As media and entertainment businesses adopt IT-based production processes at each step of the content value chain, it becomes possible to manage, visualize, and shape the production of knowledge within the organization. While this moment-by-moment diary and dialogue of inventory, actions, and actors is standard practice for businesses like Dell, Walmart, or Visa, the media and entertainment industry, particularly among TV and film businesses, has never been privy to such data. Until now, the only real time stats of importance are those related to sales and audience measurement- such as Nielsen and Box Office numbers. With the right tools, new business opportunities arise for agile organizations.

Ross Mayfield, pointing to the participatory journalism efforts of Dan Gillmor and Jon Udell, describes this rich opportunity in a recent post, titled The Reporter's Notebook: At the core of a journalist's practice is her notebook. Stories are built from component parts gained from interviews, research and investigation. A reporter's notebook is traditionally a private resource, and parts of it should be private, but opening components of the notebook could unleash a different kind of source.

If reporters shared their notebooks with their newsroom it would be similar to internal blogging. A resource of journalists and editors alike, it would provide a base of contextual information to draw upon, perhaps increasing quality and speed of publication. A structure to involve specialist freelancers would further diversify expertise in context.

Tools would need to evolve beyond today's personal weblogs -- to facilitate a balance between privacy and sharing, internal and external, speed and quality. And some new forms of collaboration may arise to extend the byline.

One example of the type of business intelligence that can be extracted when analyzing the visible trail of business processes can be seen in the work of Dr. Elwyn Jenkins of Microdoc News. Dr. Jenkins and his study of the dynamics and evolution of stories in the blogosphere. It is clear from Dr. Jenkins' work that understanding collaborative community storygathering and storytelling processes- such as where and who stories originate from, how and which users contribute to them, and what the patterns and sources of successful stories are- provides insight and direction for future work. We can now learn from our actions, avoid mistakes, and repeat successes.

In summary, IT-based media and entertainment production processes will lead to a new understanding of the required ingredients for successful storytelling. In addition, the public open source pressure of bloggers and independent media can teach traditional media and entertainment businesses how to adapt to audiences that have increasingly more choice, control and information savvy.