In 1992 I formed the Montague Institute to help businesses learn how to use the Internet to increase internal efficiency and add value to their products and services. This involved new ways of creating, integrating, and disseminating content. I used the phrase "knowledge base publishing" to describe the integration of print, Web, database, and social media publishing techniques in a business context. Integration involves both editorial and technical issues. While traditional publishing is linear and segmented, knowledge base publishing is web-like, interconnected, and integrated into the user's work flow.
The Knowledge Base Publisher is the business person responsible for the bottom line impact of the content creation life-cycle, from content creation and promotion to knowledge deployment and maintenance. The Publisher's primary focus is increasing knowledge worker productivity and adding shareholder value — i.e. lower costs, lower risk, increased revenues. The actual implementation is carried out by Knowledge Base Editors.
The Knowledge Base Editor's role is to acquire, verify, organize, promote, and deploy the information in a knowledge base system. The Editor's job begins, not with the content, but with the users (audience) and the tasks they want to perform. The implication is that there are multiple editors, each of whom has an intimate understanding of their users and business processes. They are fluent in print, Web, and database publishing processes. They are boundary spanners who know how to identify and cultivate subject matter experts. They are architects who can create publishing standards, policies, and metadata schema.
In other words, while the information technology function provides the technical infrastructure for search, retrieval, and collaboration, the knowledge base editing function provides the intellectual infrastructure. Both types of infrastructure must be integrated for maximum productivity.
I began publishing the Montague Institute Review in 1992 to help information professionals in traditional roles adapt to new technologies and business models. In 1998, the Montague Institute Review became a monthly publication with an A - Z index powered by software I developed using the Filemaker database system.
During this period, I developed a hands-on knowledge base publishing lab on the Web and published two books: