If your company searched your email logs and extracted information from them to create a knowledgebase including that information, how useful would it be?
That's the idea I was reading about on Jack Vinson's blog (via the ZNet Article): "Chairman Bill Gates is to show off server software that aims to help workers find data stored on their company's computers as well as information located only inside the brains of their colleagues."
The tool would search the company's servers, looking at email and other data, and then generate user profiles so other workers can figure out who knows what. Before you get upset about privacy, the system also allows users to indicate whether they want to be contacted directly.
But that's not the point. The point I'm thinking about is this one: How do you where that person got the information they used in an email? Are they really an "expert" in that subject or did they pick someone's brain or pull it from a company-generated white paper or other source to answer a client's question? Where's the quality control? Where's the context?
A better idea is to encourage your "experts" to contribute knowledge to an interactive portal in an exchange that actually helps a colleague to learn information in the context they need to do their jobs better. I wonder if creating this kind of database is just adding more search time and frustration to employees already jammed days? Just one more place they have to go and spend their time sifting and trying to find the right information or contact.
I do, however, want to emphasize and agree with the point Jack makes - "That Microsoft are making this kind of technology part of their standard offerings says a lot about the importance companies see in learning about who-knows-what and providing that information back to the employees of the company."
The sooner company's start counting their employee's knowledge as an asset that deserves attention and nurturing to leverage that insight for enterprise use, the faster they'll start seeing results in streamlined processes and shorter sales cycles. The ease of online interactions in company intranets and portals should help this process of adoption. For companies willing to build the foundation.
What do you think?
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