Blogs

Herding cats is not an easy task, and I think we face similar challenges as information professionals. Mobile, cloud, consumerization, and new ways of working is creating a new reality for enterprise IT, and trying to get knowledge workers to follow corporate information management policies is starting to feel like herding cats. We all want to leverage information as an asset, but we struggle just ensuring compliance. Below are some lessons I learned from our two cats – Stella (a better name for her would be “Chuck Norris"), and Musti III (a better name for her would be “George Costanza”…).

1. They do as they want – don’t expect them to do as you tell them. They will do whatever makes sense for them. Forget therefore the idea of relying on them to identify, capture and classify important information. Forget the idea of them manually entering metadata or tagging important documents and records. Forget the idea of one central repository for all information. Stop using paper principles for managing a digital era.

2. Accept that they will bring back stuff – cats love to bring back dead (or almost dead) animals that they have captured or killed. They want to show how good they are. Knowledge workers want to be good at their job, and they are now able to get what they want with the help of cloud and mobile. We have to support this with proper governance and standards, not fight it. Encourage the business to find and test new information management apps that can add value, manage risks, reduce costs, or create new reality. Let business be the source of information management innovations. 

3. Feed and nurture them – plan ongoing education to ensure they don’t get you in trouble. They think you are there to support them, not to tell them what to do. Try to make information management compliance, security, and privacy inherent and transparent to the user. They should be aware of their obligations, not manually do things to ensure it.

4. Don’t pet them them the wrong way – they have claws! Engage them them how they wants to be engaged, not the way you prefer to do it. Help them by establishing corporate standards for connecting people, information, and knowledge across applications and devices.

5. Clean out their kitty litter – it will get messy if you don’t clean up after them. They won’t do it, and it is your task to ensure that redundant, outdated, and trivial (ROT) information is safely disposed of. Research by CGOC.com found that 25% of stored information has value, 5% are records, 2% has legal value, and the remaining 68% may be digital junk.

6. Accidents will happen - plan for it. Opening up your corporate information will increase your risks, but the benefit should outweigh the risks. Ensure staff knows what is expected from them with executive direction, policies and procedures, and ongoing education. Ensure you detect non-compliance with audits and monitoring. Ensure you continuously improve systems and processes, but also that you enforce and react to non–compliance. 

I was once told that you don’t really have cats, - they have you. You are there to support users as an information professional, not just to tell them what to do. Focus on the personal benefits of improving the control of information, not just the corporate benefits.

Previously posted at www.aVikingInVinland.com