If you can’t find it, it hurts.
People in your organization can’t find others with immediately needed information? That is waste. If they can’t find the information or the resource they need, that too is waste.
Simply saving information in large databases isn’t enough. Depending on context, people relate to different types of information differently. Knowledge management systems are only as good as their flexibility. Will they let you find the information in a wide array of contexts?
The closer you get to it, findability becomes a more daunting mandate.
Social systems and social search help this by specifically not trying to immediately make sense of or categorize information. Social networks can take a question written in context and translate to other contexts quickly. Your company’s ability to have internal findability directly relates to the strength of its social networks.
Amazing photo by Clavon Clavito
