‘‘ I
A multi-channel strategy of quiet messaging, partnered with other support functions will help you to catch all employees.
INSIGHT
KIM Matters
Awareness and attention? Overcoming information overload to get people using your knowledge tools
T is often said that people can’t “do” knowledge management if they don’t know what it is, where it is or how it helps them deliver
business success.
Personally, I’ve had some success by talking to and learning from marketing experts, but I’m aware that there have been changes to marketing messaging recently due to the sheer amount of information and messaging pushed out. The average American sees 170,000 marketing messages before they are 17- years-old, and it is thought that attention span for these messages is decreasing. If even big brands supported by marketing experts are struggling to break through the information and messaging overload, I wonder what we, in KM, should be doing? Do we need a different approach to KM messaging?
Attention
To grab attention, modern marketers are often trying to “shout louder”, using a range of channels and a variety of formats and focusing on early adopters and influencers. It is certainly useful to adopt these tactics for initial educative purposes, so that everyone knows where new tools are and how to use them. We can research our users and create personas to tailor our messages to ensure that they resonate with all the different subsets of employees, and spend time identifying the catchiest terms and logos, so that there is a basic understanding of what is available where, but after that initial education, how should we approach messaging? How do we keep KM tools top of mind?
October-November 2023
Continuing to grab customers’ attention from competitors’ brands is different to grabbing attention inside our organisations, taking employees’ attention away from other internal organisational messaging. In the light of this I have begun to wonder whether we should be focusing on awareness, rather than attention, for KM messaging beyond the initial education.
Awareness
Although awareness and attention may seem like the same, or a very similar, thing (both involve somehow knowing that something is there), “attention” is “the act or faculty of attending, especially by directing the mind to an object” and “awareness” is “the state or condition of being aware; having knowledge; consciousness”. Although similar, we can be aware of something in a passive way, without giving it our directed and focused attention. Something can become understood by being part of the scenery, part of our unconscious decision-making, without pulling us away from our primary focus. Given that our users are busy people, with little bandwidth available for receiving internal, organisational messaging, and we want KM practices to be part of the scenery, nothing special, just a part of “how we work around here”, should our messaging be the same?
Frequency and consistency Should we focus our messaging on ensuring that KM is something that everyone is aware of, but doesn’t grab focus away from work?
Hélène Russell is a KM consultant at TheKnowledgeBusiness and Chair of the K&IM SIG. Contact her on helenerussell@
theknowledgebusiness.co.uk
If you think this might work in your organisation, how could you go about building awareness rather than trying to grab attention?
I think frequency and consistency are most important for awareness. Although a KM brand, with a catchy motto and logo will grab attention, consistency in its usage will help users to instantly recognise that a tool or message comes from KM without too much extra attention necessary. A multi-channel strategy of quiet messaging, partnered with other support functions will help you to catch all employees. Perhaps spend less of your limited time on creating a “buzz” for KM and more time on simple and consistent messaging. With support from leaders and managers focus on confirmation that KM matters, and it should be simply part of the everyday work process. Simply put, users do not participate in KM projects, KM is at the heart of work. What do you think? I’d love to hear how your experiments into communications have worked. IP
INFORMATION PROFESSIONAL 23
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60
