Search as a Competitive Advantage

Search as a Competitive Advantage

We are finding that most workers spend much more time reading documents, reviewing charts and diagrams, sharing experiences, and sourcing experts than in past years.  Finding the right answer at or near the moment of need is increasingly important.

As a business person, I remember (in my first two decades of work) having to travel 25 minutes to the main library in downtown Cincinnati to look up information about a company in Dun and Bradstreet records.  


As a child, I remember having to sift through Encyclopedia Britannica books to find information for school reports.


I realize that some of you reading this may not have heard about these two reference books.   Some of you may be young enough to have had search engines (like Google) available since you were first able to type.  You may not have ever even been in a library (how archaic are those places, you may think).


Regardless of where we get our information, all of us clearly understand of the value of being able to find an answer to a situation quickly. This value has accelerated our ability to educate ourselves more rapidly -  because of the lessened time needed to find information. 


Having information readily available makes your ability to process the information more important - especially because there are more sources (and more unreliable sources).  One's ability to ferret information is a more important skill in the work place in the past decade - although one not often discussed.


In addition, finding experts to help you with a situation has become easier due to software solutions (e.g. LMS, social software such as LinkedIn)


Where am I going with these thoughts?


Here are actions for you to consider due to the change in availability of information:

• Facilitating the tools to enable employees to find a right answer at the moment of need is a more key responsibility of human resources / training and development personnel
• Using systems to identify subject matter experts who can help distribute valuable knowledge is becoming increasingly prevalent
• Be aware that you are making your decisions about education for yourself and your staff with the awareness that more of your employees skill / knowledge development time is in an informal learning method (e.g. reading documents, reviewing reports, sharing experiences, communications with an expert) than in formal learning situations (e.g. self paced e-learning, classroom training)

If you don't do any of these actions, take heart in the fact that you are in the majority at this time. 


Few organizations provide employees with good internal tools (i.e. Google is an excellent external tool) to search formal and informal content.  Be aware that a universal search capability (federated search) will be more and more prevalent in business in the coming years.  We expect it to be a competitive advantage.