Chuck's Blog

One Emergent View Of IT

Came across an online interview that's probably worth reading, "GM's Ralph Szygenda Drives IT Innovation" in eWeek.

In it, I saw how they'd created a very different picture for themselves about what IT is all about, or -- more importantly -- might be in the future.

If you work in an IT organization, and ever wonder "what's it all about?" -- it's worth a few minutes of your time.

The Changing Face Of Information -- Conclusions

Well, if you've slogged through this sequence of posts, my congratulations -- and my thanks.

Put together, the handful of megatrends I've tried to identify paints a very complex picture with very few simple, obvious simplistic choices.

But the picture isn't so grim -- and might be even thought of as an opportunity.

Let me explain why.

The Changing Face of Information -- More Metadata

Information has very little meaning without context. 

And for us to thrive in this new information world, we're going to need some help in understanding what a given piece of information might mean.

Hence the growing importance of metadata in this discussion -- information about information.

If you're just dropping in, we're in the middle of a connected sequence attempting to tie together multiple themes sweeping our industry, and our society as a whole.  If you've made it this far; congratualation, we're in the home stretch.

If we step back for a moment, I've introduced this series, written about the growing need for information governance, identified information risk management as the new frontier in security, pointed to the unmet needs of knowledge workers as a crisis in the making, described how the changing nature of applications will change IT, positioned virtualization as creating the potential for "frictionless" IT, speculated a bit on how the cloud might affect us all, and shone a spotlight that -- as digital citizens -- we're going to want more control of our personal information.

And, behind all of this, perhaps our thinking around metadata might have to change in a big way.

The Changing Face of Information -- My Personal Information

One of the most powerful forces in our society is the growing need by information-literate citizens to have control over their personal information. 

I know I'd like to have more control over my stuff, and I think others feel the same.

If you're just dropping in, we're in the middle of a connected sequence attempting to tie together multiple themes sweeping our industry, and our society as a whole.

If we step back for a moment, I've introduced this series, written about the growing need for information governance, identified information risk management as the new frontier in security, pointed to the unmet needs of knowledge workers as a crisis in the making, described how the changing nature of applications will change IT, positioned virtualization as creating the potential for "frictionless" IT, and speculated a bit on how the cloud might affect us all.

But all of this assumes that it's corporate information. 

What if I think of it as MY information?

The Changing Face of Information -- Enter The Cloud

As a marketing wise-acre, I could joke that "cloud" is a marketer's dream -- it's so vaporous, you can make it mean anything you want, right?  Actually, most us here have a pretty precise idea of what it is, and what it might mean.

By the way, we're in the middle of a series of posts here. 

Just to bring you up to speed, I've introduced this series, written about the growing need for information governance, identified information risk management as the new frontier in security, pointed to the unmet needs of knowledge workers as a crisis in the making, described how the changing nature of applications will change IT, and positioned virtualization as creating the potential for "frictionless" IT.

Now we're ready to connect a few of the dots, and take on the concept of cloud computing. 

And, before long, I'm guessing it'll be a very interesing discussion to most of us in the industry.

The Changing Face of Information -- Virtualization Changes Everything

The Changing Face of Information -- Virtualization Changes Everything

I feel bad writing yet another post about how virtualization is transforming how we think about computing -- and IT in general -- but, given that I'm in the middle of a series of related posts here, there's no way I can escape covering the topic.

Just to bring you up to speed, in addition to an intro, I've written about the growing case for information governance, identified information risk management as the new frontier in security, how the unmet needs of knowledge workers are creating a crisis, and how a changing definition of applications will change IT.

How could I ignore virtualization?

So, rather than rehash the obvious, I'm going to try and draw a different view; one that speaks to information directly, rather than computing.

The Changing Face of Information -- What Is An Application?

You're reading a post that's part of a larger sequence.  I'm taking a look at several of the core issues that we'll all be facing in the coming years as we rapidly move to an information economy.

In addition to introducing the topic, I've taken a look at information governance, information risk management, and the growing importance of knowledge workers.

In this post, I want to dig into a fundamental question -- what is an application, or -- more importantly -- what will be an application?

The Changing Face Of Information -- The New Knowledge Worker

Continuing from previous posts, I'm attempting to take a broader look at the implications of our rapid shift to an information economy.

We've looked at information governance, and information risk management.

But what about value generation from information?  Or, more importantly, the people who generate this value?

And that brings the focus to where most of the new value is being created in the enterprise -- the knowledge worker.

The Changing Face Of Information -- Information Risk Management

We're on a journey here that spans across multiple posts, looking at the broader impacts of our shift to an information economy and an information society.

In my previous post, I attempted to make the case that information governance -- a centralized, business-oriented view of how information is gathered, used and managed across the enterprise -- would likely be an emergent theme; if not now, then certainly in the near future.

I also observed that risk avoidance associated with information management issues -- although a likely starting place for the discussion -- wasn't the be-all and end-all of how we might think about the topic.

In this post, I'd like to explain a bit about why information risk management will probably be not only the central theme behind information governance, but how it will probably dominate the IT security discussion in coming years.

The Changing Face Of Information -- Information Governance

This post is part of a sequence I've introduced here, looking at some of the inevitable consequences of our rapid shift to an information-centric economy and society.

In this post, I'd like to present my case that the CIO -- and everyone who works in the IT organization -- will likely have a new role in the near future.

They're going to be the CFOs of information.

The Changing Face of Information -- Intro

Sorry for being a bit delinquent in posting here regularly.

I've been travelling more than usual.  Although air travel these days can hardly be described as glamorous (insert long list of major grievances here), there is an upside: you get to meet great people, and you get some time to yourself to think and reflect.

I thought I'd do something different here, and offer up a consistent sequence of posts about the powerful forces of information-related change that's sweeping our society, and the resultant consequences that are likely to occur in the next few years. 

I've touched on many of these concepts in my last few hundred posts, but I thought it'd be worthwhile to present an organized view for consideration and -- hopefuly -- discussion.

Part of my motivation is reading the prognostications of others. 

I either find (or get sent) just about every "looking ahead" piece that gets written.  Although I always find a few things that I can agree with, I often find that I'm saying to myself "gee, they really missed that one, or this one". 

So I'm going to try to do a bit better.