For Technical Documentation Teams & Knowledge Base Administrators
How to Crowdsource Your Content and
Table of Contents
Collaborative Knowledge Base...1
Cost Justified...............................1
The In-Crowd is Fickle.................3
Technical Documentation
by Mark Fidelman
MindTouch, Inc.
Collaborative Knowledge Base
Success today is not about amassing knowledge or information; instead its
about absorbing and processing new information and using the knowledge
gained to innovate? The Web 1.0 concept of a corporate knowledge base valued
accumulated information. Terabytes of data were gathered, categorized, and
secured for future generations, like the reference section in a library. Often
impressive in scale it is was hardly the incubator of corporate innovation.
Ideas are rarely found in the details of existing knowledge. Rather, innovation
is born from new knowledge or perspectives applied to existing ideas. The
corporate knowledge base should foster innovation by attracting new knowledge
and enabling perspectives. Archived information is only one component of the
solution; as it is the knowledge baseline from which innovation evolves.
A visionary can single-handedly ideate the next big thing, but two heads
are better than one. And a hundred heads would be even better? Web 2.0
technologies have proven the value of “crowdsourcing” – appealing to all users
across the Internet for information, expertise, and ideas to help solve a problem
or accomplish an objective – yet, most companies are unwilling to submit critical
proprietary information to the whims of anonymous Internet denizens.
To create a corporate knowledge base that leverages the power of crowdsourcing,
companies must first attract and engage their “in” crowd of people, including
employees, customers, business partners, and industry experts, who have a
vested interest in the new information and ideas that will be generated by the
crowd. By implementing a MindTouch Collaborative Knowledge Base (CKB),
companies can cater to their in-crowd to develop a powerful source of new
information and ideas that foster innovation.
Cost Justified
Admit it – you’re tired of hearing experts tell you how to become more
innovative. Different vendors offer a wide range of solutions that cost money
How to Crowdsource Your Content and Technical Documentation 2
For Technical Documentation Teams & Knowledge Base Administrators

and promise speculative ROI. Innovation is necessary, but the cost of

Cost Justify a
innovation does not necessarily have to be expensive. Collaborative Knowledge
Base (CKB)
A MindTouch CKB, deployed on our highly regarded collaboration
• The corporate knowledge base
platform, can be ramped from ground zero at minimal cost and scaled to
should incubate, not archive,
enterprise level as a company’s in-crowd, and ROI, grows. A more aggressive ideas to foster innovation
implementation can deliver quantifiable ROI within weeks with expedited • Crowdsource a CKB by
user adoption because a CKB delivers hard-dollar savings. Consider a cultivating your “in” crowd to
company is already paying to try to collect the information that will be make positive contributions

provided for free by the in-crowd. Feedback from customers, product • Build stronger connections
between team members,
suggestions, potential partner initiatives, and industry trends have historically
partners, and customers
been gathered, developed, or investigated – sometimes accurately – by
• Using MindTouch’s open
company staff at a significant cost. An engaged in-crowd can provide that source CKB ensures
input, and more, on an ongoing basis with greater clarity. An enterprise CKB immediate ROI by producing
has the real potential of replacing the work product of multiple staff members, hard dollar savings and high-
value information
while contributing ideas and perspectives from hundreds of connected and
informed people.

Figure 1. MindTouch Collaborative Knowledge Base homepage

October 28, 2009 © 2009, MindTouch, Inc.

How to Crowdsource Your Content and Technical Documentation 3
For Technical Documentation Teams & Knowledge Base Administrators

The benefits of collaboration as enabled by the CKB are also well

documented. From connecting globally dispersed supply chains to capturing
customer motivations to shortening project time-to-completion by eliminating
iterative processes, collaboration has been deemed strategically important to
the future of their businesses by more than 50% of CEOs recently surveyed.
Clients that have implemented a MindTouch CKB also report unexpected
benefits from collaboration – stronger relationships across the in-crowd.
Employees have greater visibility into each team member’s contribution.
Customers feel connected, and that the company values their input. Business
partnerships become transparent, so that morale builds as team members can
track execution of common goals through each company’s organization.

Web 2.0 is rapidly creating an expectation by customers and partners that

companies interact at a personal level. Engaging the in-crowd through a
MindTouch CKB can meet those expectations.

Figure 2. Safe crowdsourcing thorugh content moderation

The In-Crowd is Fickle

While people will go to any length to complain or criticize, the in-crowd
must be properly motivated to contribute meaningful insight and thoughtful

October 28, 2009 © 2009, MindTouch, Inc.

How to Crowdsource Your Content and Technical Documentation 4
For Technical Documentation Teams & Knowledge Base Administrators

suggestions. A company’s partners and customers are on the bleeding edge

of any ineffective communications. They feel the pain, know what a solution
should provide, and want to be involved. The CKB empowers that in-crowd
to contribute to the clarification and updates of company documentation, and
treats them as valued members of the project team.

The MindTouch CKB solution is a robust web-based application that

engages users through a simple, intuitive interface localized for 20 different
languages. Crowdsourcing of documentation is enabled with drag-and-drop,
WYSWYG functionality and version review and tracking. Contributors need
to see action taken on their input, and the MindTouch CKB enables the
company to respond quickly with powerful content moderation tools that
allow “editors” to process and approve individual contributions. Production
of company-branded PDF documentation directly from the CKB is enabled,
and all content is stored as easily accessible XML.

The entire process is fast, painless, and immediately satisfying for the in-
crowd. Input received will benefit the company’s product development,
customer service, marketing, and content development efforts, and
should influence senior management’s strategic plan. By implementing a
collaborative knowledge base, companies transform partners, customers, and
users into an engaged community of expert participants in the company’s
innovation strategy.

October 28, 2009 © 2009, MindTouch, Inc.

Headquarters MindTouch Partners
MindTouch, Inc. Certified Vendors
555 West Beech Street ASK Knowledge-n-Aber Pty. Ltd.
San Diego, CA 92101 Corra Tech Nukak Technologies
Tel: +1 619.795.8459
Elvenite AB Productive Edge
Fax: +1 619.795.3948
Esolia Solutions First
Email: marketing@mindtouch.com
Fairway Technologies Tinval
www.mindtouch.com
Intertesto

MindTouch Inc. is the leader Technology Partners

in Enterprise 2.0 Collaborative
Aurelia Reporter Pentaho
Networks and is changing the
GroundWork Salesforce.com
way businesses capture, share
and collaborate on information. Kaltura ScreenSteps
With MindTouch, companies are Microsoft SugarCRM
revolutionizing how they work and
MySQL The Washington Post
increasing returns on investment
Novell
from existing software, hardware
and humanware.

MindTouch serves more than 16 Join MindTouch

million users and thousands of
companies. Customers include
Mozilla, Microsoft, Intel, Intuit, The
Washington Post, EMC, Harvard,
Timberland, The US Army and The
United Nations. MindTouch users
report double-digit percentage
increases in productivity and
orders of magnitude of return on
investment from their MindTouch
powered Collaborative Intranets,
Extranets and Documentation
Portals.