Making Knowledge Visible : Communicating Knowledge Through Information Products

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.

Information products - whether printed or electronic - are the essential vehicles of knowledge without which communication and commerce cannot take place. Organizations depend on them for successful internal and external interaction, but their potential for increasing business value has been largely ignored. This book is the first to define and explain information products and their management as the missing link between knowledge and information strategy on the one hand and design and presentation on the other. It sets out what information products are and how they can add value if part of overall strategy; shows how to audit what they should be doing and what they actually are doing for the company; and presents a change programme for a better management approach which enables the company to get full value from them. The book is written for senior managers responsible for information and knowledge management, corporate communications and IT, and for information professionals, web developers and information designers. Like Elizabeth Orna''s book Practical Information Policies, it is destined to become the passport to clearer thinking on a usually woolly and neglected area of management. It is also an important text for information management, business, IT and web design students.