Enter the SME!

While it may be that the IM department holds (and controls) the data it is the subject matter expert, the SME, that understands the data.

This is the person in the organization that turns data into information. If there is someone in your organization that is data rich, information rich, it is the SME.

As highlighted in the first few blogs, the control and handling of your corporate data, is solidly the purview of your IM department. They hold the access cards, they hold the software application cards, they are the home of the DBA that looks after the data.

Unfortunately they do not understand the data, that is the world of the SME.

So what has happened to the SME in the past few years. In many cases they are simply stifled in their ability. But a good SME, with a keen interest in the data and understanding its contents will work around these obstacles in many ingenius ways.

For example, standard generated reports will find additional uses in post-processing venues. Cutting and pasting to a spreadsheet is just one of many ways of extracting data from the controlling application. In this new environment the SME has absolute control and is free to manipulate the data to their heart's content.

In more imaginative cases, access to the raw data can be obtained. This can be a bit more difficult but can usually be managed with a sympathetic IM department, and limiting the access to read-only. (After all that is usually all the SME needs. They just want to see and play with the data, not change anything!)

Except in the most stifling of organizations, the transition from information poor to information rich is probably occurring in your organization. Where there is a need for information, there is someone capable of extracting that information from the data.

In most cases this need for information is beyond the scope of standard reports and requires something new. Today's new information request is tomorrows information requirement.

And this leads to the next post.