Making Knowledge Visible

Communicating Knowledge Through Information Products

Elizabeth Orna

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351920865
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Sprachen & Linguistik
• Subtopic: Bibliotheks- & Informationswissenschaft

This ground-breaking book opens up new territory for knowledge and information management. The only way we can make what we know visible to other people is by putting it into Information Products - the products, in any medium, where users meet the information they need, and gain access to the knowledge of others. Without them, little business would get done inside organizations or between them and the outside world. They are essential for the flow, exchange, application, and preservation of information and knowledge. This is the first book to make the case for the proper recognition of information products by organizations. It shows how they should support business objectives and processes and be incorporated into information strategy and information architecture; illustrates the value they can both add and subtract; identifies the full range of stakeholders in them; and argues that a triple alliance of information management, information systems/IT, and information design is critical for successful information products. Stories from real life illustrate every step of the argument. The final part of the book demonstrates how an actual organization used information auditing as a tool to develop a strategic information product for an important user community.

part 1

Basic ideas

Welcome to the world of information products! The two introductory chapters which follow set the scene for this book. They define the concepts which underlie everything in it, explain why it had to be written, and present an overview of the argument it advances.

Now read on…

chapter 1

Before we begin

In this chapter

Definitions of key terms used in this book

Why information products deserve a book

Why now?

Dear Reader

How the book is organized

This introductory chapter is written on the assumption that readers prefer, as I myself do, to be told at the start what they are in for, so that they can orient themselves.

Definitions of key terms used in this book

There are many definitions of some of these terms, but as this is a practical book I give here just the pragmatic definitions which I have found useful both for thinking about the ideas involved and acting on them.

For those who are interested, they do have a respectable information-science ancestry, based on a line of thinking developed in particular by Brookes (1980a and b), which relates to how human minds transform external information into internal knowledge, and internal knowledge into information, which can in turn be put into the outside world for others to transform again into knowledge which becomes their property.

To begin with, here are definitions of knowledge, information, and transformation, because the definition of information products depends on those concepts.

Knowledge and Information

Knowledge is the organized results of experience, which we use to guide our actions and our interactions with the outside world. We all store our knowledge in our minds in a highly structured form, which is directly accessible only to us. When we want to communicate what we know to others who need to use it for their own purposes, we have to transform it and make it visible or audible to the outside world.

The result of the transformation is Information: knowledge which has been put into the outside world and made visible and accessible through a series of transformations.

From the point of view of the user, information is what we seek and pay attention to in our outside world when we need to add to or enrich our knowledge in order to act upon it. One of the commonest ways of getting information is by using information products – which are so named because they contain information and have been produced, as a result of decisions by human beings, for specific users and use. (We also get information by knowledgeable observation – a geologist looking at landscape, a doctor examining a patient, a skilled technician observing processes – which leads to application of existing knowledge, either without the use of information products, or supported by them, as in looking up relevant research literature.)

So we can usefully think of information as the food of knowledge because we need information and communication to nourish and maintain our knowledge and keep it in good shape for what we have to do in the world. Without the food of information, knowledge becomes enfeebled and unfit for action.

Knowledge and information are, therefore, distinct, but interdependent, and they are the subject of transformations by human minds (see Figure 1.1 opposite).

Transformations

Information products are the end result of the series of transformations of knowledge into information; they also become the starting point of transformation in the other direction on the part of their users, who seek to transform what they require of the information contained in the products into knowledge, and to integrate it into their existing knowledge structure so as to make it fitter for whatever they need to do.

These transformations, of information into knowledge and knowledge into information, form the basis for all human learning and communication; they allow ideas to spread across space and time, and link past and present in a network that embraces generations and cultures over millennia (see Figure 1.2 on p15). By virtue of those qualities, they are also fundamental to the working of organizations of all kinds.

Information products¹

The products, print on paper or electronic, through which information is presented for use. They embody the results of the transformation of knowledge into information – which accounts for the title of this book – and are an integral blend of content and container.² Knowledge can be made ‘visible’ (that is, accessible to the senses of others) in many different forms of container and in many media: not just text, but also speech, graphics, moving images, and action (dance, mime, sign language). Although the association today tends to be with digital media, information products have an ancient lineage, extending back more than 5000 years to Sumerian clay tablets and Egyptian papyrus rolls (McArthur’s Worlds of Reference, 1986, gives an illuminating account of the history of information products created for purposes of reference).

Figure 1.1Knowledge and information: distinct but interdependent

Today’s most familiar digital products – websites and intranets – occupy a special place: information products in their own right, they act also as containers for other products; we might call them ‘meta-information products’. And the technology that makes them possible is, as we shall see, a potential catalyst for upgrading the role that information products play in organizations.

The metaphor of the ‘container’ covers not only physically rigid, permanent, and static containers such as books, but also the fluid, flexible and mutable ones made possible by web technology. We should also remember that, despite their physical rigidity, traditional containers, as well as digital ones, can provide guides to navigation through them.

In my definition, the range of information products stops short of advertising. But there is a continuum between ‘telling’ and ‘selling’, and no sharp boundary between the two; the guiding principle in this book in defining information products is that they should be towards the ‘telling’ end of the scale, and embody substantial information content which aims to allow users to do something they need/want to do, rather than to evoke feelings and to persuade – in other words, the user has an active rather than a passive role.

The distinction is exemplified by this explanation from a company which has a worldwide business in selling electronic products; the company treats its ‘Product Presentation Channel’ (its information products) as a distinct stream, separate from transactions, sales, and marketing:

Our objective is to ensure that our goods and services are available via Product Presentation Channels in a manner that allows users to select the easiest and most appropriate channel or blend of channels, to easily find the solution they require. Please note that this concept tries not to confuse the established need with creating a need (marketing). This is important as the risk is that the user finds the catalogue/website/eCat etc difficult to use due to the prevalence of advertising and promotions (banners, page ads etc). Whilst advertising and promotions are a fact of life, and required to generate ‘need’, there is a balance with usability that needs to be struck, particularly on the web.

e-business Manager, Premier Farnell

Organizations create information products either to support the products and/ or services which they are in business to offer, or as their main market offering. This book gives special attention to the former – because they need it most; if you depend for your livelihood on the information products you create, survival requires your close attention to them. Such organizations have useful lessons for those whose information products play a supporting role.

A second main distinction is between products directed towards the organization’s ‘outside world’ of customers, clients, institutions and communities it serves, and tho...