Stop using data, start using information

We all know them: Wordfeud, boggle and the other letter games.

Working with letters, combining them in words and winning the game by points earned for making most of the letters. What can you find in the puzzle here?

Information management is not so much different from these kind of games, at least, in the manner it is still used in a large number of organisations.

Information is often confused with data. These two words have actually different definitions. The raw output (or content) from an operational system exported into an excelsheet is often refered to as information or even ‘a report’. This is incorrect. Information is gathered knowledge or created insight that is made available through data. So, data is the basis for information but is not information in itself.

So far, no problem. The problem however starts when all kinds of people in
organisations start using data to create their own information. This causes large amounts of time and money being wasted on reinventing the wheel and also defending the differences from one wheel to another. Exports are being made and often made available throughout the organisation (sometimes even with no attention for data privacy or authorisation rules) and different people start creating information based on their own ideas, filters, definitions and references. The kind of reports even sometimes challenge the automated reports being made available because someone thought of a new definition. Multiple versions of the truth are invented.

This situation in itself is not even a problem. People work freely with data and sometimes it can even be usefull. However, in current economic times and with focus on efficiency and effectiveness having different versions of the truth, discussions on “my number or your number” are completely not accaptable. An organisation has a strategy and that strategy has objectives. These objectives can be made specific and measurable by the business and IT and thereby, one version of the truth can be found. In that way, definitions, security, data privacy, authorisations and insight are foreseen and automated and, most important, data is already translated into the informationlevel that managers and employees can directly apply for their work.

It often brings some big challenges to create a standard set of reporting and definitions. Why? Because people are used to control their data themselves, use their own definitions and reports so they control what is being reported. This however is spending time and money that can be saved.

The puzzle above was the data, the puzzle here is the information.