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In this post I’d like to address a technology known as information capture. Wikipedia defines information capture as&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;em&gt;“[T]he process of collecting paper documents, forms and e-documents, transforming them into accurate, retrievable, digital information, and delivering the information into business applications and databases for immediate action. “&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;Information capture technology is primarily aimed towards medium-to-large size businesses that employ hundreds or thousands of employees (although it is also applicable for smaller businesses as well).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;(This follows on from my last post, which introduced the importance of understanding the enormous variety of information technologies being developed by high-tech companies. Understanding as many of them as possible can only benefit your career.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;That post also introduced a simple diagram which emphasizes, at a very high level, that one of the core technologies within the high-tech information industry is the persistent storage of the digital bits that are being generated by applications.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Which brings us back to information capture: The diagram below highlights a subset of inputs and content types that can bombard a corporation with incoming information. Some of this information is digital, and some of it is in other forms (e.g. paper).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://media2.vault.com/256f5715-f100-478a-9142-90aadcedfe38/00000067.png&quot; alt=&quot;content types; information capture&quot; border=&quot;0&quot; class=&quot;embeddedObject&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&#160;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;What is the value of information capture technology? It allows a business to realize the following advantages:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;Helps reduce (or completely eliminate) error-prone manual data entry&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Saves time by enabling fast retrieval of ALL content electronically.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Scales a growing business from hundreds of documents per day to thousands.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Centralizes the information captured at distributed offices.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Allows for the immediate categorization of incoming content.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Reduces the risk of failing government audits (by making it easier to quickly find requests for &lt;em&gt;categorized&lt;/em&gt; content).&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;In order to truly recognize the value of information capture technology, consider the long list of document types that typical businesses struggle to ingest (by the thousands):&lt;/p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;New account applications&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Invoices&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Purchase orders&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Human resource records&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Patient records&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Legal documents&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Mortgage and loan documents&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Insurance claims&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Tax forms&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Permits&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Prescription orders&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Shipping/receiving documents&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Etc.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;Corporations that cannot effectively ingest, organize, and persistently store their documents are at risk. At best they risk functioning inefficiently; at worst they risk breaking the law by being unprepared for governmental audits.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Study up on information capture technology. For starters, my own company (EMC) provides a robust information capture technology known as Captiva.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Steve&lt;br /&gt;http://stevetodd.typepad.com&lt;br /&gt;Twitter: @SteveTodd&lt;br /&gt;EMC Intrapreneur&lt;/p&gt;

Steve Todd

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