Defragmenting the Organization: Disseminating Community Knowledge through Peripheral Displays
Joseph F. McCarthy, Tony J. Costa, Elaine M. Huang and Joseph Tullio Abstract:A number of trends are contributing to increased fragmentation within organizations: the globalization of the economy and workforce, leading to colleagues being increasingly distributed across geographical locales; the dynamic nature of project-oriented workgroups, leading to the formation and dissolution of teams with relatively short durations; and flexible work arrangements such as telecommuting that permit people to work outside of the office on a regular basis. As a consequence of these trends, more people are spending less time collocated with a core group of colleagues for extended periods of time, and are becoming less aware of what kinds of activities other people in their group are involved in. This reduced awareness results in missed opportunities for collaboration, referrals and sharing of relevant knowledge, as well as leading to a diminished sense of community among the group members. We are undertaking a study of community knowledge, which we define as knowledge about the activities and interests of other members of the community, and the design of tools that will help promulgate this knowledge. We are seeking a better understanding of three aspects of community knowledge, as they relate to our group at Accenture Technology Labs:
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