Let’s face it, most documents have an IQ in the low single digits approaching absolute zero. “Intelligent” and “document” seem a conflicted combination, a case of never the twain shall meet if ever there was one.

But just because it ever was need not mean forever more.

Our software is designed to mimic the experience and judgement of the document author, to complete complex, repetitive tasks with unfailing speed and absolute accuracy. But its greatest virtue is that anyone can use it. There’s no need to be a rocket scientist, no need to understand every function and feature. Instead, our software is built on the same principles as the iPhone^®, where you can choose to use and enjoy only as many features as you wish.

Once you decide that using dumb documents is just plain dumb, there are three levels of potential intelligence to which your documents can aspire with just a bit of effort on your part.

Thousands of users are perfectly satisfied operating at the Basic level; it requires only ten minutes of training to become completely proficient.

For those who demand more, the Moderate level represents documents with IQs somewhere between room temperature and above average. Given two hours of experience with our software, an author creating these will be saving 4-6 hours or more every week. That's quite a payoff: invest 2 hours and reap 4-6 every week forevermore. While the vast majority of users of our software produce documents at this level, both TheFormTool and Doxserá adopt to every user’s individual needs and experience.

Users willing to keep improving over time can become true artists who build Advanced documents that outperform a fair percentage of information workers. As the video describes, well-designed intelligent documents seem like prose and poetry, a joy to use and behold.

The best recent example is an Australian risk management firm that operates globally, primarily in developing and near-industrial countries. Its basic master evaluation and report form runs about 24,000 words but has more than 400 variables, of which the majority are boolean conditions. It is beautiful in appearance and extraordinarily comprehensive. Manually completing the report by one of the firm's 400 engineers required nearly a week of full days, plus seemingly endless proofing. Building the smart version took nearly two months and substantial vetting and review by nearly every management level. The payoff: final reports are now completed in 20 minutes, including reviews and approvals, and errors have been effectively eliminated.

_{tags: IQ, I.Q., intelligence, smart}

If you'd like even more information on the intelligent approach to creating intelligent documents, take a look at our "Zen" article, here.