I came across the phrase at Aaron Swartz's The Semantic Web as a Matter of Enlightened Self-Interest. I am cut+pasting the first paragraph below
Jon Udell, in his book Practical Internet Groupware, speaks about the use of docbases: data stores of semistructured information (documents) in systems like newsgroups, web discussion forums, etc. He states that one of the most important factors in getting a docbase system used is making it a matter of enlightened self-interest. That is, people who store their information in the docbase must get an immediate and useful benefit from doing that.
2conclude