Information Sharing: Got Directory?

Think about the library. Think about its every floor, hallway and shelf as silos of information excellence. Valuable information tucked away … just begging to be shared.

Now exactly how would such sharing occur?

I introduced the Information Sharing Paradox a few months back. This basically highlights the fact that one must construct and use a central directory to efficiently determine who has what. At the library the card file is used to point to the location of a book. A Google search does not scour the Earth for the results, no, a pre-constructed index is searched and the results -- pointers to the real documents -- are returned to the inquirer.

This is the only model that scales. And as the Librarian tasked with keeping this central catalog current gets more sophisticated, enterprise awareness and Perpetual Analytics begin to unfold.

So, in short, information sharing is a second base affair. You cannot get there without going by first base, first. And first base is discovery.

From a policy standpoint, if enterprise information assets are not registered in the central index (directory, card file, or whatever you want to call the thingee) then this information is hardly an enterprise asset at all … because it is virtually undiscoverable.

My next blog post will be: "Discoverability: The First Information Sharing Principle"

Comments

[Webkatalog]

:D ur posting is old but actuall in th simple present. Information Sharing Paradox have released a new story.

best regards