What do my colleagues know? dealing with cognitive complexity in organizations through visualizations

Abstract

In order to cope with the growth of information complexity, organizations have started to implement various forms of knowledge management applications. Approaches range from file-, data-, information-centric software to information retrieval, search engines, and decision support systems. Thereby, the data presentation plays often a crucial part in making knowledge available in organizational settings. We examine two visualizations and investigate their capabilities to support organizational knowledge and their usability. One is a document-keyword centric graph-based visualization, while the other is person-institute centric. Both were evaluated positively in supporting improvement of organizational knowledge.