Being an Information Manager...

IM and the world of Web 2.0

I just watched a video on Web 2.0 (just search for Web 2.0 on YouTube or download via http://www.mediafire.com/?6duzg3zioyd) and I realised that most companies still live in the world of yesterday. Most information is hidden away in personal drives and protection is the keyword. Only a few people realize that most of the potential of all this hidden information is lost by the fact that it is overprotected and hidden.

I think companies can learn from the Web 2.0 phenomena in rethinking the way they manage their information. This whole wave of new(ish) thinking can also be applied within the firewall of a company. Think about:

• Why do we have everything protected? My view is that everything should open up. Only a few parts of the infrastructure are only for named individuals (think contracts, think HR), but the rest should be open for everybody. This will unlock information in an easier way and will reduce the burden of managing security
• Why do we try to classify information with complex taxonomies or other classification schemes? People normally just fail to do this, so allow people to add their own tags and ensure these tags are easily visible. This will create a folksonomy for the company over time. Folksonomies are not perfect, but have much more potential than a top-down classification structure (just check out del.icio.us or flickr)
• Why don't we have quick company-wide search? Search is obviously one of the answers as well.
• Why don't we collaborate on content in a transparent way? Think about Blogging! (even the CIA is doing it these days!), but also think about creating a corporate memory via wiki's (http://www.wikipedia.org/).

Key answer for all questions is: Because most people managing information still live in the world of yesterday.

Labels: folksonomy, search, Tagging, Web2.0, wiki

posted by Evert Ruijs @ 2:53 AM