The social life of information - how the company pub can make your staff more intelligent

Brown and Duguid, the authors of 'The social life of information', remind us that distance is far from dead, even in those places where distance technology is at its most advanced, people still gather together. Hence we have Silicon Valley. Even Microsoft moved part of its research department there in spite of its previous slogan for Windows which inferred physical travel is irrelevant: 'Where do you want to go today?'¹

Most of us can be called office staff, as we do just that during the day: staff offices. However, the nuances of interpersonal communication are extraordinarily powerful in creating a true knowledge economy within the organisation.
The water cooler (or bar for the spirited) is more than an oasis of refreshment, but an active market for trading information. Like any market, the easier you make it for the trade to occur, the greater the quantity traded.

If you want to increase the quantity of trading on the floor of your social exchange - the company pub - here are five questions to ask:

1. Is the environment conducive to sitting in many small groups, or are there just a few large tables?
2. Is the music impeding conversation; is the TV always on, distracting the traders?
3. Do the same people visit the pub every night, trading the same old information?
4. Is it physically comfortable?
5. Is it a shrine to the 'powers that be' or an oasis of communication?

A former government employee commented that a powerful motivation behind Reagan's tax reforms was his vivid recollection of a friend who said he decided to work less because his additional income would be taken by the IRS.²

Information in a social setting can have a lot of power.

[Ref 1]: John Seely Brown, Paul Duguid (2000): The Social Life of Information, Harvard Business School Press. [2]: Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini (1994): Inevitable illusions, how mistakes of reason rule our minds, John Wiley & Sons, Inc.