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In my last post I explained the importance of the audience as receivers of a knowledge worker’s output and as a source of information, i.e. supplier of input for knowledge work. I explained that it is important to ask: Where can you deliver exceptional value, which audiences show a thirst for the insights you can deliver and how can improve and become more effective and more efficient at creating valuable information for these audiences? In this post I will look at the audience in more detail. To start, look at the illustration below:

The illustration highlights again the value chain of knowledge work from a different perspective. When you compare this figure to the one I used to introduce the value chain of knowledge work, the difference is the role of information sources and information receivers (=audience). While in my first post I have not particularly stressed the fact that your audience is also your most important information source. This was the main message of my last post. In essence, the circle to the right describes the environment of information sources and information receivers. It highlights on the one hand people and on the other hand artefacts that are produced by people.

These artefacts have different formats, some may be written documents, others may be videos and still others audio recordings. These artefacts are always a result of knowledge work performed by people.

In my last post I explained the possible relationships between people: People form collaborative, competitive or dependency relationships, or, in most cases a mixed relationship, e.g. a competitive dependency relationship. A knowledge worker’s audience is itself exchanging insights (=producing and communicating output), either in formal or informal networks, as shown below.

Formal networks usually hold in dependency relationships, typically in a company where people work together towards achieving goals of the company such as innovation and growth. Informal networks typically are collaborative environments, e.g. communities of practice such as people interested in, say knowledge management or biochemistry. Collaborative informal networks typically shape around topics, i.e. fields of shared interest. As mentioned above, in both types of networks there are typically also competitive relationships between network members. With this in mind, here is the value chain of knowledge work from the perspective of the individual knowledge worker:

- I receive information; either from people directly or from what they produce (articles, videos, etc.). People and their artefacts are my primary information sources as a knowledge worker.

- In order for me to create insight that is valuable, I need to know about

1. Which information sources exist

2. How I can gain access to these sources

3. How I retrieve and filter the information coming from information sources

4. What valuable insight I can deliver through processing the information extracted from information sources

5. How I process information

6. How I transfer insight into output, because I can only communicate insights gained when I package it into output, e.g. text or speech

7. How I can deliver this output to the relevant audience

Audiences value my insights differently. I can maximize my economic benefits when I achieve to produce knowledge that carries significant insight to the audience that latently or actively seeks the insights. The larger the demand of audiences for insight the larger the potential benefits when such insights are delivered.