Wow!! Just read an excellent blog by Oscar Berg called Understanding the psychology of sharing – what makes it tick?.
In it he talks about Information Sharing, in relation to Enterprise 2.0, and the value the sharing of information can bring.
Oscar’s blog makes reference to a number of other wonderful articles about the sharing of information. Even though you can read more about them in his blog, I’ll mention them here briefly because they really made me think about the real value there is in sharing.
They were:
- “Why We Share Information” by Prescott C. Ensign and Louis Heber, MIT Sloan Management Review
- “Forwarding Is the New Networking” by Tom Davenport
- “Pay it forward’ pays off”, EurekAlert
- “‘Will You Be E-Mailing This Column? It’s Awesome” by John Tierney, The New York Times:
I recommend that you read them. I found them inspiring.
On the whole, the social benefits that comes from information sharing seems very positive. And it is actually best when done altruistically. That is – share for the sake of sharing. Don’t make getting something back a requirement.
In a work environment, sharing relevant and useful information has numerous benefits. Relevant information could include:
- A description of a particular technology that someone is using, or
- an explanation of how someone solved a particular problem, or
- a link to a relevant (and I mean relevant) article on the internet, or
- a summary of a report that someone has read.
The value that this would give would include:
- Team building
- A better understanding of something, not only be the recipients, but by the person who sent the information (the best way to learn something is to teach it, or explain it, to others).
- Build up a reputation (naturally this depends on the quality of the information sent to the others). And not only of the individual, but also of the group as a whole.
- Increase the overall knowledge of the team.
The examples of relevant information, and the benefits are not exhaustive. There must be many ways to share information and knowledge. The important thing is that what is shared is relevant, helpful, or adds value. (Just typing something into a search engine, and then sending the link of the first thing that appears to the others is not valuable. )
Understanding the psychology of sharing – what makes it tick?
Related Articles
- Greed, Sharing, and Keeping Information (theantisocialmedia.com)
- Enterprise Social Computing with Microsoft SharePoint 2010 (devx.com)
- Enterprise 2.0 Change Management ” Blue Sky Thinking (bluethots.com)
- Enterprise 2.0: part 4 – how do we start? (digiredo.wordpress.com)
- Enterprise 2.0: part 3 – the gap between employee and corporation (digiredo.wordpress.com)
