Turning Information into Knowledge

Lotus Notes, a broad-based software environment tailored for access to distributed databases and electronic communications, has been called the "foundation of a virtual library." Its flexibility and ability to incorporate numerous databases across domains make it a contemporary "microcosm" of how electronic resources can be a tool for organizational learning. Lotus Notes is a particularly rich environment for finding and archiving existing information, no matter how ephemeral or "unofficial." However, offering an interoperable information infrastructure and delivery system does not, by itself, render information useful. Based on the results of a recent ethnographic study of a customer support organization, we learned that customer support personnel help each other find and make use of information through face-to-face collaborations. Collaborative processes such as joint problem-solving, re-registering problems, data interpretation and sifting information are part of the larger enterprise that turns stored information into knowledge. Moreover, we identified a key person in the group whose breadth of knowledge and troubleshooting skills were so well developed that he became an indispensable "information mediator" for the group.