Chase the Data, Not the IT

Information Technology-'IT'-is costly. Every CEO, CFO, COO-virtually each manager at each level of each company existing is aware of that positive reality. it's always a significant point in each company budget.

For the IT department, managing the corporate technical capability suggests that initial finding a product that meets no matter want the corporate has to return up with (and typically the odd whim of one manager), then the acquisition, installation, training, and maintenance of the hardware, software, networks, and databases that go beside the tool. Then you get to fret regarding interfaces between the tools, reports, security (both internal and external), and therefore the extraordinary, uncontrolled, eccentric, and oft destruction habits of the tip users even when you have provided complete end-to-end coaching on the new product.

Then somebody changes their mind and you get to try to it everywhere once more.

I in person believe each metropolitan space ought to have a personal asylum for IT managers. This facility ought to return complete with areas for the quickly insane to conduct personal and violent destruction of element, give them a setup of punching luggage created to appear like ignorant (not stupid, simply unrealistic) company officers, and a further stomping ground jam-packed with dummies created to fit a spread of knuckle-headed finish users. And a special place of hell for hackers...

Such a facility would be crammed to capability the least bit times.

The madness does not stop with the IT department. For alternative company managers, IT changes suggests that hours or days of coaching, downtime, and loss of productivity that comes with IT issues, failures, or system upgrades.

For staff, associate IT bug will mean lost chance, loss of revenue, and a below stellar image of the corporation which will keep during a customer's mind for years. Salesmen could ne'er overcome a nasty client expertise generated by unsuccessful IT. The phrase "the pc is your friend" isn't widely spoken among salespeople.

But it's a necessary evil, is not it? What company might perform while not it?

Well, it's necessary. Even associate enterprising young man or lady getting into the hands for the primary time mowing yards want the way for patrons to succeed in him/her, the way to manage a schedule, perhaps even the way to trace UN agency has paid their bill.

But will IT get to be evil?

What if the evil-ness comes as a result of we're attempting to resolve the incorrect downside with the IT? We're attempting to force a spherical peg into an sq. hole, imagining IT will solve our downside while not really distinctive what the matter is? we tend to obtain computers, networks, communications, and everyone kind

of things to try to one thing-capture and manage info. a straightforward indisputable fact that we tend to inherently all recognize however gloss over-it is not the IT that is vital, it's what is traversing that IT.

It's regarding the information. Those very little bits and bytes that conjure characters that conjure information parts that coalesce into info that provides U.S.A. data that any transforms into intelligence which will be used and acted upon.

It's regarding the information. nonetheless, we tend to chase the tools driving the information.

But wait (you say)! we've got our databases. that is a part of the IT. that is wherever our info is kept. we'd like the IT to induce to our info. It's OUR info.

Well, yes... sort of.

But not very. Your company will store information into the databases relating to your company, sometimes within a proprietary info that's half and parcel to the software package you have purchased. Most-or a minimum of a good deal of that information is duplicated in alternative systems, some internal to your company, however most actually in another external system. And putting in a info is tough work, what with obtaining things known, parsed, moved into the right fields, verified, and such. It takes time and hands that interprets into bucks spent.

And how simple is it to induce it back out of that info once you have determined to maneuver on to consecutive chill out product? what number IT managers work associate exit strategy at identical time they are developing their acquisition strategy? If you purchase a proprietary product, does one recognize what information rights you have got and the way you will get out of that product once the time comes? as a result of it'll. (By the manner, the solution is mostly 'no'-it's exhausting enough to induce the merchandise up and running whereas telling your seller and company leadership that you are already coming up with (and defrayment funds on) its death.)

OK, therefore UN agency has the information (where is your info really settled associated UN agency manages it? UN agency has access? UN agency owns it (don't build an assumption here))? however, can it's delivered back, therefore, you'll be able to move it to a competitor's platform? does one have to be compelled to obtain a proprietary (meaning, expensive) tool to extract the data? UN agency handles problems? UN agency maintains the documentation over the years, therefore, you truly recognize what that info sounds like and specifically what every component suggests that (because that changes too)? This borders on the geeky however X might not perpetually and forever mean X, or even currently its X+2. perhaps X is currently alpha-numeric whereas it began as numeric solely. This info is completely vital-what modified and when? while not that documentation, you have got no manner of knowing if your information is complete, if it's really correct or if it has been corrupted.

Love your info managers.

So, back to UN agency really owns the information. albeit your imminently wise IT manager has the bases lined as way as info possession and every one, does one really own the information elements?

No. You own the intelligence that comes from victimization the information, and any sequent storage and retrieval of that intelligence, however, you do not very get to choose the information parts that comprise that intelligence.

For instance, the U.S.A. social insurance variety. The U.S. owns it-its structure and rules, and therefore the content allotted per individual. Your company has no say in the matter. It can, however, be employed in multiple ways in which. Some IT systems use all 9 characters-with or while not the dashes-while, some solely keep the last four, six, or seven. alternative countries have personal identification numbers that look nothing just like the U.S.A. SSN. Now what?

How long could be a 'name' and UN agency gets to choose what it's like (no system I am conscious of might capture the image blue blood used for a while)? however long will a reputation be? What special characters area unit allowed? what number names will one person have (first/last/middle or 6-7 names, Aliases, antecedently famed As)?

Within countries, some can say the govt owns abundant of the opposite in person specifiable info (generally abbreviated to "PII") for that country (probably the U.S.A. among them). There could even be some international syndicate that believes they 'own' information relating to their field of experience (but I bet there is another syndicate that may afflict that position).

We might persist. the purpose is that nobody 'owns' a knowledge component, a minimum of nothing that is specified globally, and that is a drag.

Why?

Because we tend to area unit international creatures living as members of a worldwide setting. No man (or country) is an associate island. information travels around our world at the speed of thought through social media and interconnected systems. It's perpetual-once a 'thought' is out there, it's out there permanently as a result of somewhere it has been captured by associate IT 'system'.

Data is accessible from {virtually|nearly|just regarding} anyplace {and we tend to|and that we} will learn one thing about something with a number of keystrokes (although we've got no manner of knowing the truthfulness of what we find).

So, stuff is out there during an embarrassment of forms, a number of it's correct, a number of it is not, and you would like special tools to induce abundant of it.

How {do we tend to|can we|will we} recognize what we know? in person, I believe this era can eventually be referred to as the Second Dark Ages as a result of we do not recognize what we all know and haven't any thanks to capturing (into perpetuity) our data. Or the path of emails, notes, memos, etc that tells however we tend to come to its data, why we tend to created that call, why that exact path was chosen, etc.

PCs, laptops, mobile devices contain a wealth of knowledge that belongs to a person or usually, an organization or organization. once that device goes to the good bin within the Sky, sometimes through a cooked disc drive that makes the information it contains inaccessible, all that information is lost. Fade to black.

I attended a lecture once that aforesaid in 1900 human data was doubling every fifty years. In 1950 it had been each twenty-five years, in 1998 (when I detected this) it had been each ten years, and by 2020 it'd be each seventy-two days. Say what? however, will we capture that? however, will we recognize what we all know once it's all captured in disparate databases, disparate devices, in numerous forms?

How on Earth will we manage all of this data/information/knowledge/intelligence?

We need to facilitate. we'd like the computers to assist the U.S.A. As in, computer science (AI). AI might facilitate the U.S.A. add up of all of it, except the 'all of it' is scattered and parsed everywhere the globe with none customary type or structure.

So what if we tend to stop driving the IT and instead drove {the information|the info|the information} (which is what we would like anyway)? simply suppose we tend to the got management of our data, controlled it, and standardized it across the globe?

Imagine it-data component X sounds like this, means this, is accessed by this word, owned  (controlled) by this organization and (maybe) even updated this fashion. IT might do no matter it needed with it as long because it did not amend the structure of the element!

It would not matter what IT tool we tend to used-whatever suited our desires and budget-because our information was complete and controlled just like the Borg-collective. IT cannot amendment the structure or that means of the information. Resistance is futile. firms would not get to pay various bucks process and documenting their info as a result of it'd be standardized. they might want solely to outline the information parts they are curious about. A seller developing a brand new IT tool would not get to modify their tool for each customer-the information routines would be customary (think Services familiarized design on steroids).

Wow! however how? however, would set about protection down data?

It would take a worldwide endeavor, most likely one thing below the United Nations.

Suppose there was a bunch that took care of everything related to in-person specifiable info, another for education, another for health, another for accounting, etc etc etc...

It's impressive. There'd got to a bunch simply to choose that group A piece of knowledge ought to be sent to for management (is 'checking account' a part of banking, accounting, personal, or business information?)

There would be arguments.

It's been tried before after all, on abundant little scales by small organizations. None are fortunate primarily as a result of the cluster did not really own the information. you cannot manage what you do not own.

I argue here, however, that it's now not a matter of alternative. If we tend to area unit to avoid changing into that Second Dark Ages, we tend to should notice the way to induce management of our information and it should be a universal endeavor.

Start little, think big, move fast...

Why not begin with a bunch dedicated to individual attributes? outline those parameters. Establish the information structure. outline the tools to induce, update, and terminate that information. Then move out from there.

Imagine a world wherever firms or people should buy any IT product off the shelf-without the present paperwork related to major purchases-whenever they need, with no matter bells and whistles they need, as a result of the information it uses is universally structured. it'd save billions of bucks (after the good system within the Sky was established anyway).

Imagine a world wherever information becomes independent from the IT driving it. you'll be able to have an info however you cannot amendment the structure or that means. Some parts are also un-updateable except by a certified cluster (e.g., supply information like date of birth) and a master version captured at no matter level deemed appropriate-maybe national then synchronic with a worldwide repository. you'll be able to coalesce {the information|the info|the info} into information and intelligence that (may) become another piece of knowledge and captured it its title, however, you are doing NOT update the 'truth' data component.

Yes, I know-take 2 salicylates and assume it through... it'll hurt the grey matter. It's easier to chase the IT than get a handle on the information, that is why we tend to go that route. however, we've got to start out.