Measuring the Flow of Information in the Enterprise

Photo by Eric Ziegler

In my previous post I talked about the idea of trust enabling the flow of information in a closed system like the enterprise. Continuing these thoughts, I conjecture that if there is trust which enables the flow of information, that these two items will make the workforce of an organization more effective. Assuming each of these things are true, how can you tell that an organization is becoming more effective? One way of determining this is to poll or survey the organization to see what people are saying related to trust. Gallup has a survey that is related engagement. a similar poll/survey could be used to determine the level of trust within the organization.

There are most likely other ways to measure effectiveness of an organization. For example, if you know that the flow of information is also correlated to trust and effectiveness, you might be able to measure the flow of information to gain insights into the effectiveness of the employees in an organization. And the great thing is, that by measuring it through this measure, you can obtain a second and different perspective on the level of trust and effectiveness in the organization.

So by measuring the participation between employees, where participation is not just the one way push of information, but the interactions between employees and the amount of collaboration between employees, you can start to get a picture of how much trust there is between employees in a company and you can measure the effectiveness of the organization. Going back to the big picture, if employees trust each other, they will start listening to each other, and the work force of an organization will become more effective. And going back to Ramanathan's statements, a closed system like the enterprise needs trust to occur to enable the flow of information.

This note was inspired by +David Amerland 's book, Google Semantic Search - Amazon location 1678.

Speed of Trust - The impact of Enterprise Social Networks

Photo by Eric Ziegler

Information in the internet flows along the path of trust.  Do I trust the person that shared that piece of information with me?  Yes? Than I trust the information they shared with me. And the interesting thing is, the internet is not even necessary, but the internet provides extra "grease" to make that flow of information happen faster.  

Similarly, information flows in the enterprise along the path of trust. This is true when there is technology involved (e.g. Enterprise Social Networks(ESN)) and when technology is not involved (the water cooler, break room, etc.). And just like in the internet, technology like an ESN provides the "grease" to allow the information to flow even faster. 

Why is this possible? Because the technology increases the reach of one message from a small group of people to a large group of people. And within the enterprise, trust of another employee is high that people will naturally trust what others say, even if they shouldn't.

This comment was inspired by +David Amerland 's book, Google Semantic Search.