Posted by Riva Gianluca on February 28, 2002 at 11:10:54:

In Reply to: What is useful information? posted by Sylvain on February 28, 2002 at 07:37:49:

Hi Sylvain,
as knowledge is the human interpretation of information, information is useful if it makes sense to the person who's reading it. Different people can interpretate the same information differently.
Namely, I think the most important factors are:
1)Path-dependance/Evolution of understanding: the information must be consistent with the background of the person in question
2)The jargon: information must use the language/convention/jargon of the professional so as not to be misunderstood
3)The channel:it must be suitable to the ambiguity/complexity of the message (media richness theory). The more complex is the message/situation, the more rich should be the channel. For istance, videoconference is considered richer than e-mail and face-to-face interaction richer than videoconferencine.
To end with, the factors are not separated but they interact to each other, as reality is a complex and holistic whole rather than separated elements. For istance, a common jargon can make a message less ambiguous and therefore enhancing the feasilbility for e-mail usage. Previous face-to-face interaction can help to develop a common jargon and so on...Rather than a dichotomy, the different channels complement each other, we should choose the right doses...
Hope it helps
Kind Regards

---

Follow Ups:

• Re: What is useful information? Sylvain 11:00:00 03/04/02 (0)
• Re: What is useful information? - For enterprises... Pete 00:12:27 03/04/02 (0)

---

Click Here to Post Follow Up in New Forums

    Knowledge Management Think Tank (New)

  

 Subject: 

Message: