Capturing stories in organizational memory systems: the role of multimedia

Most current conceptualizations of the use of information technology (IT) to capture, preserve and use organizational memory (OM) are based on hard data sources, such as databases and knowledge bases. Conceptualizations based on hard data sources are useful and necessary, but do not encompass the complete range of possibilities. “Stories” constitute an important component of organizational memory. Multimedia technology offers a vehicle to capture stories in a rich format. In this paper, we begin with the definitions and goals of organizational memory to indicate how the multimedia story format fits into organizational memory systems (OMS). We discuss problems associated with the story format and potential ways of mitigating the problems. Then we describe Constellations, a video analysis tool, and discuss how it can be adapted for use as one of the components of OMS