Oscar Berg posted
a useful piece on why traditional
intranets fail today's knowledge workers that I want to bring to your
attention. I heard about it through Twitter and Marcia Conner. Oscar starts
with some useful stats on the increasing amount of knowledge-based work. He
writes that a study by The Work
Foundation estimated
our workforce has 30 per cent in jobs with high knowledge content, 30 per cent
in jobs with some knowledge content, and 40 per cent in jobs with less
knowledge content. I think the numbers are higher for knowledge work but this
is still a lot.
Oscar notes that knowledge work is less predictable and repeatable than traditional industry work. Move over Fred Taylor. He adds that the structure of knowledge work typically emerges as the work progresses. I would add that it is very context dependent and this argues against the concept of best practices, at least the static kind. This makes it hard to know in advance what knowledge you need. This means that you need to place control over knowledge access in the hands of the worker and not the system. It argues against scripted solutions.
Most traditional intranets do not provide the flexibility for knowledge access that knowledge workers require. As Oscar writes, “most of today’s intranets primarily consist of pre-produced information resources which are intended to serve information needs which can be anticipated in advance. They aim to serve people who perform predefined and repeatable tasks.” This is so nineteenth century.
Now in the twenty first century we have the potential to address these needs through a social intranet (aka enterprise 2.0). This is more than a simply adding collaboration tools. As Oscar writes, “It equips everyone with the tools that allows them to participate, contribute, attract, discover, find and connect with each other to exchange information and knowledge and/or collaborate.” Ahem.
I have just given you the highlights. Hopefully this is enough to make you want to read Oscar’s complete passage.
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