Personal Information Ecosystem
How do you describe all of the areas that you receive information from? How does what information you consume impact your future consumption habits?? How does this impact your professional life?
I’ve been trying to come up with a way to describe this concept.? At this point I believe that “Personal Information Ecosystem” is a good fit for what I’m trying to describe.? Although I thought I was clever and thought of this term first I see a couple others (1) (2) have gotten there before me – although their focus seems to be primarily on personal device synchronization/management.? When I say Personal Information Ecosystem (PIE), the idea I’m trying to summarize is the following:
Elements within any ecosystem interact with one another, changing or sometimes totally transforming the landscape of an ecosystem.? The Personal Information Ecosystem of each person is no different.? As elements within the ecosystem interact and new ones are introduced, each person’s information ecosystem adapts and evolves, over time transforming ecosystem.?
Instinctively, I think that most changes to your PIE happen on a micro level, but the possibility for bigger change is certainly there.? Take blogs for example – most of the posts that show up in my feedreader are good food for thought, some are insightful and, although rare, every now and then one shows up that challenges my thinking or provides an ‘ah-ha’ moment that provides deeper understanding and a true insight on an issue or concept.? How I change based on what I consume in my PIE is what I’m most interested in with this concept.? How does each individual’s PIE influence their professional or even personal life?
In this post I’d like to tackle the following areas:
- Information elements in my Personal Information Ecosystem
- Example of how my Personal Information Ecosystem has shifted as a result of the elements within (as a result of the interaction of various information elements)
- Reflections to date on this subject?
Information Elements in my PIE:
I’m sure I’ve missed some in here, and please feel free to share information elements that I haven’t listed that you find valuable as well.? Information elements in my own Personal Information Ecosystem consist of the following:
- RSS Feeds
- Web Alerts
- Online Journals
- Peer-reviewed Journals
- Social Bookmarking Site (Del.ici.ous, Reddit, Digg, etc.)
- Online Communities (KM Focus, CoP Focus, etc.)
- Online Discussion Forums, Listserves, etc.
- Wikis
Example: A Changing Ecosystem
A personal example of this is when I first began to incorporate RSS feeds and blogs into my daily reading and PIE.? When I set up my first feedreader there were roughly 20 feeds I added to it.? After time, this began to grow (and grow, and grow, and grow…) - primarily due to references from the authors showing up in my feedreader.? I also began to learn of new journals and online communities that also became incorporated into my PIE.? While my PIE had a heavy KM focus, the breadth and depth of it is now is much greater than it was even just a year ago.? But more than that, the new information elements that I’ve started incorporating into my PIE have also shifted my information ecosystem because I’ve been introduced to new topics, or had other topics presented in a new light.? These new and/or clarified concepts have not only shifted what information elements I consume, but they have also crept into my dissertation and my daily work in KM.?
You are what you eat, and I suppose it isn’t any different when it comes to the information elements consumed either.
Reflections on this Subject
This is a concept that has really just been kicking around in my head and this was my first attempt at making it explicit.? I still feel as if I haven’t totally been able to describe what I’m thinking, but any thoughts you have on this would be great.? What other information elements am I missing?? Are there any publications or research in this area that I haven’t stumbled upon yet?? How might this, if at all, fit in with PKM?
Still thinking…
Google Launches ‘knol’
While it appears to only be in private-beta at the moment, Google has just launched ‘knol’ - their knowledge service where people who are recognized as subject matter experts are asked to author an article on a particular subject.? Jack , Doug and Rich have already covered this announcement and have shared some of their thoughts.? Not wanting to be redundant since I agree with most of what has been said by each, I thought I would share a different observation I’ve had on this.
Often a bit of news will get picked up and will be discussed in many of the blogs and sites that I frequent; however, this is usually where the discussion ends.? Not everyone I know gets as excited as I do about a new and interesting KM article that has just been published or cares to discuss how LinkedIn will transform once is opens up to developers.? Fair enough.? So just imagine my surprise when I saw that The Drudge Report picked up on the knol announcement today with the headline/link to article, “Google to tackle Wikipedia with new knowledge service. ” It seems that this may just be one of those things that everyone is a little bit interested in seeing where it goes…