Live expert interaction via electronic means

By capturing knowledge in software, PortBlue offers a powerful new approach to knowledge transfer that can and should become an integral part of the KM strategies of leading corporations and professional service firms. PortBlue provides the scalability of electronic knowledge transfer while creating the experience of live interaction with an expert.

PortBlue in the Knowledge Management Universe

PortBlue modules are much more powerful than static documents because they are full-fledged Web applications with logic and interactivity built in to simulate the way an expert would think about the problem. PortBlue's innovation is the creation of a new software language and technique that mimics the way experts solve business problems, based on the practical experience of real experts. By applying this technique and technology, PortBlue can create Web applications at a fraction of the cost and time required to build a traditional expert system.

PortBlue extends the reach of knowledge management into critical business processes. Most knowledge management techniques and technologies seek to equip people with background information that they can use to shape their approach to a business problem. PortBlue modules bring knowledge to bear directly in a business process by providing a Web application that walks a person or team through that process using an expert's frameworks, rules of thumb, and reference materials. PortBlue modules also bring together informal and formal knowledge transfer by incorporating features typically found in groupware products such as versioning, access control, and threaded discussion.


PortBlue modules capture and convey expert know-how of five types:

1. Expert Framework for Approaching Subject Area

   Today's workers are continuously flooded with information, of which they must discern relevant patterns from meaningless background noise. Experts approach this data with an overall framework that bounds and organizes the subject area.

2. Expert Segmentation/Categorization of Individual Pieces of Information

   Within the larger framework, experts have developed meaningful categorizations of individual pieces of information to structure their analysis and reports.

3. Relevant Factual Details

   Organized within the frameworks and categorizations are the detailed factual elements and data that represent the information underlying the expert's assessment of a factual pattern.

4. Expert Logic

   Comprising the "if/then" analysis experts employ to work through the branches of the problem or task and evaluate alternative branches, this logic also includes the weighting, rankings, and rules-of-thumb that experts use to determine the optimal solution or process in relation to the problem.

5. Expert Insights

   Most importantly, experts understand how specific pieces of information fit within their overall framework and detailed categorizations as well as how that information interacts with other information.

By outlining the expert's framework in a logical process that can be navigated by (novice) users, modules force experts to make explicit the tacit knowledge that underlies their understanding of a particular domain. The flexibility of PortBlue's KCT allows tacit knowledge to be made explicit iteratively, reframing and re-categorizing information until the expert's approach is made visible in module form.

By capturing knowledge in software, PortBlue moves knowledge management from an emphasis on knowledge sharing to an emphasis on applying knowledge directly to business processes. This is an important leap forward in the field as it will enable large organizations to realize more direct benefits from their investments in capturing and transferring expertise.