A key fluency for any person or organization is what we call Information Fluency. For our framework we’ve defined it as
The ability to efficiently and effectively gather, manage, and distribute pertinent information
As an example of this fluency, let’s consider Steve Charlesworth, a.k.a. @SoundSystemSDC and his August 10th post to Twitter.com:
“OK, the girl resigning via dry-erase board is a good story, but the skeptic in me wonders how many minutes till we find out that’s fake”
Steve’s post was an immediate response to an Internet story that had exploded that day of a girl who quit her job using a dry erase board (a.k.a. the HPOA [hot piece of a**] hoax). Within hours, the story had been widely written about and commented on, even by well-known publications like F@st Company. There are many clues in Steve’s Twitter post that his level information fluency is high. The first is the fact that he knew about the story so soon after it had occurred. This is a sign that Steve is comfortable gaining immediate information from an extended network of his peers, presumably including the 400 people he follows on Twitter. But the ability to gather this information isn’t enough to suggest fluency. In order to be fluent, Steve would also have to be able to make good use of this information, which requires him to first judge its credibility. In an email correspondence with him on August 11th, Steve gave the following three reasons for his immediate suspicion that the story was a hoax:
- “The woman seemed ‘too perfect’, like she’d been sought out for the role”
- “The specific mention of TechCrunch made me wonder if it was meant to get TechCrunch some attention”
- “I’m extra-skeptical of these things after watching the ‘balloon boy‘ thing go down (actually I was skeptical about that one, too)”
Steve also cited the fact that he has been using the Internet since 1990 as a factor in his ability to spot hoaxes early. A decade-plus of experience has exposed him to many other well-known hoaxes like lonelygirl15 and the legend of the $250 Nieman Marcus cookies. Steve also stated that “..on many occasions Snopes [an Internet rumor debunking site] has been my friend.”
All of these factors together form a body of evidence that all parts of Steve’s information fluency (his ability to gather, manage, and distribute pertinent information) are strong. They also suggest that some of his other fluencies may also be strong, but we will save that for a later post on another fluency. In the mean time, in an effort to test Steve’s fluency, we will not directly alert Steve to the presence of this blog post. Instead, we will wait to see how long it takes him to find out about this article through search and through his network of online friends who will of course tell him about it. After finding out, he will no doubt post a witty comment here. So Steve, it’s up to you now. Don’t let us down!
Indicators that the People In Your Organization Might Have Information Fluency:
- You comfortable with and good at finding relevant information anywhere it exists
- You are not easily fooled by false information or unfounded rumors
- You are able to share information that is relevant to the situation of others
