Making sense of information

Recently big data and web design have come under a similar challenge:

What is the point of doing it?

Big Data is buckling under its own weight. So much information, so fast the change, so vast the variety – who can make sense of it and actually use it? An article by Richard C. Larson says “small data” is the new black and looks at the opportunity using a small but significant subset of the data that can actually be processed by humans. The idea of BI still is to transform data into actionable information. Small data sounds like a possible approach towards it.

The UX magazine challenges web designers by saying their trade is largely irrelevant. There are only so many ways to create a great contact or payment form and those exist. Why do it again?

Sergio Nouvel of Continuum says: “2015 must be the year where we shift our focus to unsolved problems, especially ones we’ve been inadvertedly feeding all these years: the overload of information. The world needs designers to simplify, not to add up to the noise. Artificial intelligence is becoming the way of extracting sense and relevance of seas of information we have no human bandwidth to process. As professionals meant to be the experts in the creation of sense, this challenge needs us on board.”

The answer to the question is the same in both cases:

“Making sense of information by preparing and presenting it in readily consumable or actionable form.”

IT Architects from web design, information architecture, to business intelligence and enterprise architecture have a common goal: deliver value from the flood of electronic data.

What is on your top list for 2015?

Inbox Zero?

InBox Zero

Recently Inbox Zero popped up again. Not a surprise considering summer holidays in the Northern Hemisphere are coming to an end.

Automated responses

The BBC ran an article 2 days ago where German car maker Daimler offered employees to delete holiday emails in a very friendly way:

I am on vacation. I cannot read your email. Your email is being deleted. Please contact Hans or Monika if it’s really important, or resend the email after I’m back in the office. Danke Schoen.

Comments are consequently positive: “This is good email management.” It doesn’t address the standard flood of emails although it makes the re-start after being away a lot easier and not daunting.

Another approach is trialled by the Christchurch City Council. The management team implemented a suggested response when the recipient is “just copied in”. The response reads similar to this:

“Thank you for your email. As I’m just copied in, your email has been parked in my “for info” folder. I’ll endeavour to check those emails once a week. If your correspondence is urgent please re-send it to me directly with your expectations of my action.”

The objective is to reduce cluttering email inboxes with information that doesn’t require an urgent action by the recipient or in short to reduce clutter.

Most email applications allow for such automated actions via rules and filters, and categories, folders and labels.

Decisions

While the technology allows for such things, it’s up to us humans to actually do it. That means,

1. consider your response types (do, reply, defer, delegate, archive, delete or see the original post from Merlin Mann),
2. create good auto- and template responses,
3. and then actually do it.

The reality looks, unfortunately, different. Some follow their good intentions and put such actions into place while others don’t. There are some good and not so good reasons:

• a full inbox means I’m busy
• I actually like having that many emails
• the Inbox search is great – why hiding important stuff in many folders
• those rules are too complicated
• I fear I miss important stuff
• people expect I’m informed what’s going on
• the tools don’t match how I work

Some options

Hey, it’s your Inbox, isn’t it?

or

Could we check how you work and see if there is a process that can be adjusted, another tool be found, or expectations managed more efficiently? There are systems like Sanebox, or MailBox, Mailstrom, and Tapermail that all take a different approach. And there is this blogpost for Outlook fans. One might work for you well 🙂

 

I missed the point …

Papal election result

For years my dear wife is telling me some businesses (companies, government agencies, etc) are just covering their butts. They are not interested in the well being of their staff, customers or populace. In fact they have been taught not to make mistakes. The same time I have been arguing the opposite being true for the majority. There are plenty of examples where innovation, technical or medical break throughs etc take place; there are managers and business owners who have the best interest of their people at heart.

Having worked now in the private and public sector I have changed my mind. It is sad but true, many people work to uphold the rules and regulations. You can call it standards, operating procedures, or even culture “that’s how we do tings around here”. The focus is on compliance, policing and governance.

We are missing what we have set out to do, for example:

• service to the community or our customer base
• providing solutions and results for the customer
• develop and build tools / systems that last and do the job well
• make and distribute healthy food

The common cause is often cited as the growth syndrom:

• making money
• gaining power
• becoming famous

BUT, is that really the case?

How many dads or mums simply want to provide for their children to have it better (education, house, job, ..)?
How many of us simply would like to go on with their business without thinking about mortgage, tax, bills, regulations, … ?

Albert Camus once said, freedom is the freedom of others.

It took me long time to understand. My freedom to do what I want is impacting on the freedom of my neighbour. And here our governance approach started. Instead of common sense prevailing we rely on some authority who tells us what we can or can’t do. And while they are at it, they make it a rule and apply it across the country so a single instance is solved for eternity.

What a load of rubbish!

In Germany it takes months for some decisions to be made because so many committees and sub committees have a say and need to review all the rules, regulations and bylaws. In New Zealand we are getting closer by the minute to the same situation. The recent “super city” is a great example. And I don’t mention the stalemate in the US where some egocentrics in both big parties blame each other rather than sit together at a table and don’t get up until the issue is solved. The election method of the pope is a better example how to do it right.

None of this means the people working in such organisations are bad, stupid or ignorant. No, most are intelligent, focused and trying their best. But they have been taught – like all of us – in an institution called school that rules and regulations and compliance is what drives this world and keeps the order. Challenging the status quo is hard and in school we have been taught not to do so.

Asking questions in school is a sign of ?

(a) intelligence (because you actually thought about it and didn’t come to the same conclusion)

(b) lack of intelligence (because you should know this [by now] and probably haven’t paid attention)

 

Ask your children. Then wonder why I wrote this post and comment below or use the answer and go back to the start.

Ask the “why” question and find out the reason behind a process, rule or regulation.

Don’t get me wrong, some are necessary, some are good, and some (most ?) are covering exceptions. Those are the ones slowing us down. Shouldn’t we go back to “Use good judgement?”

4 principles of Information Management

Variety – Volume – Velocity

The world of big data arrived some time ago. And while the amount of information on the Net is continuously rising, it happens on our personal and corporate systems, too. One only needs to look at the emergence of products like “Sanebox“, which helps you manage your email inbox, cloud storage and share systems like Dropbox and Box, and the rapidly rising capacity that Amazon provides with S3.

Every one of us has so much information available that it becomes harder to keep track of what’s important and how to find it again 2 weeks later!

Good Information Management starts with recognising that is necessary to do something about it.

People

This leads us straight to the first principle. Employees need to do Information Management and not just acknowledging it is a good thing. Hence we must put things in place that ensure people act and act consistently.

Process

This is supported by well designed processes. For example, a supplier email comes in advising a new pricelist. Who receives the email? Is it documented where the new pricelist is stored? Are relevant people notified? Is the old pricelist replaced or marked as obsolete? What happens if the email recipient has left the company?

Content

Information Management is about content. Recognise the different types of information from Word documents, to emails and phone call, from drafts to published data, or from project management to customer requests. Create categories that are relevant to your business and link those to your processes.

Technology

Okay, I’m in IT so let’s not forget that the tools you use play a role, too. Where do people store information? On the local harddrives, a shared service, the cloud? Consistently in the same folders or directories? A lot of people use their email system for storage and retrieval. Most email systems have quite good search capabilities while finding a much needed document on a shared drive or even your local computer is often a challenge. Choose technology that does what you want and is aligned how your staff works.

 

 

them or I?

Changing roles a few months ago and evaluating different opportunities over the past few weeks made me think about the criteria I use to do so.

For example, while working at Tait and previous roles I steadily climbed the corporate ladder, gained clout, responsibilities, and enjoyed the success of projects. Surely this came with the price tag of accountability and personal availability. There is no free lunch. However, my point is, it was my choice. Several times during my career I made a case why it was good for the business to implement a change that was also good for me.