In many businesses, particularly creative businesses, where everyone is focussed on client services, attention is the most difficult resource to manage. Successful knowledge management requires tricks like consensual surveillance to gather and maintain valuable information in the moment. Getting valuable information in front of people when they need it is equally challenging. From our experience, I propose that just as What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) has become the dominant paradigm for document production, the interface requirement for systems which support social networks and communities of practice should be In Your Face (IYF).
IYF systems always loop back into the social network within which information, tacit or explicit, has value as knowledge, rather than simply presenting ‘dry facts’ stored in a monolithic web-based system requiring time and effort to update or access, with further effort required to put that information to a use in the real world of social interaction.
IYF systems are layered, making a clear distinction between presentation-neutral backends — SQL databases, XML repositories — and diverse delivery mechanisms which people already perceive as having a social function — such as Instant Messaging and email. There is no point having valuable knowledge tucked away in a database if the only way into it involves many mouse-clicks and a shift of modalities away from where people’s attention is already focussed. Build access into systems which are always in front of users, and which facilitate communication — in creative businesses, value comes from injecting knowledge tactically into social interactions: get that knowledge out to people in a form where it can be quickly shared and enable extant communities of practice, be they project teams or other workgroups, quickly and easily.
Examples?
- Encourage rather than restrict the use of Instant Messaging. Build agents which monitor traffic on your messaging system and which can interject with useful content from backend databases of skills or client case studies, or can suggest other staff it would be useful to involve in the project, based on their experience.
- Exploit RSS aggregation — replace your newsletters with weblogs, and give everyone a news ticker, always running at the top of their screens. Show them how to manage their subscriptions so that they have instant access to requests or news from around your network. Have a weblog specifically for new business requests — click on a request in the ticker to initiate an email or Instant Messaging session with the person needing information.
The essence of IYF is that information is introduced through tactical intervention in the moment when it is relevant, in a way that it can be immediately exploited to facilitate conversation and social networking. The interface is in your face.
