Who's kicking whose ass when it comes to information delivery?

The challenge of exploiting information

Mini Poll When it comes to systems and processes for handling data and information, we've all heard about 'BI', data warehousing, content management, work flow and so on. However, if the challenge of 'exploiting information' were so easily dealt with, we'd presumably not be talking about such things so much. Except we are, and all the signs point towards an issue that's 'sort of only been half dealt with'.

Whether it's the rise in volume of unstructured data which has knocked us off stride when it comes to getting a grip on information, or whether it's simply a timely symptom of a serious problem, we'd like to hear about how you see things. There's even an open question in this week's poll so you can tell us that 'it's all fine here thanks very much, and the fuss is vendor-generated tosh designed to shift a few more software licences', if that's how it is from your point of view.

READER POLL

1. From where you're sitting in your organisation, how much of a headache do the following issues cause? (1 = No problem, 5 = Major hassle)

	No problem 1	2	3	4	Major hassle 5
People having difficulties locating key information in a timely manner
People being sure they have found everything when searching for related information
Critical information being discarded by accident along with transient data
Incomplete records or audit trails leading to regulatory exposure
Information being published or released without the necessary authority
Users not adhering to retention policies required for compliance

2. What is the status of your capability in the following areas? (Please check one option for each)

	Fully implemented	More work required	Future initiative	No interest	Not aware
Workflow and document management
Email archiving and retrieval
Federated search and discovery across repositories
Central coordination of records management policy
Content management
Business Intelligence and analytics
Enterprise Search and / or Discovery
Information classification

3. To finish off, we'd really like to get to the bottom of this. Do you think that managing information is a real issue, or is it just something we have to deal with? Can technology really help, or are solutions being over-hyped? Let us know!

BEFORE YOU GO

Which of the following best describes the organisation you work in?

Educational establishment
Public Sector (non education)
IT products or services vendor
Company with more than 5000 employees
Company with 250 to 4999 employees
Company with 50 to 249 employees
Company with 10 to 49 employees
Company with fewer than 10 employees
None of the above - please specify

Which of the following best describes your role?

Business management
Business professional
General IT management
Management of development/integration
Management of operations function
Systems architect or designer
Developer
Operations specialist
Other - please specify

Which of the following best sums up the attitude to IT in your organisation?

An important contributor of business value
A positive enabler of operational efficiency
A necessary but burdensome cost
A complete waste of money