Findability

Here is an interesting web site with several links to other interesting web sites about information technology including discussions and demos of the future of information management.

Visual Information Tool

Ok, so here's one many have probably already known about for a while, but I just discovered it and find it very useful and intriguing.  Tag Galaxy gives you the opportunity to search images (flickr only I believe) on the web and see them on an interactive sphere in a "galaxy" context with related subjects surrounding the subject of your initial search.  Any sphere in the galaxy can be readily searched and the sphere itself might actually be another galaxy with related subjects revolving around it, ready for further exploration. 

Idea Mapping and Processing

Axon2000 is one of many software solutions to help "thinkers" keep track of ideas and organize information.

Data Accuracy

A primary aim for most companies is a comprehensive "view" or understanding of their customer.  Remember the 5 magic questions from Eric Denna.  Every company should understand: 1.  Whom you serve and what do those you serve need to do?  2.  What services do you provide to help them accomplish this?  3.  How do you know you are fulfilling your purpose successfully?  4.  How do you provide your services?  5.  How should you organize to provide your services successfully? 

Powerful answers to these questions requires powerful data.  How is the power of data manifest?  Data power is realized in the information and knowledge it generates.  In terms of electrical power, information and knowledge are the electrical tools and data are like the electrons.  Data power is therefore likened to its accuracy, timeliness, and completeness.  Accurate data are true electrons, with the proper charge and attributes.  Timely data are influenced by the medium in which the true electrons travel.  Complete data don't have a correlating attribute in this comparison.  How is data accuracy, timeliness, and completeness enhanced so that the resulting power of information and knowledge can be maximized?  The answer is data management.  A significant energy input is required for quality data management.  When there are many competing company initiatives, how can the significant energy draw of a data management be justified or the cost of the energy mitigated?  I propose that a justification should be found in company goals and objectives.  The cost of the energy, in terms of all resources, can be mitigated with technology (the right technology).   

Power Potential of Information

POWER!  Isn't that essentially what organizations and individuals seek in order to achieve increasing success?  The power to do more with less, the power to earn more business in a competitive market. Organizations and individuals utilize resources (assets) while implementing various means of  harnessing or generating power with those resources. For example, people are frequently called the number 1 resource of organizations and they are  often required to complete training courses. Training is a means of increasing the capability of individuals in order to apply that capability toward the achievement of some specific end. If individuals in an organization are considered as components of a machine, the energy they are able to exert over time (enhanced by training) contributes to the overall power output of the machine. Information is another resource and the degree to which it's capabilities are enhanced and harnessed is directly correlated to the amount of power output from the information. 

Now let's look a little deeper.  Training a person is orienting and organizing a person's natural capabilities in a specific direction.  Information is "trained" when it is correlated with all information in the domain and thus transformed into knowledge, which is the power-producing form of information.    

Google Tech Talk: PIM

Establishing a mission and vision

The following are the thoughts of Eric Denna, who has had many years of experience helping organizations develop strategic plans. I asked him to evaluate my rationale in helping my company develop goals and objectives. This was his answer:

"1. Whom do you serve and what do they (those being served) need to do?
I find, invariably, that organizations are very imprecise about who
their target customers are and what their customers are trying to do.


2. What services do you provide so they (those being served) can do
what they need to do? This is essentially a catalog of services
provided by the organization and a straightforward explanation of how
the services provided help their target customer do what they need to
do.


3. How do you know you are doing a great job? I have learned that
the more straightforward and simple the answer to this question the
more precise the answers to questions one and two. If someone needs
more than five pieces of data to evaluate how they are doing I start
getting nervous.


4. How do you provide the services? These are the processes for providing your services to your target customers.

5.
How should you organize? This includes information about the
organization structure, decision rights, resource distribution...


It is always an interesting experience to have a leadership team
answer these questions as to what is and then get them to reconcile
their answers. They learn an enormous amount about their organization,
particularly when they try and reconcile their answers.


I then turn the conversation to answering each of the five questions in the "should" form:

1. Whom should you serve and what do they need to do?

2. What services should you perform?

3. How should you know you are doing a great job?

...

When
answers to the first form of the questions disagree with answers to the
should form you have an opportunity to clarify vision/objectives.

The first three questions are the critical ones when
focused on vision/strategy."

I am thinking that these questions can be useful in helping individuals or families set up appropriate goals and objectives to help them achieve their personal vision as well.