thinking and how an organization operates in order to provide the right solutions. Understanding the full state of your current data and content will enable you to focus on the right content/data with the highest business impact and help you develop a strategy to get your data in an organized and accessible format. Without high quality, well organized and tagged data, AI applications will not deliver high-value results for your organization.

3. Skills Sets and Technical Capabilities

With the increased focus on AI, the demand for individuals who have the technical skills to engineer advanced machine learning and intelligent solutions, as well as business knowledge experts who can transform data to a paradigm that aligns with how users and customers communicate knowledge, have both increased. Further, over the years, cloud computing capabilities, web standards, open source training models, and linked open data for a number of industries have emerged to help organizations craft customized Enterprise AI solutions for their business. This means an organization that is looking to start leveraging AI for their business no longer has to start from scratch. This assessment factor evaluates the organization’s existing capabilities to design, management, operate, and maintain an Enterprise AI Solution. Some of the factors we consider include:

• The state of existing enterprise ontology solutions and enterprise knowledge graph capabilities that optimize information aggregation and governance. 
• The existence of auto-classification and automation tools within the organization.
• Whether roles and skill sets for advanced data modeling or knowledge engineering are present within the organization.
• The availability and capacity to commit business and technical SMEs for AI efforts.

Understanding the current gaps and weaknesses in existing capabilities and defining your targets are crucial elements to developing a practical AI Roadmap. This factor also plays a foundational role in giving your organization the key considerations to ensure AI efforts kick off on the right track, such as leveraging web standards that enable interoperability, and starting with available existing/open-source semantic models and ecosystems to avoid short-term delays while establishing long-term governance and strategy. 

4. Change Threshold 

The success of Enterprise AI relies heavily on the adoption of new technologies and ways of doing business. Organizations who fail to succeed with AI often struggle to understand the full scope of the change that AI will bring to their business and organizational norms. This usually manifests itself in the form of fear (either of change in job roles or creating wrong or unethical AI results that expose the organization to higher risks). Most organizations also struggle with the understanding that AI requires a few iterations to get it “right”. As such, this assessment factor focuses on the organization’s appetite, willingness, and threshold to understand and tackle the cultural, technical, and business challenges in order to achieve the full benefits of AI. This factor evaluates topics including:

• Business and IT interest and desire for AI.
• Existence of resource planning for the individuals whose roles will be impacted. 
• Education and clear communication to facilitate adoption. 

The success of any technical solution is highly dependent on the human and culture factor in an organization and each organization has a threshold for dealing with change. Understanding and planning for this factor will enable your organization to integrate change management that addresses the negative implications, avoids unnecessary resistance or weak AI results, and provides the proper navigation through issues that arise.

How it Works

This Enterprise AI readiness assessment and benchmarking leverages the four factors that have over 30 different points upon which each organization can be evaluated and scored. We apply this proprietary maturity model to help assess your Enterprise AI readiness and clearly define success criteria for your target AI initiatives. Our steps include: 

• Knowledge Gathering and Current State Assessment: We leverage a hybrid model that includes interviews and focus groups, supported by content/data and technology analysis to understand where you are and where you need to be.This gives us a complete understanding of your current strengths and weaknesses across the four factors, allowing us to provide the right recommendations and guidance to drive success, business value, and long-term adoption.
• Strategy Development and Roadmapping: Building on the established focus on the assessment factors, we work with you to develop a strategy and roadmap that outlines the necessary work streams and activities needed to achieve your AI goals. It combines our understanding of your organization with proven best practices and methodologies into an iterative work plan that ensures you can achieve the target state while quickly and consistently showing interim business value.
• Business Case Development and Alignment Support: we further compile our assessment of potential project ROI based on increased revenues, cost avoidance, risk and compliance management. We then balance those against the perceived business needs and wants by determining the areas that would have the biggest business impact with lowest costs. We further focus our discussions and explorations on these areas with the greatest need and higher interest.

Keys to Our Assessment  

Over the past several years, we have worked with diverse organizations to enable them to strategize, design, pilot, and implement scaled Enterprise AI solutions. What makes our priority assessment unique is that it is developed based on years of real-world experience supporting organizations in their knowledge and data management. As such, our assessment offers the following key differentiators and values for the enterprise: 

• Recognition of Unique Organizational Factors: This assessment recognizes that no Enterprise AI initiative is exactly the same. It is designed in such a way that it recognizes the unique aspects of every organization, including priorities and challenges to then help develop a tailored strategy to address those unique needs.
• Emphasis on Business Outcomes: Successful AI efforts result in tangible business applications and outcomes. Every assessment factor is tied to specific business outcomes with corresponding steps on how the organization can use it to better achieve practical business impact.
• A Tangible Communication and Education Tool: Because this assessment provides measurable scores and over 30 tangible criteria for assessment and success factors, it serves as an effective tool to allow your organization to communicate up to leadership and quickly garner leadership buy-in, helping organizations understand the cost and the tangible value for AI efforts. 

Results

As a result of this effort, you will have a complete view of your AI readiness, gaps and required ecosystem and an accompanying understanding of the potential business value that could be realized once the target state is achieved. Taken as a whole, the assessment allows an organization to:

• Understand strengths and weaknesses, and overall readiness to move forward with Enterprise AI compared to other organizations and the industry as a whole;
• Judge where foundational gaps may exist in the organization in order to improve Enterprise AI readiness and likelihood of success; and
• Identify and prioritize next steps in order to make immediate progress based on the organization’s current state and defined goals for AI and Machine Learning.

The post Enterprise AI Readiness Assessment appeared first on Enterprise Knowledge.

Applying any of the principles identified in the above infographic can upgrade your search strategy to a future-ready, semantic experience. Whether you think your search needs a simple update or is ready for a serious upgrade, we can help. EK offers a range of search-specific services that will produce actionable recommendations. Please feel free to contact us for more information.

The post The 5 Key Components of a Semantic Search Experience appeared first on Enterprise Knowledge.

Tesfaye and Ivanov will be speaking on the topic of Knowledge Graphs as a Pillar to IA on October 16th under the Knowledge Graph track. They will share best practices, real-world use cases, and case studies regarding innovative and scalable graph-based approaches and solutions that serve as a foundation for advanced AI capabilities, such as Machine Learning (ML), Natural Language Processing (NLP), Predictive Analytics, and the like.

For more information, visit the event website at: https://graphorum2019.dataversity.net/index.cfm

About Enterprise Knowledge 

Enterprise Knowledge (EK) is a services firm that integrates Knowledge Management, Data and Information Management, Information Technology, and Agile Approaches to deliver comprehensive solutions. Our mission is to form true partnerships with our clients, listening and collaborating to create tailored, practical, and results-oriented solutions that enable them to thrive and adapt to changing needs.

Our core services include:

• Knowledge Graphs, AI and Semantic Technologies design, strategy,  and implementation;
• Taxonomy and Ontology Design;
• Knowledge & Information Management  Strategy and Implementation
• Change Management and Communication; and
• Agile Transformation and Facilitation.

At the heart of these services, we always focus on working alongside our clients to understand their needs, ensuring we can provide practical and achievable solutions on an iterative, ongoing basis.

About Graphorum

Graph technology has been steadily growing over the years, but recently hit a critical mass. Knowledge graphs, graph analytics, graph databases, graphs and AI are bringing new innovation and new practical applications to the marketplace. Graphorum is designed to accommodate all levels of technical understanding. It will bring together emerging disciplines that are focused on more intelligent information gathering and analysis.

The post Lulit Tesfaye & Yanko Ivanov Speaking at Graphorum 2019 appeared first on Enterprise Knowledge.

Enterprise Knowledge’s (EK) Lulit Tesfaye, Practice Lead for Data and Information Management, is presenting at this year’s

Delegates of member states and professionals will join industry subject matter experts and thought leaders from around the world. These individuals will provide best practices and presentations to keep attendees up-to-date on innovative and emerging technology in data and information management, workforce development, communication strategies, funding, and regulations.

Tesfaye will be speaking and facilitating workshops on May 22nd and on May 23rd as part of the Innovation and Emerging Technologies track, on the topic of Mining Data to Improve / Develop Transit Services. Tesfaye will share best practices and case studies regarding innovative and scalable data and information management approaches.

For more information, check out the event page.

About Enterprise Knowledge

Enterprise Knowledge (EK) is a services firm that integrates Knowledge Management, Data and Information Management, Information Technology, and Agile Approaches to deliver comprehensive solutions. Our mission is to form true partnerships with our clients, listening and collaborating to create tailored, practical, and results-oriented solutions that enable them to thrive and adapt to changing needs.

Our core services include:

• Strategy, design, and development of Knowledge, Information and Data Management systems;
• Knowledge Graphs and Semantic Technologies design and implementation;
• Taxonomy and Ontology Design;
• Project Strategy and Road Mapping;
• Brand and Content Strategy;
• Change Management and Communication; and
• Agile Transformation and Facilitation.

At the heart of these services, we always focus on working alongside our clients to understand their needs, ensuring we can provide practical and achievable solutions on an iterative, ongoing basis.

About CTAA

The Community Transportation Association of America (CTAA) and its members believe that mobility is a basic human right. From work and education, to life-sustaining health care and human services programs, to shopping and visiting with family and friends, mobility directly impacts quality of life.

CTAA members are in the business of moving people – efficiently and cost-effectively. CTAA staff, as well as board, state, and tribal delegates are dedicated to ensuring that all Americans, regardless of age, ability, geography or income, have access to safe, affordable and reliable transportation. Our priority is our members and the communities and passengers they serve.

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