SLA NWRC notes
I attended Day 1 of the SLA NorthWest Regional Conference at the Fairmont Vancouver today. The conference’s theme is Content Management – Converging Information, People and Technology. The timing was perfect since I recently became one of the adminstrators of the firm’s intranet.
The keynote speaker was Bob Boiko, businessman, educator, and author of The Content Management Bible (which has an entertaining number of statistically improbable phrases …mmm…inclusion metadata…) and the forthcoming Laughing at the CIO. He spoke enthusiastically and knowledgeably during his presentation entitled “What to Shout about Information Management”. He made some very good (not to mention inspiring!) points that I will summarize here, with my thoughts included. If you ever have the chance, I would highly recommend seeing Bob speak. The session was high-energy and the perfect way to kick off the conference.
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Let’s call a spade a spade. Why call it content management? It’s a term whose use is perpetuated by vendors who want to sell you a system. (When you’re holding a hammer, everything looks like a nail!) What we’re really talking about is information, so let’s call it that. The term “content” is constrained and connotates something exclusive and mysterious. We need to take back the term “information”.
There is an strange disconnect between the way we think we feel about information and the way we treat it in business. Most people believe that knowledge is power and content is king, but we don’t behave that way.
Case in point: we love information. We want more and more of it, all the information we can get our hands on. But God forbid we should have to pay for it. (So true!)
What would it look like if we treated information as importantly as we treat money? What would happen if, in business, we actually treated knowledge like the asset that we claim it is?
So here’s what Boiko says our strategy should be: “If we deliver the right information to the right people in the right ways, it will help us meet our goals”.
When thinking about the “right way” to get the information out, we have to be aware that there isn’t just one way, there are a lot of them, and we need to master them all if we want to be successful.
One fantastic thing point Boiko made was that we need to put the ”I” in “IT”. Neither needs to be bigger than the other, but the “T” should serve the “I”: it needs to exist in the context of the information that needs to be delivered. This is frustrating to the “T” people because with technology there is a mechanical solution. It either works or it doesn’t. It is finite and measurable. There is no such thing with information. It is not tangible, and it is not concrete.
Boiko discussed how CM is really in its infancy. We get frustrated with the challenges we face when dealing with information: we think everything needs to be “digital and deliverable to everywhere in the world” – but why SHOULD we be able to do this? The concept of CM has only been around for 10 or so years! According to Boiko, we’re not really in the information age yet, because we haven’t mastered and determined how to make it work right, every time. Until we can get those processes right, as in the manufacturing age, we’re really not in the information age. At least we’re not succeeding in it yet.
A company is run differently depending on who’s in charge. If the finance guy is calling the shots, everything will be about the bottom line. If it’s the marketing guy, maybe the MO is “spend money to make money”. What would happen if it was the “information guy” who was in charge? When information needs are the “top line”. Boiko says information belongs at that table, because it is as important as all those other departments.
The last reason on earth to implement a CMS is “We just have too much information, we have to put it somewhere”. Decide what the goal of the repository is and then figure out how to fill it. We have to learn to assign value to information. It shouldn’t be the thing we spend the least amount of money on.
Information professionals are perfect for this role and a natural fit. We have a fondness for information and pride in working with it. We believe that it serves a noble purpose. The other contenders don’t have those feelings toward information.
Most thought-provoking quote: “The Google we want is the one that gives us ONE piece of information – the one we want and need”
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Tomorrow: last third of the conference, with closing session with SLA president Rebecca Vargha. I’ll post summaries of the today’s other sessions, maybe tomorrow. Chiara Fox’s presentation on content analysis was fantastic. She actually used the term “AJAXy goodness”!