How we want to interact with information at work

Some pretty scattered thoughts this morning that I'll edit into real posts at some point (maybe..).

In thinking about this I'm thinking in the context of one knowledge worker and their daily workflows. That's vague and specifics matter but let's hold it there for now.

NOT Tech | I want Project Focus to feel like it's not technology at all.

NOT AI | We don't want slop and half-baked automation.

NOT AI | We trust the output of proven humans (however they get there) not autonomous systems.

What was expensive that is now cheap:

• parsing through lots of unstructured information
• analysis of all types (entry level business analysis is free, it's friction and information access that is costly or blocking)
• generating content (quality aside you can generate content for next to nothing)
• generating code (again, production doesn't guarantee quality)

What is now scarce:

• Attention
• Time (clock, not tokens/compute)
• Trust - heightened skepticism due to generated content
• Relationships - the enduring quality that allows business to move quickly

I liked Reid Hoffman's recent tweet about how to attack Enterprise AI by focusing on the coordination layer. Here we have:

• Information (data) of one type or another
• That needs to be shared / consumed / aligned on across individuals
• The access to information and clarity of the information become limiting factors, along with the attention and aptitudes of individuals consuming the information. People manage these challenges historically by:
  • Keeping teams small to limit coordination
  • Manually adding process and curation to be able to reference and share durable artifacts
  • Selecting sharp teams so information uptake by the team is strong
  • Limiting sources (people, meetings, digital channels) from which you accept information
  • Discounting the veracity of information depending on the source (person)
  • The incredible volume of latent and implied information / context to navigate work content, process, and organizational politics is massive. This is a massive problem.
    • At times organizations or people don't want to make the implicit explicit further complicating this.

What is always needed in these systems:

• Systems of record with historical data and context from the organization
  • Note that these are often massively fragmented in terms of the information that matters (i.e., you may have the hard Salesforce data but decks with positioning may be used by the Sales teams)
• Software that acts autonomously to utilize, enhance, or add to system of record information
• An interface that surfaces information to the user and allows the user to act on or change the information in the system of record
• Interfaces to pull data from, push data to, or coordinate with adjacent (internal, customer, 3rd party) systems

What has blocked a lot of value, especially in complex or regulated workplaces:

• The human time to find information (the integration problem) is in many ways the number 1 problem of surfacing, aligning on, and acting on accurate information
• Information security is a hard problem that is a huge limiting factor to communication and tech utilization
• Tech /software is hard to use or interact with (it's often better to work offline primarily)
• Things break or don't work

Process is a necessarily evil that often gets confused to be the ends instead of the means:

• If you can get away with none, do it
• The more you track the more effort it takes
• Process is often mistaken for excellence. Excellence is the value you create. Process can achieve and illustrate control and control is a form of excellence, but value after no process (and almost certainly less effort) is far superior.

Shifting to Project Focus specifically: If I could name the perfect experience for copywriters in regulated industries...

• Able to focus on one project for sufficient time
• Clear, convertible scope and asks from clients
• Ready input from collaborators
  • Including swiveling your desk chair at any given moment to your editor / collaborator / analyst that is next to you
• Able to apply judgement judiciously
• Able to track back to prior changes and logic
• Virtually no time managing process (tracking project, project status, sharing status, managing deadlines, etc.)
• Seamless access to all the research content you need