Communicado: Business Communications Blog

Information Mapping: structure in a hectic world

I should start by saying that if you are a person who fights against any kind of structure and planning – a person who delights in the freedom of going with the flow above all else, then Information Mapping may not be for you.

If, however, you are person who needs to communicate with all manner of people in a variety of different ways and you sometimes struggle with organising your ideas and expressing them with clarity and conciseness (most of us, I think!) then the structure that Information Mapping provides could well be for you.

Staying on track
One of the things I love about a structured approach is that it keeps you on track. When you’ve been distracted, discouraged and otherwise befuddled by the task in hand (or other unrelated tasks going on around you), a plan or a structure can quickly and easily get you back on track.

Keeping a focus on the audience
One of the easiest things that can happen when communicating is that you lose sight of your intended audience or audiences. You start to include stuff that might interest you, but is entirely irrelevant to them. A structured approach means you clearly define your audience groups up front and can keep referring back to your definitions at any point in the communication process.

Reminding you of your purpose
Apart from ‘because my boss told me to’, it’s easy to be unclear about why you are communicating. Once again, a structured approach enables you to define your purpose (or purposes) clearly and relate those to each of the audience groups previously defined.

Helping you stay relevant
Worse still, without clearly defined audiences and purposes, how on earth can you be sure of what they need to know. (I feel a brain dump coming on!) And this really is the nightmare scenario. You in full flow writing what interests you, completely oblivious to the information needs of your audience.
 
Who liked it?
Imagine your surprise at the end of all of this. Not only was your boss over the moon, but the really important people (your audience) were well informed and had all the information they needed. Imagine everyone going away satisfied. Imagine, no more endless ringing of phones or emails filling your inbox with your audience asking for clarification.