Information Management Nightmares

Do you deal with more than a cubic meter of paper?

Organize it with a Xanadu Hypertext system. Thanks to a unique linkage and storage system, Xanadu handles text, pictures, graphics and other data with equal ease.

A Typical "Data Base Management System" stores information in a rigid fashion. In contrast, Xanadu gives you the freedom to decide how your information is stored and recalled. This is accomplished by the usage of "links", which may be thought of as connectors between two pieces of information. Using these "links", you can define how the various pieces of information interact with each other.

The management of information is no simple task in today's world. Information should be a resource, not a problem, but few tools currently exist to manage it. This affects everyone, from the secretary who loses memos to the engineer who spends half his time shuffling paperwork.

Examples:

The Engineering Nightmare -- designing an airplane

Let's say that you decide to move the wings on your airplane to a slightly different position on the fuselage. Many design documents will be affected by this change, perhaps thousands of them. To change the wing, you must first find all the components that will need to be modified. The change must then be made, but only after searching through the blueprints to make sure that change will not adversely affect anything else. Once this is done, all affected documents must be updated to reflect the changes.

For something as seemingly trivial as changing the position of one bolt, you have to know what components may be affected. For example, rewiring may be required if the bolt is moved into the path of a cable. Since you probably don't have strings connecting your documents together, you must spend an appreciable amount of time chasing down all the documents which refer to that bolt and the things that it may affect. This is both distracting for the engineer who is trying to think about the plane and not the paper, and expensive in terms of human costs.

The Software Nightmare -- large system design

Suppose you have a moderately complex software system, comprising some 7 to 20 man-years of effort. It is used in several non-identical installations. The documentation is slightly different in each installation, but the specifications are almost identical.

Assume there is a modification to the system. Each modification requires changes in the documentation. However, because each installation is unique, it requires slightly different documentation. The program maintenance staff needs to know what revisions of what parts are at each installation. After program bugs are found, which installation(s) will need the fix, (some may refuse an upgrade but will accept a bug fix) and which parts of the documentation are affected?

The Office Management Nightmare -- tons of UGH paperwork

Every day brings telephone calls, memos and letters. These may refer to other pieces of information or each other. The problem is that important things tend to get lost in the shuffle. After a memo is filed in N different file drawers, a note is attached to one of the copies. The note really should be on all of them because it is of general interest, but it isn't. When someone reads copy #2 of the memo, the attached note isn't there, and can't be found.

Many documents are of interest to several different departments of your organization. At present these are stored in several different places. But then how can you either correct all of the copies of a particular document or insure that closely related information is stored with them all? One way to combat this is to file all memos in a common place, but this severely limits the usefulness of the memos (nobody bothers to look them up).

The Xanadu Hypertext System is the answer

All of the above problems are caused by an overwhelming amount of information and the lack of a convenient way to keep track of it. Important items tend to be lost within the mass of the facts and figures that one accumulates. This makes finding and revising documents a much larger undertaking than it should be.

The Xanadu Hypertext System is a tool specifically designed to cope with the nightmare of complex information management. To use it, you feed all your data in with an interactive frontend program. As you feed in the information you establish links to interconnect related pieces. These links stay with the information through editing, thus preserving relationships through modifications or versions. This means that you can link together all the documentation for a specific project. You can use links to precisely label parts of a blueprint, text or program so that you can refer to it later without having to scan the whole document. Xanadu hypertext means never having to say "I can't find it."

Although all complex information management problems have common roots, you oesn't see. This means that the interactive "frontend" can be customized to meet your needs.

Xanadu Hypertext is easy! Easy to use, easy to understand so your people don't need rigorous training courses. This system frees them to concentrate on their work from day one. It saves them time and headaches which saves you money!

We'll be happy to discuss your systems needs with you. If you would like further information or a system demonstration, contact Roger Gregory, President of XOC Inc.