sharing vs routing

Common to all collaboration platforms is the ability to define what items (files, emails, chats, videos) get shared with whom and how (read-only, read-write, comment). What is missing is sharing the intend or purpose. There is what, who, how but not why.

Formal workflow systems on the other hand, while rigid in the way they operate, thrive on intend: "for review", "for approval", "for risk analysis" and so on.

Finding the middle ground

Capturing the purpose or intend allows to uncover actual (soft) workflows. The challenge to solve is to make it worthwhile to the regular users to declare their intend (which by itself is hilarious: how to declare the intend "cover-my-backside" in office compatible lingo?)

A few ideas how to implement this:

• make it easy, the dialogue defining the share includes a field for intend. Most sharing dialogues allow notifications, so it is half way there
• adjust the language in the UX: add a "route to" capability
• integrate it into a task management system (I'd favour GTD)
• add a fancy dashboard to visualize flows
• find promoters who are keen to try that way of work
• use machine learning to predict the routing (been there, done that)

Is this a good idea, what do you think?