Week 4 & Week 5: Organizational use of information

These two weeks of class were great because I learned a lot about what it takes for an organization to be successful in its information use. Whether the company does not have much information and is looking for more or if the company is suffering from information overload there are tactics which companies need to keep in mind. If they need information then they need to get good information which means finding good sources. Choo discussed Matsushita going to a master baker to figure out why the automatic bread maker they had created was not doing a good job. Matsushita was a smart company and went to somebody that had the information they needed. In this case they needed some tacit knowledge, previous to getting that tacit knowledge they probably did not even know that is what they were after. The point is if an organization thinks it through and goes to somebody with answers then they have a great chance of being successful.

Choo discusses eliminating equivocality when it comes to making decisions. Equivocality is a result of not knowing which information to act on and in what way that information should be acted on. An organization needs to have a plan in place which makes decisions based on the information they have. If the organization does not have enough information to make a good decision then they need to go get more information.