Current Awareness in an Era of Information Abundance? 12 Questions Every Company Should Ask.

Should you adopt a current awareness program for your organization?

In an era of information abundance, in which end-users have greater access to both free and paywalled content than ever before, what is the utility of a current awareness or news program for your users?

First, let's define our terms.

By Current Awareness (CA) I am referring to a program that curates the latest relevant information and delivers it to your internal audiences in one or more formats via one or more channels on an ongoing basis.

This could be as simple as a weekly email-based newsletter that summarizes the latest developments for your industry. This could be as sophisticated as a multi-channel, customizable news and research platform through which users can tailor the topics, content and delivery formats they want, when they want it.

Your CA program could be a simple digest of pertinent articles from leading news sites, delivered with no editorial value-add. Or it could be a richly curated collection of market research, thought leadership, video, tables and charts, and long-form analysis mined from the long tail of hidden gems deposited in the furthest reaches of the Internet, complete with editorial commentary and analysis by your writers and editors.

Before undertaking such a program, think about what you want it to accomplish. The pitfalls are many. Before proceeding with business requirements gathering, wireframing, or a Proof of Concept, think carefully about the following:

1. What are the program objectives and what are your metrics for success? 
2. Do you have a senior sponsor who is will to back you and provide political and organizational capital to develop, execute and sustain the program? Or are you doing this all by your lonesome? 
3. Who will pay for it? Will it come out of your budget, or your audiences? If the latter, who approves that?
4. What, if any, licensing costs are there for the content you'd distribute? What about copyright?
5. How would you determine the ROI of such a program?
6. What's the opportunity cost? In other words, what else could your staff be doing with their time? Would it be better spent doing other things? 
7. Should you build, buy or borrow (license)? What are the pros and cons to each approach?
8. What internal dependencies would your program have, particularly with IT, both for development and maintenance of the program?
9. How would such a program integrate with, or leverage off of, existing information-rich programs in your org, such as your CRM? 
10. How would a CA program align with the priorities of both senior management and your corporate communications department?  What about your firm's Knowledge Management program - what would they think about this? How could they help you?
11. How will you administer and manage the program? Will you archive your content and make it searchable? How will you add and remove users? Is it opt-in or will users simply be auto-assigned?
12. How might a current awareness program also function as a marketing and communications channel for your business library or research service? Can you cross-sell other products or services you manage? Should you? 

Believe it or not, there's still value in considering a current awareness program for most companies: there's a fine line between information abundance and overload - a good current awareness program can help your employees cut through the noise and make them better business decisions. But the pitfalls are many. Ask hard questions up front and save yourself a lot of trouble before embarking on such an endeavor.

- Kevan Huston