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144 Chapter 5

Table 5.1
Results of the IBM Institute survey

Number of respondents Percent of respondents
Information source who chose this source who chose this source

People 34 85
Prior material 16 40
Web 10 25
Knowledge base 4 12
Other 4 12

knowledge base was ranked only fourth among the fi ve choices for preferred sources
of information as shown in table 5.1 .
Cross and Parker (2004) found that people are the most critical conduits of infor-
mation and knowledge. Knowledge workers typically spend a third of their time
looking for information and helping their colleagues do the same. A knowledge worker
is fi ve times more likely to turn to another person rather than an impersonal source
such as a database or KM systems. Only one in fi ve knowledge workers consistently
fi nds the information needed to do his or her job, and Cross and Parker (2004) found
that knowledge workers spend more time recreating existing information they were
unaware of than creating original material.
A similar type of study was undertaken with a large aviation company in the United
States. This was a longitudinal study that took place over seven years and studied the
ways in which individuals in this large organization sought out and found informa-
tion. The research team actually sat down with and observed highly skilled profes-
sionals as they went about their daily work. Not only did these workers prefer to
contact other people in order to fi nd, retrieve, and make use of information, but this
also turned out to be a more successful strategy to use.
It turns out that, not only are other people the preferred source of information,
but that there are a number of reasons for this. One is of course that it is often faster,
but this is not the only reason. When we turn to another person, we not only end up
with the information we were looking for, but we also help learn where it was found.
In addition, the person turned to may help us to reformulate our question or query,
tell us whether we were on the right track or where we strayed, and, last but not least,
that the information is coming to us from a known and usually trusted, credible
source. In other words, people are the best means of getting not only a direct answer
but also “ metaknowledge ” about our search target and our search capabilities. Talking
to other people provides a highly valuable learning activity that is primarily a tacit-