Rethinking Information Delivery

McKinsey recently published an interesting article titled Data to dollars: Supporting top management with next-generation executive information systems.

While the focus of the article is the challenge and opportunity facing CIO's to deliver key performance indicators to top layers of management, I was struck by the ubiquity of the business problem the authors identify. As the authors describe: "It's a challenging mission because for all the data flowing through companies, executives often struggle to find the information they need to make sound decisions. Potentially valuable content is frequently trapped in organizational silos, lost in transit from one system to another, bypassed by inadequately tuned data collection systems, or presented in user-unfriendly formats. Although wired with layers of information gathering technology, organizations still find it difficult to deliver the right data to the right people." Calling this a "failure to deliver" they note "When information systems are dysfunctional, performance suffers. [emphasis added]

These same factors contribute to the widespread challenge impacting people involved in knowledge work throughout organizations of all sizes. For decades much of the focus of business IT has been enabling information creation and business processes. The pace of content creation continues to accelerate; driven by social software and changes in communication behavior in the work environment.

The challenges identified by the article - information silos, lack of user friendly interfaces, findability are all present across business organizations. The outcome "performance suffers" is also present in the broader context because it is people that make business decisions, sell and service customers, innovate and execute strategy. This makes it critical to empower people to thrive rather than be overwhelmed by information. Rethinking information delivery is very important.

This is why I am so enthusiastic about the work we are doing at Attensa. Focusing on information delivery has immediate business impacts and complements all of the existing information assets of a business.

There is enormous business value in addressing the underlying information infrastructure needed to get the right information to the right people and in a way that it is easy for them to consume. Some key considerations for general information and knowledge awareness:
- Establish a common aggregation service inside your network that can collect information activity from systems, content publishers and social communications solutions inside and outside your organization.
- Centralize a library or information marketplace that follows a taxonomy organization specifically designed around your business and its people.
- Enable multiple delivery locations to cross-pollinate information and interaction. For example, a dedicated web dashboard, portlet/widgets, email options and mobile.

These are first steps. The value of setting up a common information distribution infrastructure improves as it is used. Additional value follows as people use the same infrastructure to share information or knowledge across silos and organizational boundaries.

In addition this approach improves the the value and lifespan of all the systems that feed into it by making the information more visible and accessible.

There are an increasing number of common standards that can be leveraged to create the solution. This makes the solution a low cost-high impact project. As the volume of information and activity grows organizations can empower their people and leverage their existing systems more effectively than ever.