Streams, Capsules, and Cloaking Systems

“Information wants to be free”, as the slogan goes. Services such as Twitter give us access virtually anything newsworthy, right now. Social Networks such as Facebook perform a similar function for friends and family. Huge technical innovation has taken place to get us this point, but the method with which information is delivered is also novel. To enable us to more easily consume the increasing volumes of information “the stream” has emerged. We are fed a neat and steady hose of information capsules in formats such as Twitter 140 character posts, and Facebook’s summarized updates of friend’s activities. At a glance we know what’s going on. If we want to know more, searching is simple.

If data about world events and social circles is now more fluid, the same could not be said for the information inside most organizations. Here the stream is more like an inconsistent drip. Crucial data relating to “what’s really going on…” is cloaked within isolated groups and individuals. Sometimes this buried information can be random beautiful nuggets that could unlock solutions to nagging issues. But its also often bad news that no one wants to touch; the stuff that is allowed to fester and later blows up like the BP oil explosion in the gulf of Mexico. Organizations that are conservative and secretive have cultures that tend to keep things hidden; like the stain on a old carpet the problem of concealment is rarely even acknowledged. The innovative companies though, realize the value of free access to information. They understand that knowledge is power, and creating channels that allow access to knowledge will only serve to strengthen the power of people to make the right decisions and get things done. The challenge though is that open and accessible corporate systems similar to the functionality made available via Facebook and Twitter have yet to hit their stride.

Shameless Plug 
In WorkWyze we are building solutions to the myriad of information issues faced by teams and organizations. WorkWyze is simple and free to use. We have taken a leaf from Twitter’s book by creating a feature whereby co workers can post a capsule of work related information into a stream that is viewable by other team members. These can be consumed as crisply as a tweet, with little of the baggage associated with email. The WorkWyze task tracking and assignment system is similar to Facebook’s news feed. Its no longer an issue to figure out who’s working on what, what the status is, and where the priorities lie.

If you’re a member of a progressive team, and want to check out WorkWyze, you can sign-up for our free beta by going to WorkWyze.com.