Observers of the political situation in the U.S. often suggest that today’s intense partisanship is highly counter-productive—and that the government could accomplish much more if everyone worked together across party lines.
This seems like a reasonable proposition. But we shouldn’t pretend that businesses are immune from similar kinds of internal political conflict. Anyone who has worked in an organization of any size is well-aware of the turf wars that can emerge between sales and marketing, between different product groups, or between teams loyal to competing leaders.
Information often becomes a hostage in these turf wars. Marketing, for example, may want sales to share information about customers who are good candidates for testimonials or publicly published case studies. Sales, however, may be reluctant about sharing that information—because they don’t want everyone in the world to know about their prize account and/or they’re worried about having to make contract concessions in return for the marketing assistance.
To some extent, such territorial concerns may be reasonable. It is important to keep information secure. And information should not be carelessly allowed to leak in ways that could hurt the business as a whole.
On the other hand, it is important not to allow the self-interest of individuals or groups within the organization to impede the effective leveraging of knowledge assets across the organization. Such self-interest undermines knowledge worker productivity—and ultimately limits the ability of the organization to discover and capitalize on market opportunities.
We might call the self-interested, territorial control of information “information politics.” And we might call the effective balancing of legitimate restrictions on information access against the broader needs of the business to maximize returns on information assets “information governance.”
The difference between information politics and information governance is essentially a strategic one. When decisions about information sharing are made on an ad hoc basis by whoever happens to own any given piece of information at any given time, you wind up with partisan information politics. When policies about information sharing are set by managers charged with protecting the interests of the organization as whole, you can successfully achieve good information governance.
Information Optimization (IO) plays a key role in achieving information governance. With IO, all legitimate access controls can be preserved for all types of information assets. At the same time, IO helps ensure that anyone not subject to those controls can access the information they need, when they need it. Furthermore, IO actively promotes the effective use of available information assets through “push” delivery, end-user value rankings and other similar mechanisms.
So, while we may rightly criticize politicians for working at cross-purpose when they should be working together for the public good, we might also want to get our own houses in order. The application of IO to move from information politics to information governance is not a bad place to start.
information governance, Information Optimization, information politics, productivity
Here is a good quote:
Network neutrality is the principle that Internet users should be in control of what content they view and what applications they use on the Internet. The Internet has operated according to this neutrality principle since its earliest days… Fundamentally, net neutrality is about equal access to the Internet. In our view, the broadband carriers should not be permitted to use their market power to discriminate against competing applications or content. Just as telephone companies are not permitted to tell consumers who they can call or what they can say, broadband carriers should not be allowed to use their market power to control activity online.
—Guide to Net Neutrality for Google Users
One thing I think we should all keep in mind, and what I find to be one of he scariest aspects of this information struggle, is the power that service providers have over the content we are allowed to see. As I understand, one big concern about recent policies established by the FCC was that they might allow wireless service providers to discriminate against certain content and block subscribers from access to the content. What this means is that subscribers to AT&T or Verizon would have to use only software which they promote and could possibly charge for, instead of allowing free competition and access to potentially better software. For instance, AT&T requiring you to purchase AT&T navigator if you access the internet through their wireless network, instead of allowing you to use Googlemaps, which in my opinion is a far better application in many respects, and is free.
Also, consider the information battlefield outside of the digital world… From what I understand (although I just heard about this and may be wrong), AT&T and Verizon notoriously contribute large amounts to right-wing, conservative movements, such as “anti-choice” movements. In my opinion, internet service providers should not take the money I give them for internet, and promote whatever unrelated politics they feel necessary. It is an unfair subversion of our system of free speech and free enterprise which skews the public opinion to adopt AT&T’s view, and thus undermines the system of democracy.
There needs to be some form of accountability for these large organizations if they limit the freedom of speech of others. It sucks to have to limit the freedoms of organizations, but it appears that they consistently prove to be incapable of handling the responsibility which comes along with the political and economic power they hold.