While Greg takes a glimpse into the future, I want to look at the issue from what people have done in the past. The questions that I like to ask is about how people have done it in the past and will people change their behavior and way of processing the task at hand because of a new technology.
In the case of "Social" they questions I have include: How did people find information (knowledge) in the past? How did they determine that the information/knowledge was good or bad or old? Will people's behavior and techniques change because I have implemented a new technology? I am not talking about what technology did they use, but what are the ways people determined that a piece of information / knowledge answers the question they have. Do these their techniques change now that we have "Social" as a technical solution? My answer? no
I don’t think the path of determining valuable information / knowledge has changed. What has changed over time (and will continue to change) are the methods used to find that information (search, activity streams, communities, FAQs, etc. today .... what will it be in the future?.) But the really big change is the amount of information / knowledge has grown, the ease of access to this information/knowledge is better, and the speed of change related to the knowledge has increased (debatable based on the subject matter).
Is that the definition of information overload?
Today people have to sift through more sources of information, sift through more information, and sift through that information with an eye on the age of that information. And they have to do that using the mental tools they might have learned 5, 10, 20 years ago. People adapt with each change, but many of the techniques remain the same.
I’ve heard a lot of discussion lately around “System of Record” vs. “System of Engagement”. Can your social platform ever become your system of record? I’m not sure, but if so, the challenges to get there are going to be great. What is clear is systems of engagement will be generating knowledge, but what’s not clear is how that knowledge gets promoted to the system of record.Greg rightfully states that one method to help the consumer in identifying valuable information is to tag the content in a system of record. Interesting idea that could be very difficult to obtain.
Eric:
ReplyDeleteI think this definitely peels back another layer of the social onion. We have not recognized tomorrow's business challenges until we experience the reality of we are trying to create and then try to make it better.
As for "interesting idea that is difficult to obtain", reminds me of what J.F.K said about the moon on 9/12/62. "We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too." This is what being a leader is all about.