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Vin Caraher
Thomson Reuters
February 2009

Intelligent information goes beyond just aggregated data or a federated search—it is comprised of the right data with the right analysis and visualizations to deliver just what is needed, when it is needed and no more. Vin Caraher recently contributed an article on intelligent information to Japan’s Journal of Information Processing and Management (Joho Kanri).

Joho Kanri is a major information industry magazine in Japan, published by the Japan Information Center of Science and Technology. The magazine targets a wide spectrum of key opinion leaders, corporations, universities and libraries in Japan. The text below is an extract of Vin Caraher’s article, "The Future is Intelligent Information" which was published in the magazine in January 2009.

Information is what drives our economies today, which are becoming increasingly knowledge-driven. As knowledge workers, we require intelligent information that goes beyond just aggregated data or federated search. Intelligent information is comprised of the right data with the right analysis and visualizations to deliver just what is needed, when it is needed and no more. Simply put, less is more.

There is a general trend towards decentralization of knowledge functions, with an increasing need for collaboration and the sharing of information across the workflow.

The globalization of information and the rising importance of Asia have led to an increased need and demand for translated information across diverse markets. According to the Thomson Reuters World Intellectual Property Today Report 2008, three out of the four top patenting countries in 2007 were from Asia Pacific, with Japan leading the way ahead of the US, China and South Korea. More than 26 per cent of the world’s scholarly research published between 2001 and 2006 originated from Asia-Pacific countries.

The rapid rate of growth of information available on the Internet, and compressed time for decision-making, is putting more demands than ever on our time. This poses certain challenges as we face information overload from various sources. While English continues to be the lingua franca of the business and research world, different languages are the reality. Over 50 per cent of patents published each year are now in the non-Roman character sets of the Japanese, Korean and Chinese languages.

Global collaboration has increased dramatically in recent years. Thirty per cent of papers published in 2006 had five or more authors compared to less than 20 per cent a decade ago. Today, having a global view is essential to success – research teams are now international, corporations operate globally and innovation is global.

To address these challenges, information providers are turning to new ways of information delivery. At Scientific, we are developing intelligent information solutions to help our customers make the most effective use of information in their workflow to achieve success and enhance global collaboration. We help our customers make sense of what is important and timely through powerful analytic and visualization tools such as charting, citation mapping and technology landscape mapping on a single robust platform such as Thomson Innovation, Thomson Pharma and ISI Web of Knowledge. Similarly, through these integrated platforms, we integrate information from disparate sources to provide information professionals deeper insight beyond the sum of information elements.

To make information more accessible for a global audience, Scientific developed machine-assisted translation capabilities to help deliver full text Japanese patent information in English to non-Japanese speaking customers such as researchers, information professionals, patent attorneys and analysts.

Understanding our customers’ intellectual property (IP) needs, and the business and cultural context within Japan, is the key for us to help them succeed. In November 2008 we launched a Japanese Thomson Innovation user interface to help Japanese companies and professionals search and analyze IP more effectively. In 2009, we will develop a Japanese ISI Web of Knowledge user interface to deliver easy access to high quality, diversified scholarly information to our Japanese users. To enable customers to fully appreciate the key feature benefits of Thomson Innovation, we will also be making the Japanese patent search available in the Japanese language.

In order to achieve these intelligent information solutions, much organization and interpretation of information has to take place and this is where Thomson Reuters excels at building the intelligence into intelligent information. Professionals fully appreciate having the right information seamlessly delivered at just the right time and place in their workflow to help them make better decisions, faster.

The future is Intelligent Information.

View the original article in Japanese

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