Mapping Organizational Memory

This is an ongoing project exploring how organizations remember—and forget.

The premise

Every organization has formal knowledge systems: wikis, documentation, onboarding materials. But the real knowledge lives elsewhere: in the stories people tell, the workarounds they've developed, the things everyone knows but nobody wrote down.

When someone leaves, what goes with them? When a team dissolves, where does their hard-won understanding go?

The work

I've been creating visual maps of knowledge flows in organizations. Some are based on interviews. Some are based on email/Slack network analysis. Some are speculative—imagining how information might flow based on org charts and meeting patterns.

The goal isn't accuracy. It's making visible something that's usually invisible.

What I'm learning

The formal org chart tells you almost nothing about how knowledge actually moves. The real structure is in the informal networks—who asks whom for help, who trusts whose judgment, who has lunch with whom.

More soon as this develops.