Modular Learning Objectives

As we discussed in Module 1, information networks are multipurpose information tools capable of delivering various combinations of data, information, and knowledge (insofar as those are distinguishable) but requiring fairly careful cognitive attention to sorting, assessing, and connecting the dots. In fact, one of the emergent problems associated with the forthcoming adolescence of the Web is the idea of "TMI" -- that is, "too much information". TMI can refer to both more information than you can use and more information then you might want to use (or possibly even be aware of). One of the most highly touted features of the Internet today is its presumed ability to deliver what is known as "business intelligence". This refers to "intelligence" in the jargon of the military or the spy -- that is, information about particular situations that can be used to support or undermine different kinds of courses of action, not intelligence in the generic or "smarts" sense of the term. In fact, business intelligence is frequently so far removed from the generic concept of "intelligence" that it is occasionally described as almost oxymoronic -- a contradiction in terms.

The problems in business are really no different from those faced by governments or military organizations or any of the other historic consumers of "situation intelligence" While obviously the quality of the information is vital to effective use, organizational issues arise much more commonly from inability to apply the information to decision situations in an effective manner than from information that is poor to start with. Assembling and presenting the information is increasingly easy, and becoming easier as ever more efficient analytical and presentation tools come online. The problem is that the information then must be simply dumped into the old organizational decision sinks and processed according to the still-predominant rules of decision making shaped in an era of information scarcity, where criteria are as or more likely to reflect political interests, alternative agendas, personal priorities, and just plain chance as they are to reflect the kind of systematic information management and coolheaded application of knowledge that business schools and consultants have preached for nigh on 50 or more years. The phrase "new wine in old bottles" takes on particular poignancy here.

The fact is that the Internet as an information appliance performs no better than the human beings doing the applying -- and it is no secret to anyone anywhere that organizational decision structures, public and private alike, have in large measure failed to take advantage of information capacities. Information, as we have noted, is often evanescent, not to say naïve, while organizational decision bureaucracies are solid, well entrenched, and determined to outlast temporary pressures. In this world, it becomes much easier to blame the information and the information carriers than it is to fix the conditions which cause information to be misused. The swirling chaos that currently characterizes business intelligence and information application for decisions will only swirl faster and more wildly before some new kind of equilibrium emerges.

Like many organizational innovations, business intelligence can be implemented at many different scale levels, ranging from small short-term projects done by a few isolated individuals to vast enterprise-wide systems involving enormous "data warehouses" (technical jargon for "a whole lot of data that can be searched in several ways"), major "data mining" activities (jargon for "digging around in our data until we can coerce them into telling us something usable"), widespread use of analytics (more jargon, for "statistical and display software"), and lots of staff with heavy investments in maintaining the systems.  The key word in this paragraph, above all others, is "implemented" -- that is, off the drawing board and actually in use by staff and managers alike.  BI systems are complex organizational undertaking that need time, commitment, and resources for their creation, selling, roll-out, and ongoing contribution.  Implementing changes of any sort in any organization is always problematical, since there are usually several times as many ways to fail as there are to succeed, and complicated socio-technical innovations such as new BI initiatives are particularly prone to spectacular imploding, sub-par accomplishments, or just petering out for lack of resoures or interest.  Examples of both successes and failures abound.

In this module, we examine some aspects of how management information can be mobilized by organizations seeking to ground their decision making in the Real World, try to locate where some solutions or at least patches might be found, and eventually come to understand that while "business intelligence" is a great idea and has enormous potential for management improvement, it's not nearly as easy to do as it is to talk about and achieving its full potential is unlikely to be realized for quite a while yet.