Scanning tasks are those where you stay up-to-speed on a topic. Likely as you read this post, you are scanning. You are seeing it in an RSS reader or via someone’s link. You didn’t arrive via search looking to find information that answers a specific question. Rather, you are participating in a continuous knowledge work / learning activity.

Common scanning methods are:

• Subscribing to magazines, journals or other publications
• Subscribing to email distribution lists, newsletters, etc.
• Subscribing to blogs
• Subscribing to searches, alerts, or other topic trackers
• Attending conferences or other professional meetings
• Participating in forums / discussion groups
• Conversations with peers can be a form of scanning
• Twitter can be scanning
• Blogging can be used as a part of scanning practices

Scanning is very important to me and occupies a fair amount of my time. I consider it essential to staying on the forefront. When I begin to work with a new client, I often set up various scanning activities for me to be in a continuous learning mode around their world.

But what has struck me recently, is that it feels like the “average knowledge worker” doesn’t actually do much scanning as it relates to their work?

What’s your impression - do knowledge workers scan?

If the answer is “Very Little” or “Sporadically” then the problem we face is that they don’t scan because they don’t consider it all that important. Thus,

Does it make sense for us to expose them to all these additional scanning methods?

I’ve been showing knowledge workers how an RSS reader can be a great scanning tool and how you can wire in several of the above information sources. But, if scanning is really not important to them, then

Is an RSS reader is pretty much irrelevant to the average Knowledge Worker?

Another reason for these questions is that when I went to define a scenario that would help people identify common knowledge work activities, for most of the scenarios I came up with scanning didn’t seem important. Scanning is important over a longer period of time when you want sustain information flow. But most common scenarios, you need immediate answers. In those cases searching is the dominant information acquisition method. So,

Is an understanding of modern scanning methods important for knowledge workers?