Data Rich, Information Rich

How did we get here?

What does it take?

Can we sustain it?

Can it be duplicated in other organizations?

Of all the above questions the one that is probably most important to you is the last. Can you learn from what we have? Can you turn your organization into a data rich, information rich environment as well.

I believe the short answer is yes! And it will take three things to get there.

1) The personnel
2) The software
3) The access

These are ranked in order of difficulty to obtain, with the easiest one first.

What personnel do you need to create an information rich environment?

The reason this particular requirement is so easy to fulfill, is that the person you need is probably already in your organization.

Chances are, if you organization has more than a few thousand employees, then there is probably someone, somewhere in your organization with all the request skills and desire to complete the task. He or she is probably buried deep in your organization, but just waiting for the opportunity to work with their skills, and reveal their magic.

If you start looking for such a person there is a good chance they will NOT be in the IT department. If you want to find them, begin your search by asking around many departments.

What you will be looking for is the person who is the most frequent "go to" person for data analysis or just answering questions that have never been asked before. That person probably exists. Look around far enough, and long enough, and that person will probably emerge as a common name when asking for something new.

That is your person.

If anyone can lead your organization into a data rich, information rich world, this person will be a key player. All they need is a bit of encouragement, the opportunity to do it, and most importantly the other two key ingredients,

software and access.