Objection #8: Out of Date Inforamation
Jun 11, 2008 Social Learning SIG
Objection #8 is very similar to the previous objection of wrong information. Although the core it the same, it is come at from a different angle. “What if the information gets out of date.”
Answer: We need to look at the end result. For this, there needs to be a balance. For example, if a minor situation is encountered only a couple times a year and the information is wrong, is it worth the energy expended to proactively and purposefully remember to update the information? It may not be. But if the information tips on the other side of the folcrum (wherever you have put it), then yes. So some information being out of date is better than being updated.
However, there are bits of information (a lot of them in fact) that MUST be updated. One thing we have done is to tag these bits of information with a ‘x-month review’ tag (where x is the number of months between reviews). Then, we create a task (for us, in Outlook) to do the review. At that point all we need to do is hit the ‘x-month review’ tag and all the documents come up.
Some things will have so much visibility that if it goes out of date, it is guaranteed that someone will revise it. This is the pattern of Wikipedia. This model, because of the more limited resources and difference in types of data, is not the best comparison for an organizational model, however. But there are other ways to limit the out-dated-ness of information.
Does anyone have any other methods?
Tags: out of date, wikipedia
