In the past year, EK employees have published over 40 pieces of thought leadership, addressing everything from best practices and success stories, to key insights and lessons learned. Sharing our knowledge and expertise is one of our guiding principles at EK, and we are proud of the thought leadership generated by our team. Below are the top 5 blogs and white papers written by EK employees in 2017:

1. Folders v. Metadata in SharePoint Document Libraries
Clients often ask us why we recommend using metadata over managing folders and subfolders in a SharePoint document library. In this white paper, Tatiana Baquero Cakici explains the advantages of tagging documents with metadata versus simply using folders to organize and navigate through documents in SharePoint document libraries.

2. Knowledge Management in 2017
The EK team focuses on integrating knowledge management with the best principles in Agile, IT, Information Management, and Change Management to achieve tangible results. In this blog, Zach Wahl reflects on this concept and shares critical integration points he hopes to see more of with knowledge management in 2017.

3. Search UX Best Practices Part 1: User Input
Search impacts everything from the way we find a website (Google), to how we find content on a site. But search also puts a heavier burden on the user than most website interactions. Users must locate your search form, enter a meaningful keyword, and sift through pages of results in order to find the most relevant information. In part one of this two-part series, Rebecca Wyatt shares best practices to make search forms as intuitive as they can possibly be for your users.

4. Taxonomy Governance Best Practices
When a taxonomy design is done well, it goes unnoticed, as it enables a seamless connection between the end user and the content. However, as business needs evolve, it’s inevitable that a taxonomy design must also evolve in order to maintain this seamless experience. Claire Brawdy shares several best practices for taxonomy governance, and explains why governance is the key to ensuring a the evolution of a taxonomy happens in a managed, predictable way. 

5. 3 Steps to Developing a Practical Knowledge Management Strategy: Step 2 Define the Target State
There are three key questions to ask when developing a Knowledge Management (KM) strategy: where are you, where do you want to be, and how do you ensure you get there successfully? At EK, we define these as the Current State, Target State, and Roadmap. As simple as these terms may sound, developing a complete understanding of each is no small challenge. In this white paper series, one of EK’s KM strategy experts, Yanko Ivanov, addresses the second step: developing the Target State Definition.

Which EK blogs were your favorites, and what topics would you like to see us write about in 2018? Let us know on Twitter, or reach out at [email protected].