This is an excerpt from a post [http://www.thesocialorganization.com/2008/11/the-importance-of-social-networking-to-information-work.html] on The Social Organization blog:
“Collaboration software was designed for the information worker and it has indeed, helped tremendously by giving people more ways and channels to communicate and work together on content. However, collaboration – in its more traditional definition – is too limited for what information workers need because it doesn’t acknowledge the entire work flow, it typically helps with different points along that process. What instigates collaboration in the first place? What is the actionable results from the collaboration? Who and what are the actors in collaboration and how trustworthy are they? When are formal processes appropriate and when are more informal processes needed?
I like to think of this information work process as a circular thing, one work flow impacting and influencing others. The process is sometimes kicked off formally – through perhaps a executive strategy discussion – and other times the process is kicked of by an informal conversation between two colleagues. To me, the process looks something like – each step informed by the information source:
The other thing about information work that sometimes goes unacknowledged is…if you don’t publish, broadcast, and get buy-in you might as well have fell a tree in the middle of Alaska for the amount of impact it will have. So to me information work is not effective if it doesn’t get marketed to the audience it is intended to impact. Many, many people do not get this…working slavishly but feeling like they don’t get the acknowledgement they deserve because they fail to ‘market’ their work…”
Click on the link above to read the complete post.
