Information: Lifeblood of Enterprises

'Information: Lifeblood of Enterprise' is an interesting thesis. It's an interesting way to look at how the company runs too. I don't think many managers and employees in companies would agree with this thesis though. Those that agree are in information management, IT and communications. And this rings a bell with the 'process people' in organizations as well.

But I do find this to be true, for all or most companies. A consultant once said to me: If this thesis isn't true, then what are all those employees doing behind their computers? What are they working on? Indeed, what they are doing is processing information of different types, amounts and abstractions.

Employees gets emails, with or without links and attachments. These emails contain assignments and tasks. Information from the emails and documents is used to create new information. Then it is shared on a wiki, blog or a collaboration tool. This information is sometimes related to product and/or resource information. Because the document contained requirements for the 2D or 3D design. The design (also information!) is subsequently related to other designs of product parts. These parts need to be ordered somewhere, which is described in resource and logistic information. This is passed on to the supplier by the product data management or resource planning system. Or it's sent to them by email. And we're back to where we started.

Does this make sense? Do you agree with this thesis? And is this the way the company you work for manages information?

In my next post I hope to explain how this metaphor helps us manage all information (structured and unstructured) in the enterprise integrally.

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Tags van Technorati: information architecture,information management,knowledge management,enterprise 2.0,PLM