Topsight > Advance praise for Topsight

As I work my way through the final revisions for Topsight, I wanted to share some of the advance praise I received from two readers—one from industry and one from academia. Like me, they're excited about the potential for this book.

Topsight is a proven, structured way to uncover and analyze the information flow in a process, department or organization. In contrast to many user-centered methods, it goes beyond the user and the screen to expose the work itself, identifying the parts that are broken and the connections between the users, their tools and their tasks. Topsight is ideal for large-scale, strategic design work and this book is required reading for anyone wanting to build a successful social platform, intranet or collaboration tools.

—Fredrik Matheson, Manager, Social Computing & Collaboration Group, Bekk Consulting AS

You may think you don't need to know much about doing fieldwork to manage change in your organization, but Clay Spinuzzi shows you why it just might be in your interest to learn about it! If you use the methods in this book, you'll learn where your communication strategy is working, where it could improve, and where you need additional information to make effective changes. In Topsight, Clay Spinuzzi presents a series of inquiry moves that anyone interested in organizational change can use. The methods are powerful, and they have been honed in over a decade of research experience and many peer-reviewed publications. But Spinuzzi presents them here for the first time as a straightforward and clear process for learning where your organization—and your people—can communicate more effectively. I believe those who think about communication practices in groups and organizations—as researchers or managers or practitioners—will find valuable insights and helpful tools in Topsight.

—William Hart-Davidson, Associate Professor of Rhetoric & Writing and Director of the Rhetoric & Writing Graduate Program, Michigan State University