Digital documents: a product architecture perspective

The paper presents a case study describing the use of Lotus Notes to automate the publishing process of a large subscription based industry research firm. The case is described and analyzed using a framework that builds on concepts used in designing physical product architectures. These concepts were applied by treating the document as an information product. The product and process platforms of both the traditional and Notes based approaches to producing the product were compared. Notes, in addition to providing a new distribution channel, enabled the firm to move from a traditional document based publishing paradigm to one more akin to an information refinery based on the storage and integration of modular information units. That move had significant impact on the way in which documents were written, edited, and marketed. It was shown that digitizing documents by itself is not sufficient to create a flexible platform from which multiple versions of a document may be derived. Rather, the entire structure of the document must be reconceived in terms of more primitive information units which can be digitized, indexed, and linked for retrieval in a variety of ways.