Following is the gist of my recent presentation in San Jose on "Adding Meaning & Value to Information".
Dave Snowden's famous comment about knowledge is that "we know more
than we can say, and we can say more than we can write down". In his
case it has taken him four years to write the book on complex adaptive
systems that he teaches in a three day course, and in neither the book
nor the course could he hope to explain more than a fraction of all
that he has learned on the subject.
Those of us who manage written information therefore have a great
challenge. How can we make what is written down more meaningful, more
valuable? How can we make it "make more sense"? Here are ten principal
ways to do so (the links in this chart are to illustrations or further
discussions of each tool or skill):
Processes
that Add Meaning to Information: |
Valuable 'End-Products' of these
Processes: |
Some Tools and Learnable Skills Supporting these
Processes: |
1. Paying attention; being aware and mindful; not skimming |
Deeper understanding;
Works of art |
Training: attention skills; Meditation; Presence |
2. Interpreting; Reflecting/considering; Drawing on
examples from personal experience; Combining/integrating with other personal
knowledge |
Insights
|
Training: critical thinking; Desktop search
tools (for combining); Consultation & conversation (e.g. book circles) |
3. Synthesizing/distilling; Simplifying (without over-simplifying) |
Synopses |
Blogs/diaries; Cartoons; Mindmaps/concept
maps; FAQs |
4. Imagining; Applying |
Applications (real and potential); Practice |
Training: imaginative/ creative thinking; Creative writing |
5. Modeling; Illustrating; Systems
thinking; Mapping |
Representations & maps; Systems
diagrams; Models |
Visualizations & graphics; Tables: Ecolanguage
(animated visualizations); Single frames; Mapping/ systems thinking
tools |
6. Stories: Reading, hearing, internalizing, narrating, memorizing, retelling stories |
Memorable lessons/learnings; Vicarious
experiences; Context |
Story templates/ models (myths, fables, storyboards
etc.); Stories of all kinds and forms; Training: listening/ storytelling skills |
7. Analyzing; Inferring significance & consequences; Deciding on resultant actions |
Implications; Action plans; Better basis for decisions |
Analytical report templates (structured thinking
etc.)
|
8. Analogizing; Reorganizing; Restating ("in other
words"); Re-enacting/re-framing |
Metaphors; Analogies; Allegories; Alternative
perspectives; Shoe-on-the-other-foot POV |
Reframing tools (e.g. Lakoff's work)
|
9. Recording; Photographing;
Observing
first-hand |
Observations; Reviewable detailed
recordings & transcripts; Interviews |
Mindmaps and other recording tools; Cameras & presence tools; Cultural
anthropology tools |
10. Conversing
|
Others' experiences, interpretations, perspectives & additional information |
All P2P communication tools (telephone
etc.); Conversation tools (talking stick etc.); Directories & people-finders |
11. Canvassing; Surveying |
Collective wisdom |
Canvassing tools, including wisdom of crowds, electronic markets |
12. Collaborating |
Others' ideas, perspectives & ideas |
Wikis, whiteboards, other virtual presence & collaboration tools; Open Space & other collaboration methods |
Here's an example of how these ten ways can be applied to some
excellent, but unrefined and under-appreciated information: George
Monbiot's new book on global warming, Heat:
- Paying attention:
Most of us only absorb a small proportion of what we read or see.
Perhaps because we now deal with so much information, of which little
is really important, our attention is so divided that we skim, and
browse, everything, and therefore run the risk of missing what's
critical. Unless you're a more skillful reader than I am, you need to
read Monbiot's book twice, carefully, to really appreciate his
arguments, and also to appreciate their Achilles' heel. While the book Presence
is a bit new-agey for most businesspeople's taste, it's one approach to
achieving a deeper understanding of information than most of us are
capable of today.
- Interpreting: It
was when I started thinking about the leaks in my own house, relating
Monbiot's arguments to my personal situation, that they began to make
more sense and take on a greater urgency. In addition, combining the
information in Monbiot's book (with the solutions to global warming)
with that in Flannery's The Weather Makers (about the causes of global warming) made both books more sensible.
- Synthesizing: A
lot of people learn by distilling information down to its essence.
That's one of the reasons that a site like the hugely popular Peak Oil
primer Energy Bulletin picked up my review
of Monbiot's book. Corporate think-tanks are beginning to use
cartoonists to capture the key learnings of brainstorming sessions. And
blogs are increasingly being used by three corporate constituencies
(subject matter experts, newsletter editors and community of practice
coordinators), even while most of the business world lags behind in
adopting blogs as excellent means of synthesizing and adding context to
corporate information.
- Imagining: As I
read Monbiot's book, I was constantly imagining (a) what the world
would look like if his proposals were implemented, (b) what would need
to happen here in Canada for his proposals to be implemented, and (c)
what role I could play in getting them implemented. This imagining
added greatly to my understanding of the book's arguments, and the
possibilities they present.
- Modeling: This visualization from a 1996 paper
by Dennis Hartmann captures in one diagram a lot of information about
the causes of global warming. Monbiot's and Flannery's books would both
have been better if such visualizations had been included. While I was
reading Heat I made systems
thinking diagrams in the inside cover to increase my understanding of
the book's critical arguments. As another example, my appreciation of
how societies develop self-managed rule-sets to cope with complex
adaptive systems was greatly augmented by watching this video
of traffic in uncontrolled intersections in India's cities, and then
reading the rules that make this apparent chaos work so well.
- Stories: Monbiot's
book includes many anecdotes, mostly about his own situation, that help
add context and immediacy to his arguments, and make them more
memorable. Dave Snowden and Steve Denning both have websites with excellent information on how to tell, and appreciate the meaning of, anecdotes and stories.
- Analyzing: As I read Heat, I used the Pyramid Principle structured thinking methodology to annotate the key points of the book. My synopsis and review of the book
is the result, largely a transcription of my annotations. It's how I
recognize the implications of what I read -- in effect, what it means.
- Analogizing:
Monbiot doesn't use analogies often, and hs work suffers for it. As I
read the book, I was constantly restating what he was saying "in other
words". But I too have a lot to learn about developing and using
effective metaphors. Unfortunately, the people I have known who use
them the most, use them badly. They need to be developed carefully and
thoughtfully, and used sparingly. The world needs more Lakoff, since
good analogies start with being able to see things from different
perspectives.
- Recording: If
you've ever listened to, or watched, the tape of an event you attended
live, you probably realize how much you miss, or get wrong, the first
time around. I've started using mindmaps to document all my meetings,
displaying them on screen at the front of the room so that errors and
omissions can be picked up in real time. It's an amazing, and humbling,
experience. Thanks to training from Steelcase, I've also learned the
valuable skill of cultural anthropology. Not only does this training
hone your observation skills -- it teaches you what to look for.
- Conversing: Since
we first appeared on this planet, conversation has been the principal
means by which we exchange context-rich information. And because it's
so effective (if time-consuming) it still is. I had a conversation with
someone who had borrowed my copy of Heat
shortly after I read it, and I think I learned more from that
conversation than I did from reading the book. No wonder book circles
are so popular.
- Canvassing:
Prediction markets, which draw on the enlightened self-interest of the
many, can glean collective intelligence that cannot be captured any
other way. These are now a major focus of the Knowledge Management
community, which sees them as one way to tap 'The Wisdom of Crowds'.
The key to getting value from this wisdom is asking the right questions
(appropriately 'qualified' crowds are best at answering closed-ended
questions that ask for predictions, factual information, decisions, or
root causes) of the right crowd (the largest possible number of
objective, independent, basically-informed people, who are motivated to
provide the best answer -- often because, as employees or customers,
they have a stake in the result).
- Collaborating: Of
all the tools and techniques that can add meaning to information, this
is the category that has the most promise and has been the most
disappointing. Too many collaboration and 'virtual presence' tools are
over-engineered, unintuitive, and too complicated to learn, and are
therefore under-utilized. Even tools that offer the best features of
wikis and other 'groupware' (like Jotspot -- recently acquired by
Google) are cumbersome and intimidating to the majority on the other
side of the digital divide. But as they are made simpler and their more
sophisticated features are shoved 'under the hood' their time will
come. In the meantime, as soon as we develop greater skills in inviting
and facilitating Open Space events, this methodology promises to help
us understand and address complex problems far more effectively than
any of the tools in our current toolkit.
Before these tools and techniques can begin to augment and partially
supplant face-to-face conversations as a means of adding meaning and
value to information, many more people need to become much more adept
at using them. In my opinion, the best way organizations can do this is
by reintermediating the role of the Information Professional:
- Getting our librarians, front-line IT people, trainers and
other back-office information professionals away from their desks and
content management jobs and out in the field learning how front-line
people in the organization use information and technology, helping them
use it more effectively, and determining what information, in what
formats, they find most valuable;
- Training these IPs to use the tools and techniques listed
above, getting them to apply this learning to the information that
passes through their hands so that, in the hands of its requesters and
ultimate recipients, it becomes much more intelligible, useful and
valuable;
- Enabling the IPs to teach these newly-acquired skills to
the people on the front lines, so they too can get more meaning from
information and add more value to it as they pass it on in turn; and
- Involving the IPs in the design and development of new
tools and techniques that add meaning and value to information -- no
one knows more than they do what is most needed.
The great challenge in this task is enlightening management -- the majority of executives still seem to see IT as a means to disintermediate
information and get rid of the IP role entirely. It has been my
experience that no one in the modern organization is as under-utilized
and under-appreciated as the information professional. To demonstrate
this to senior management, IPs themselves will have to take the
initiative, championing small-scale experiments that use some of the
above-mentioned tools and techniques, and demonstrating how much value
they can add. The peer-to-peer networks of IPs are very strong (perhaps
due to the fact that no one else in most organizations knows or cares
much about what IPs do), so I'm optimistic that, by working
collaboratively, IPs will be very successful introducing such
initiatives and experiments, and will ultimately take their rightful
place as the highly-valued stewards of the modern organization's most
important and strategic resource -- what it knows.
Boy, writing an article like
this really makes me appreciate the truth of the statement in its
second paragraph above -- it takes a lot longer than actually
delivering the presentation!
|
MADE IN CANADA
trust your
instincts 
