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Publishers are aware of the challenges they face in a disruptive and competitive environment, but many do not know how to maximize the value of their content in order to improve engagement and reach.
Publishers that offer subscription-based content should be in a position to track and measure their customers’ consumption and tailor experiences according to their needs. Despite this, they are often unable to leverage their customer insight to its full potential because they do not maintain a single view of the important subject data in their knowledge estates. This is known as a ‘Single Subject View’ which is similar to the concept of a Single Customer View and is applied to the view of the things that are important within the publisher’s content – their core knowledge assets. The absence of a Single Subject View prevents publishers from giving their subscribers the content they want at a time when their intent is strongest.
Many publishers are investing in this aspect of their knowledge management as a means to better reach and engage their audiences. A Single Subject View improves efficiency throughout the publishing process and provides content intelligence by eliminating duplication of effort, improving discoverability, and enabling enterprise-wide analytics to be keyed against a single view of the truth. The result is that publishers can immediately make more data-informed decisions, and strategically they can deliver more rapid innovation because it is easier for them to introduce new ways of presenting content without duplicating effort.
To achieve effective this kind of effective knowledge management, follow these three best practices:
Establish a shared ‘living map’ of the business
Like other areas of digital transformation, best practice information management is best informed by developing a living ‘map’ and shared vision of your organization’s data landscape. Many use a “domain model” – a conceptual model that incorporates both the important elements of your business and, crucially, how they relate to one another. Collectively understanding what challenges need to be resolved and which gaps need to be filled, will help you prioritize the next steps. Involve your employees in this; spend some time and tease the information you need out of them – they may not understand the importance of the information they hold. The value locked in their heads is a large part of your core business advantage and something that will be more challenging to access if people aren’t always together in the office.
Create an information backbone for your Single Subject View
One fundamentally important element that is so often neglected in favor of deploying exciting new technology is a strong information backbone. Once you have established your shared map, the next step is to move this into use so that your staff and systems can connect the valuable information across your business processes. This crucial work is required to enable data portability and interoperability – the ability to use and move core business data between different applications – and it provides your Single Subject View. Without this, it is challenging to connect assets across company silos, which is critical to quickly adapt to changing market conditions. As organizations store growing quantities of data and move data from one use case to another, they need to have their information assets connected to their single subject view in every scenario.
Utilize Knowledge Graph technology
A particularly powerful way to structure your information backbone is to use a knowledge graph. They are fast becoming an integral part of organizations’ data landscapes as they provide a human and machine-readable database of all the things of interest to the enterprise in their domain. Using a knowledge graph, a single metadata allocation on one piece of information could then be used to connect that information with other groupings and contexts automatically, even several logical steps from that original piece of metadata. The information can be easily understood by both humans and machines. This capability, along with the meaning and contextual information that knowledge graphs provide, is a key element in driving audience discovery, reach and engagement. Truly agile publishers will increasingly use knowledge graphs to enable more devolved innovation.
Effective knowledge management is an important endeavor on the road to driving increased efficiency and reaching maximum audience engagement. It is vital to consider elements such as an information backbone and a Single Subject View because, without these aspects, publishers will find it increasingly slow and expensive to innovate and compete.
Matt Shearer
CPO, Data Language
Founded in 2014, Data Language is a UK-based data innovation consultancy and solution provider that has worked with organizations such as News UK, Syngenta and Cochrane to deliver digital transformation solutions using knowledge graphs and AI.
Prior to working with Data Language, Matt was Head of BBC News Labs, where he delivered BBC News’ R&D and innovation strategy and the #newsHACK innovation event programme and turned BBC News Labs into an active innovation incubator.
