Tribal Knowlege

Many Native Americans has no written language which meant they would retain a history only by information by retelling stories over and over. The story was not held in writing, but rather in their collective brains. While interesting this often lead to a "telephone game effect" which causes the story to slowly drift farther and farther from it's original telling constantly loosing a little bit of detail and fidelity with each re-telling. Kind of like when you have a family reunion and nobody can agree upon the details of a memory.

Often modern workplaces work this very same way. We pass information from one person pairing with another, or telling them via verbal communication or some other ephemiral/Synchronous Communication such as Slack.

Slack's Design encourages never from writing things down which makes the 'easier to ask then find' problem.

Tribal Knowledge is usually encouraged by people needing answers ASAP, and therefore is usually in opposition to documentation and Asynchronous Communication.

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Backlinks:

• Slack is a black hole of information
• Source--Is Your Company's Slack a Question-Ask Black Hole