I recently had the chance to encounter a very telling
situation about the modern world. A presenter was talking about how the college
age generation (the future employees of IT and business) was moving away from
what he called “old style web pages”. That is full web sites and pages
overloaded with content and information that requires someone to commit time to
actually “reading”. The preferred communication approach for the upcoming
generations is rather the “text” or “tweet”—140 or so characters of information
or knowledge spun into the universe as snippets of data, information, knowledge
and wisdom. Older generations are capable of producing such ‘text bites” of
knowledge, but generally see them as links or parts of a much bigger activity
called a conversation. For the future those “texts” and “tweets” will be the
whole conversation or story: beginning, middle and end in 140 characters or
less. It brought to mind the importance of coupling existing knowledge
management with new or various modes of communications.
To prepare IT groups or departments for the future, we must be able to understand that a process like Knowledge Management cannot work while isolated from a process like Communications. Best practice teaches us that processes and ideas do not exist in vacuums. All best practice processes are related to all the other best practice processes; even if that interface is just feedback or acknowledgement of an input or piece of information. The two must work together. We must use effective communications to bring data, information, knowledge and wisdom to the right place or person at the right time in order to make informed decisions or choices.
To prepare IT groups or departments for the future, we must be able to understand that a process like Knowledge Management cannot work while isolated from a process like Communications. Best practice teaches us that processes and ideas do not exist in vacuums. All best practice processes are related to all the other best practice processes; even if that interface is just feedback or acknowledgement of an input or piece of information. The two must work together. We must use effective communications to bring data, information, knowledge and wisdom to the right place or person at the right time in order to make informed decisions or choices.
The same holds true for more traditional modes and newer
modes of communication. Both are important aspects of getting a message or idea
communicated to an audience. We should not dismiss older modes or forms of
communications in favor of only using newer, more technologically advanced
methods. Each has its place and usage and appropriate audience.
We should also not forget that the message itself is just as
important as the vehicle or medium of delivery. An old saying still applies:
Garbage In, Garbage Out. If we feed poor data, information, knowledge and
wisdom to an audience, we will get poor decisions and choices from the
audience.
The world has and still is definitely changing at a fast
pace. We should understand the changes and look for effective uses of the new
approaches while continuing to understand that those changes stand upon an
older foundation of methods that may still be applicable in the future.
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