Greeting and Shaping the Future: Information Professionals as Strategists and Leaders
by Bruce Dearstyne
As a professional community, we sometimes underestimate, and sometimes overestimate, our ability to effect change and help invent the information future. We need to consider taking a more proactive tack that benefits the information-borne social transformation, fosters optimal institutional use of information resources, and keeps us at the center of dynamic change. This article suggests some potential actions for information professionals and the professional community as a whole. Some are modest and immediate, others more profound and far-reaching.
1. Reinvent the notion and concept of "information." The terms "information," "digital information," and "information technology" are used so often to mean so many different things that their meaning may have been stretched, obscured, or lost. What does it mean to say, for instance, that Microsoft, IBM, e-Bay, and public libraries are all in the "information business"? The overuse of these undifferentiated terms helps explain the advent of terms that sound like quasi-synonyms for information, e.g., "knowledge management," and that carry implications of immediacy, applicability, and information-in-action. The professional information community should consider revisiting the fundamental concept of information. New, differentiating terms may be needed, based on criteria other than (or in addition to) provenance (e.g., source), format (e.g., books, records), custody (ownership), or location (e.g., libraries). We also need to consider more extensively the perception of information from the viewpoint of users, particularly younger people who are accustomed to getting information via the computers and the Internet.
2. Explain and enlighten. The information revolution is confusing! Developments come so fast, from so many directions, that even "knowledge workers" in information-dependent jobs may find it difficult to discern patterns and trends. The rise of "dot coms," shift of buying/selling to the web, Internet-based banking and stock trading, "B to B" (business-to-business) information interchange, the growth of wireless communication and a rising tide of "Personal Digital Assistants" have all been little short of breathtaking! The Microsoft litigation demonstrated how complicated the
issues of competitive innovation vs. coercive business practices can be in a fast-changing, high-stakes information environment. Information professionals—through their associations, other discussion forums, writing in popular journals, letters to the editor, and conversations within their home institutions—can help put change in perspective, identify salient issues and trends, help bring order out of confusion, and stress certain themes, e.g., the need to distinguish authentic, genuine, reliable information from other information.
3. Articulate the public interest. Our common "information future" is being invented incrementally every day in thousands of places through multiple initiatives. As a nation, the United States lacks a clear set of guiding principles or a consensus on goals and objectives for use of information. The computer/telecommunications industry sees information as a source of prosperity and profits; business sees information as a way to improve production and services, develop new products, and foster commercial advantage; government's primary role is to make a "level playing field" for competitive development. Who, then, speaks for the public interest? Information professionals are well suited by their tradition of commitment to evenhanded, objective service to the public to articulate desirable objectives both for society as a whole and for their own individual institutions. They need to engage persuasively in public debates and go well beyond traditional library issues. Some topics that need a more extensive and enlightened articulation of public interest might include: What are the implications of digital libraries? What's at stake in the loss of digital government records? How to ensure the availability and accessibility of digital information and records over the long term? What should be done to archivally preserve web sites? What is the appropriate balance of intellectual property rights and access/use rights on the web? How do information professionals view the "digital divide"?
4. Reorient professional information associations. Professional associations are feeling the stress of wrenching change. Traditionally, they have defined professional fields, issued publications developed through lengthy peer-review and editorial processes, developed guidelines and standards through patient consensus building, held conferences for presentation of papers, and had about them a certain amount of status and prestige. All of that is changing. Associations find it difficult to keep in touch with and respond to rapidly changing member needs and expectations and to appeal to members (particularly younger ones) who are used to getting their information from the web rather than traditional publications and conferences. Moreover, the digital revolution is dissolving formerly clear boundaries between professional fields, e.g., librarians and other information specialists, and helping give rise to new fields such as knowledge management. Professional associations need to respond by becoming more agile, anticipating rather than reacting to member needs, developing creative ways to engage younger professionals, considering new categories of membership, offering more services and products via the web, speaking publicly for their members on issues related to the field, and cooperating with each other on issues of common concern.
5. Mediate among people, information, and technology. Information professionals need to find new ways to connect and mediate among people, the information they need, and the technology that can help deliver it. They discern the potential, but also the limits, of technology, keep people in the foreground, and provide realistic counterbalance to unrealistic expectations for information technology. "Infoenthusiasts insist ... not only that information technology will see the end of documents, break down narratives into hypertext, and reduce knowledge to data but that such things as organizations and institutions are little more than relics of a discredited old regime."1 Traditional library skills and roles are still very much needed, but in new settings. "Library science has changed dramatically, but the core role of the librarian—evaluating knowledge resources—remains unchanged," notes Jose-Marie Griffiths, CIO of the University of Michigan. "People assume that since we have the web, everybody can do it all themselves. But most professionals don't have the time. The web is not a library. Most people have no idea how search engines work and don't know anything about the quality or integrity of the information they are accessing."2
6. Apply past lessons and insights to current problems. In many cases, the key challenge is to apply what we already know through experience about how people access and use information. For instance, there is mounting evidence that knowledge management, with all of its attractiveness and potential, is disappointing in many settings because of lack of preparation, lack of training, lack of communication, failure to integrate into everyday working practices, over-reliance on technology, and even the absence of seemingly obvious features such as policies and guides to show employees what information is available.3 Application of insights from years of library and information management work is helpful in creatively bringing people and information together, particularly the need for planning and policies, adequate training, counseling, and support from information professionals, and realistic time frames for people to get used to and comfortable with new information services.
7. Accommodate emerging expectations for information use: pertinence, timeliness, ease of access/use. The digital economy is based on quick action and operating on "Internet time"—another new term that is a sign of the times and that implies speed and responsiveness. New criteria are emerging for information services: pertinence, the desire for appropriate, relevant, customized information that fits an individual's or an institution's particular information need; timeliness, the desire and expectation that information can be located very quickly; and ease of access and use, the notion that information will be compact and relatively easy to identify, access, download, and combine with other useful information. Not all of these criteria are realistic, and they downplay the need to make sure the information is authentic and reliable. Part of our "education" job as information professionals is to enlighten users about the value of information and the potential—and limits—of information technology.
8. Develop new ways to be customer-responsive. Information professionals, like many analysts in modern business and government, now almost casually assert that we must be customer-centric and that our services must satisfy, even delight, the customer. Much more analysis and testing is needed to determine how to make this a reality. Customers have needs and expectations as individuals, not groups—those needs change as the information needs of the institutions change—and, given the unsettled nature of businesses and other enterprises, individuals may find it difficult to articulate their information needs or to know for certain when they have been addressed or satisfied. Just asking the customer is not sufficient. "CIOs will need to know what the customer wants even before the customer realizes it," notes William Friel, the CIO of Prudential. "If you're just beginning to work on a solution when the customer is also thinking of it, it's too late."4 Information professionals need to help people formulate and articulate their information needs and to work toward empowering them to meet those needs on their own rather than (or in addition to) relying on the information professional as an intermediary.
9. Network creatively. Information professionals can no longer operate more or less unilaterally from their bases in libraries, records centers or other information centers—if they ever could! There is a need now for a posture of collaboration, cooperation, assisting, and guiding in the process of bringing information resources to bear for the benefit of the enterprise. Information professionals must know how and when to intervene and how to play a variety of roles. Sometimes, information professionals will need to become involved in formulating or reformulating the key questions before they can begin working on the answers. This means that we need to accept, and in fact welcome, some ambiguity in position description and fuzziness around the edges of our information-related responsibilities and assignments. It also means having a well-developed sense of how information resources contribute to the goals of the enterprise as a whole and possessing exceptional negotiation and communications skills.
10. Improvise. Information professionals today need to go beyond where there are paved roads or even dirt ones! Traditional, professionally sanctioned, or prescriptive approaches tend to trail off in some of the most complex and rapidly changing areas of information work. We need to flourish with a high level of ambiguity, to realize that the first answer may not necessarily be the right one, and to understand that in fact we may need to assist in redefining the problem before identifying a solution. Information professionals are on their own without a lot of precedent or guidance. Improvisation, networking among professionals to identify practical approaches and model practices, pragmatic inclination toward experimentation, and creation of a risk-tolerant culture are all appropriate for the fast-paced information world in which many of us operate.
11. Measure, interpret, report. The professional information community needs to develop new approaches to representing and getting non-professionals to understand what we do. We are used to counting patrons, publications, and quantities of information materials; but we operate in enterprises that salute revenue, profits, and strategic progress. Some of the newer, more imaginative approaches, e.g. that the difference between the stock value and the book value of a corporation is a measure of its "knowledge assets," show much promise but have a way to go before they are refined and consistent enough to be plausible and convincing across many enterprise settings over the long term. Even with more sophisticated measures, interpretation and reporting will be needed so that executives and others in charge of the destinies of enterprises understand the value of information and the role of information professionals.
In the final analysis, what promise and challenge does the information future hold? The answer depends on many factors, including particularly the insights, energies, influence, and leadership of information professionals. How we use the opportunity is up to us.
Footnotes:
1. John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid, The Social Life of Information (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2000) 16.
2. Cheryl Bentsen, "Interview: Jose-Marie Griffiths," CIO Magazine, June 1, 2000, http://www.cio.com/cio/cioinsider.html. (accessed 6/11/2000).
3. KMPG Consulting, Knowledge Management Research Report 2000, 1-4, http://www.kmpg.com (accessed 6/11/2000).
4. Chris Murphy, "Reinventing the CIO," Informationweek, Jan. 10, 2000, 50.
Feedback form
