Findability is not rocket science, but remain complex due to the large number of measures needed to be understood and undertaken. I’ve been giving this a lot of thought and believe one of the principal challenges lies within the pedagogical domain. Therefore I’ve compiled a number of simple tips for reaching Findability which I will share in a series of blog posts. You can also sign up here for a subscription to a free email course on this topic!
Take control of your information!
A strong incentive to improve Findability is to make information available to people who don’t have prior knowledge of where it resides or what it looks like. That doesn’t make management of the actual information less important. It’s just the other way round!
To gain control of your information, you must understand what and where it is. What do we know about it, what is the quality of it and how can a search engine expose it to the users? Often existing metadata, the surrounding structure and the actual content can tell us much that can be used to make it findable. Remember that important information can reside in many places. Look in the intranet, mailboxes, file servers as well as databases and proprietary systems to mention but a few.
When your most important information has been identified you need to build an information model that outlines the important concepts and terms, and how they fit together. This enables a structured way of working with the information, as well as technical solutions that simplifies finding, discovering and navigating it.
Bear in mind that it can be difficult to cover all the information at once. To avoid being overwhelmed start with some of the most important information, the stuff which really makes a difference in streamlining a process. Preferably, use a method for identifying and prioritizing business effects as a starting point to ensure your efforts are wisely spent.
Feel free to contact me if you wish to discuss this further, anders.nilsson@findwise.com or sign up here to get our free email course.