Changing culture: workflow and content
Jinfo Blog

By Joanna Ptolomey

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Reports of Content Workflow 2010 by Penny Crossland (http://digbig.com/5bbady and http://digbig.com/5bbadx) have had me nodding from the sideline this week.

I worked as an information professional in the STM sector, namely as a Clinical Effectiveness Librarian for a large NHS Trust, and content and workflow issues were always on my mind. My job quite simply - to facilitate and enable decision making and change by fumsi (find, use, manage, share information). This was about 10 years ago and also 'BSMT'- before social media technologies.

Many information vendors have now developed products that have integrated social media technologies, and were reported at Content Workflow as being useful. In VIP, we have reviewed some - Scopus/Web of Science Review and AIP UniPHY.

In FUMSI we have also seen examples of integrating social media tools to improve information content and flow. This includes Yahoo! pipes and mashups.

Henning Nielsen, speaker at Content Workflow, believes social media tools are only one part of the equation. Workflow changes are difficult to implement in any business. Your organisation or industry must be "in it for the long haul". You also need all the internal and external stakeholders to participate. After all, we are talking about changing a business culture.

In FUMSI we recently saw a Utilities sector cultural change example by Gillian Paterson. What do the pharmaceutical and water industry have in common? They both need information and research to drive their business. Also, workflow content management is crucial to the operational efficiency and strategic development of any business.

However, there are also some other changes to report in the pharmaceutical sector and healthcare in general. This month in FUMSI, we have an example of a "discovery led approach" by Daniel Ghinn for engaging in social media in the health and pharmaceutical sector.

There is also a growing group of industry and information professionals willing to make this leap into a more collaborative approach in STM– the Social Media for Science, Technical and Medical Communities (STweM). Their mission sounds grand- to use social media in engagement, transparency and access for all stakeholders in health care. It is all at very early stages, but with a mix of stakeholders getting involved could things be changing?

Workflow Content 2010 brought some of the stakeholders together to keep the dialogue going and start working on solutions. Groups like STweM are also part of the equation. And yes I believe that library and information professions could be the enablers and facilitators to make it work…let us see how this story continues to work its way out.

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