How do trust networks affect consumption of information?

Our research of information consumers and executives reveals a diverse appetite for information and sources, calling attention to the need to develop more comprehensive metadata frameworks for describing information consumption patterns and faceted taxonomies—keywords and phrases—that define the desires, aspirations, and needs of individual consumers.

Information Consumption Model Defines the Quest for Insight and Answers

The figure above depicts seven basic categories of information that constitute the basic inputs of knowledge workers and, by extension, customers using interactive means of communicating with vendors.

Information Preferenda
We borrow the term preferenda from biology, where it refers to a preferred choice within a continuum available to a motile organism. In the context of trust networks, we use it to connote all of the types of information and experiences that an individual might prefer out of the choices available to him or her. Customers want, need, and demand more than just answers. They want insights about how to solve their particular problems, or at least what they perceive as their particular problems. This means they need a flow of answers that will also educate them as to the nature of their problem so they can ask better questions.

In our research of 3,700 software programmers over a three and a half year period, examining what information products most contribute to programmer productivity, software quality, time to market, and lower demand for expensive technical support interventions, we discovered that information comes in seven different food groups. Depending on the nature of the question and the cognitive capacity of the person asking the question, an offered answer may or may not satisfy or produce the desired result.

The figure above depicts these seven groups in terms of pacing (how fast one can assimilate an answer) and structure (requirement for prior knowledge or experience in order to digest the answer).

Business theory represents subtle distinctions within a tradition or discipline of practitioners. More often than not, these distinctions serve as a context or realm in which one can think about and analyze current or future scenarios. This requires a considerable amount of time to reflect on and assimilate these distinctions, plus schooling in the grand theories of business for comparison.

Business models and designs characterize the intellectual capital of a firm—how it finds and serves customers and captures value in return. This intellectual capital comes from a variety of sources, including the management team, acquisition of patents and licenses, strategic partners and consultants, and other sources as noted in the figure.

Strategy formation and refinement describe how a company arrives at consensual decisions. This may include board reviews, internal studies, the purchase of industry research, consultant briefings, and other vehicles.

Skills development entails the production of expert skill through workshops, on-the-job experience, tutorials, and other educational and professional materials and tools.

Operations control represents the information needed for business management. This includes verbal feedback from co-workers, status reports, financial statements, and other sources of information about the daily operations of a firm.

Problem solving focuses on workflow providing the raw materials (including knowledge, information, and media assets) that workers need to do their jobs. These sources include informal conversations with co-workers, technical bulletins, documentation, and other sources of technical or professional how-to answers.

Nondirected browsing covers a variety of activities that in a business-to-business context generally translate into industry awareness. This may also include entertainment and “digital coffee breaks” that, in the big picture, add to overall productivity but may show no immediate payback.
We offer this model to illustrate how a brand manager can analyze the kinds of answers that buyers and other stakeholders may have. In this case, our client used the model to identify unserved information needs among their software developers, as well as to determine how to validate the best medium (offline or online) for delivering particular kinds of answers.

As executives research the information needs of their buyers, they must work hard to distinguish what kinds of answers will most accelerate a customer’s progress through the buying and using process—what we call the solution lifecycle. The mere provisioning of answers will likely fail if the buyer or stakeholder does not possess the cognitive capacity to assimilate them. They may need more training, remedial education, peer-to-peer consultation, and coaching.