Content produced for research products for professionals has traditionally been heavy on plain text, such as an explanation of the reasoning behind a legal concept or how a particular tax is applied. Beyond the use of a few tables (perhaps more than a few in the area of tax and accounting), little of this content could be described as “visual.” The idea of presenting content in a more visual style has traditionally been limited to graphic design that might make the text more readable (e.g., margins, bullet lists, asides). However, the concept of visual learning suggests the use of more visual-oriented alternatives can more effectively communicate content to customers. Read further >

Last week I attended a very informative HIMSS webinar on the health IT implications of the US Supreme Court case regarding the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). For those outside of the US who may not be following this case, in March 2010 President Obama signed the ACA, which among other provisions, requires individuals who do not have health insurance through their employer or one of several government-sponsored programs to purchase health insurance or pay a penalty. This provision is referred to as the individual mandate. Read further >

 New Breed of Certified Public Accountant, Chartered Accountant, Licensed Accountant

The time is now for everyone in the profession to realize that no matter what we do the times are a-changing and there is more opportunity than there ever was if you want it. There are small businesses starting every day and the best part of it is that no matter what the size they are, they all have the potential to be global.

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Since Wolters Kluwer was founded, serving customers has been central to our strategy. We provide information that professionals find of value. In the past, when access to information was the critical need for our customers, we required that they subscribe to or buy content from sources that we owned and controlled. It was crucial that our customers had the relevant information at hand in order to be able to make informed decisions, comply with regulations, or work on a timely legal problem to serve clients. We served that crucial need for 155 years in the form of ‘top down’ distribution, selling our expertise to customers in a one-way flow of information. Read further >

In her posting on Customer Intimacy and Calm Technology, Ornella Zampieri advises “…develop a mockup or a prototype and test it with your users: you will be able to have clear evidence of their behavior and reactions. And you will see if your solution is calm enough or not.” This got me thinking of the artifacts User Experience (UX) uses to predict how people will react to something before it is built… Read further >

Innovation has been an essential component of Wolters Kluwer throughout its 175-year history. There are direct connections between Jan-Berend Wolters’ and Aebele Everts Kluwer’s innovations in textbook publishing from the 1800’s and today’s innovations at Wolters Kluwer in mobility, collaboration, advanced search, and the evolution towards hybrid content-software solutions. Read further >

As the “e-health” arena continues to grow with electronic health records in the United States, a continuing demand for Universal Patient Identification Numbers to link electronic records around the globe and fast paced integration of hand held electronic devices in exam and operating rooms around the world, it isn’t hard to imagine that the costs of securing this information is growing rapidly as well. A recently published report estimates that by 2015, spending on security will reach 70 billion annually in the United States alone. Read further >

During our regular LOD2 plenary meeting in Vienna, which was by the way very intense and enlightening, I had the privilege to join a workshop on Open Data and the OGD Business Day in the evening.

Big business as well as a killer application for Open Data are not yet there, but companies like Wolters Kluwer can and probably will play an important role in this new ecosystem. Why? Because the assets we already have are the assets that are needed: knowledge about content and data, knowlegde about the domain, sophisticated technological skills and direct access to the customers with elaborated products at the core of their professional key processes.

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Location: A5 enroute to Wolters Kluwer Corporate Office.
Driver: summary!
Car voice: you have a 58 unread messages and 18 alerts.
Driver: please tag and provide urgency?
Car voice: tagging complete and the most urgent are 4 messages from your client “LegalComplex” which match with 2 alerts. Is this urgency correct?
Driver: yes. Please proceed with research?
Car voice: research indicates that 2 briefs and 1 IntelliConnect document match messages tagged “LegalComplex” and “Urgent”, would you like these to be linked?
Driver: no, just save to client folder and schedule in calendar… Read further >

In my last post I stated that user satisfaction is key in retaining customers and in achieving competitive advantages. Here I will discuss a different aspect of the same topic. We aim to offer the best products to generate user satisfaction. When launching a new product however, sometimes you need to focus on the time-to-market variable and speed up the release, which can lead to having to compromise on offering some functionality and/or the complete content you estimated at design time. This is a very delicate decision to take, indeed. Read further >