Simple but powerful. This got me to think about appealing to emotion in the workplace to inspire change. I agree with Heath that we make change decisions, generally, with our emotions not necessarily through logic.

If we were totally rational, then none of us would drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes because, logically, we know they are bad for us. My father is a borderline diabetic and when the doctor told him he was not allowed to eat doughnuts because of their lack of nutritional value, my father quickly countered with: “But, what about their emotional value.”

In the workplace, would appealing to emotion work on enterprise-wide changes, like technology implementations? How would we appeal to emotion to get people to submit stories to our knowledgebase?

I think for years I’ve been trying to rationally sell people on the benefits of sharing – reuse, saves time, better quality product, more collaborative, even increased sales but I wonder about selling on emotion. What would that look like?

Heath relayed a purchasing story where the company’s new head of procurement gathered all the 350 different kind of gloves their plants were independently buying and brought them to a leadership meeting. This was his argument for centralizing purchasing. When the leaders saw all the different gloves and the fact that they were paying different prices for the same glove, they make the switch.

COuld we do the same with storytelling and sharing content? Could we gather all the disparate selling techniques and products we produce to demonstrate how one could have benefited from the other? Would this convince people to start sharing? Hmmm….that might be something I try.

I learned a long time ago that people pay attention to communications from the top. As flat as we’d like to be, if my manager or anyone in my chain sends me an email, text, IM or blog, I will read it. But, now we have social experts telling us that peer review and peer opinion drive eye-catching interest and translate into action. That we listen to and trust our peers more than our “superiors”. I feel that is true but maybe in a different context.

I personally believe that to motivate different behavior, a message from my manager will motivate me to change but so will a message from a trusted colleague IFthat message has a story I can relate to and a result that is impactful enough. From the top, it’s enough to TELL me what is expected. From my peers, it’s all about SELLing me to get me to change.

Imagine if the tell and sell could be combined in a communication strategy – managers AND peers? I think that would double your success for changing behavior, which is the intended result of most communication strategies.

Prioritization takes a huge amount of discipline. Many of us can see 50 feet in front and know what needs to be done to be successful. But, we only have so many resources to get it done. I don’t think a person can be successful if they are so splintered.

One of my favorite quotes I learned in business years ago is: “What gets measured, gets done.” Measurement takes a lot of effort. I mean true measurement. Not just logins, hits or activities but true measurement of success based on business goals.

I argue that focusing on 3 real priorities with real plans, measures and follow-up will yield more success than having a list of 20 projects to do. But, sometimes, that philosophy is not embraced. Being busy and churning out work justifies our existence. But, does it?

Establishing performance measures tied to business results will force a conversation about prioritization. It all starts there. Many of us will have to lobby for the less is more approach, and you can do so by showing what will be measured and what impact the less approach will generate vs. an endless task list.

My hope for this new decade is a focus on less. Less is better. Less is achievable. Less is necessary.

 Tom Davenport purported in the Harvard Business Review that we are “info-satisficing” – being satisfied with sacrificing quality. I have examined this “good enough” quandary in my own blog.

Are we sacrificing quality because there is just too much information in too many channels to possibly read let alone absorb? I still receive six print magazine subscriptions (I just can’t move to nationalgeographic.com; I like the glossy photos) on top of my very active Google Reader account, Twitter stream, Facebook and YouTube channels I follow. I can’t seem to get on any other social medium right now or my head will explode.

Because of weather conditions, I settled for Skyping family instead of traveling to see them over the holiday. Instead of scheduling my time around when Modern Family comes on, I go to Hulu and watch it at my leisure. I can’t even find time to DVR the show!

I don’t know if we are sacrificing quality or just fitting the medium and level of content to the time we have.  Would I have preferred to see family in person for the holiday than on my LCD? Yes. But, Mother Nature had a different plan.  I can control what I receive, what I subscribe to and what I read. I used to feel under pressure to keep up on every medium but I don’t anymore.

Information is widely available but we have the power to filter and do so in the easiest way ever…thanks to technology advances. So, are we getting what we need? Are we sacrificing quality? Are we “overloaded”?

The answer is probably “yes” but I find that I am more selective than I used to be when I entered the socialsphere. I don’t accept every friend invite on Facebook. I don’t follow 5,000 people on Twitter. I don’t have RSS feeds from 500 blogs.

I pick and choose what I want carefully and I keep my six magazine subscriptions to ensure I have in-depth articles to not only spark an immediate thought in my brain but to have real, developed arguments and facts to consider. I still buy crime novels in paper because while Kindle is available, I’m not there yet. But, that’s just me.

In November’s issue, an article on Augmented Reality (AR) caught my eye, and I put my futurist hat on to think about the link between Knowledge Management and AR. AR is the technology concept where you can be visiting Paris, walking by the Eiffel Tower and your device will know where you are based on GPS and display historical information about the Eiffel Tower. I would be nervous if I was a tour guide.

What an astounding concept for knowledge management! Imagine if we could retrieve information about people that way…the new augmented expertise locator! Or, embed information about a system, process or experience this way. It wouldn’t depend on GPS because these are not tangible items like the Eiffel Tower but if they could depend on simple inputs like voice instead of GPS.

I could say: “Close deal with UPS.” And, videos of people telling stories could be downloaded to my mobile device telling me how to do that, a screen listing hot buttons about UPS, bios of decision-makers, and the list goes on and on.

What we can’t avoid is even with the convenience of AR, there still has to be someone who creates content. The ease in which we access that information can be aided by mobile devices, cloud computing and other technology but content will continue to be king.