I just sat through a presentation of a practice management software application that transformed the way people worked and functioned. Innovation according to Wikipedia is the ”creation of better or more effective products, processes, technologies, or ideas that are accepted by markets, governments, and society.” It is interesting to note that innovation differs from invention where as the former is relating to use of a new idea or method and latter is the creation of the idea. Read further >

Private publishers such as Wolters Kluwer have long been an essential part of the tax, legal & regulatory content value chain. Traditionally they have aggregated, organized, linked, and explained primary and secondary sources of law so that professional practitioners — lawyers and accountants — can help their clients better predict the consequences of their decisions. Print-based aggregation in looseleafs and treatises over time transformed into digital aggregation in full-text searchable databases organized by document type and/or practice area. Digital aggregation is challenging because government sources of law, including legislative, judicial, and executive branches of government, make their data available in different formats according to their own schedules. If these different government entities could make their data available using uniform standards, private publishers would be able to aggregate primary sources of law more quickly. Of course, that would mean that explanations, linking, and topical organization could occur more quickly. This is how I view the promise of 5-star linked data for tax, legal & regulatory publishers. Read further >

I assume you have heard about Flipboard, and bet that if you own an iPad you may be a Flipboard user just like me. For those not familiar with Flipboard, think of it as your very own personal social magazine. The Flipboard app pulls information from the web, both from news sources and from your friends pages and services, like Facebook and Twitter. All this information is presented automatically in an appealing magazine-like format. Needless to say the content of your magazine is updated continuously.

Personal settings travel with you
Recently Flipboard released a new version and introduced Flipboard Accounts. I believe this is a big deal in those environments and households where not every single individual has its own iPad. With Flipboard accounts you can share an iPad but still have your own very personal Flipboard magazine. As the company states; “With Accounts, your reading preferences stay with you no matter how you access Flipboard. For example, families and friends who share an iPad can log into Flipboard and find their favorite sections.” Read further >

The term gift can refer to the transfer of anything that makes another person happier – or, as the case may be, healthier. In the spirit of the holiday gift-giving season, I was interested to hear that pharmaceutical company Boehringer Ingelheim (BI) is developing an online pharmaceutical game along the lines of Facebook’s Farmville, Castleville, Fishville, and YoVille. Read further >

At Frankfurt Book Fair, I gave a presentation on “Semantic Web for Publishers”, including what semantic search means and how it affects our current and future business. Since all chairs were taken – some people even had to stand at the back – and nobody in the audience left before the session was over, one can certainly conclude that the buzz word “semantic” has caught the attention of the publishing community. Read further >

Some days ago I stumbled upon some thoughts on key trends in the publishing and information services industry and tried to reduce them to six main points. In the overview below you can see how I distilled them. Read further >

Algorithms are becoming increasingly sophisticated at finding and categorizing information. Indeed, for a thought-provoking talk on the importance of algorithms in general, check out this TED presentation, entitled, “How Algorithms Shape Our World.” Google, for example, has built a business on algorithms. Google’s PageRank algorithm ranks search results for researchers based partly on the authority of links. Google Scholar applies algorithms that purport to identify for US cases (1) how a case has been cited; (2) the documents that are cited by a particular case; and (3) related documents. There is even a patent. I applaud Google’s research and development. But can algorithms replace human editorial expertise? Not yet. Read further >

While big breakthroughs and transformative innovations with new products and services are always hoped for, incremental improvements and enhancements implemented over time do add up and can make a big difference in product/service quality, sales success, increased retention, and customer loyalty. Read further >

When I started preparing this post, just like with any of the other posts, I told myself not to forget to add tags to support findability and SEO. So, my attention was directed to the tagging systems and their usage. I would like to share with you some thoughts on this topic. Read further >