Hack:
Community-centric Information Management

The advantages of new networking sites is only starting to emerge in organizations. Part of these advantages come from the value of communities that form and shape themselves around topics. These communities tend to be supportive of strangers, as well as, contributors. By identifying these communities, people gain access to masses of information, knowledge and support virtually for free.

 

By applying these concepts to organizations, in the form of for example communities around products, expertise, customers, one can centralize tangible and intangible knowledge through pulling people together. Concretely, think of e.g. Facebook Groups. If an organization is geographically dispersed, these communities only become more valuable as there is support and information available at any time of day. 

 

So in this case, assume a Sales person meets with a customer, he can either send out a message to the community and await a response, or browse through similar topics on the spot in order to educate him/herself instantly. Moreover, by formalizing the ownership, or management of these communities they can become far more reactive.