Re using data to gain knowledge and intelligence from a different perspective

Author – Lynn Strand, BIR Editorial Board, Principal Outside Knowledge LLC and Chair Competitive Intelligence Division SLA 


I’ve been hard at work finalizing a project for a client on the spending habits of US consumers. It got me thinking about the vast array of data collected around the world to get insights into how people spend their money.

While I was primarily using the Community Expenditure Survey from the US Census Bureau for this project, my client had a lot of questions about other data that might be valuable for looking at the rest of the world’s spending habits.

It turns out that we can utilize an enormous amount of data gathered by governments, NGOs, foundations, think tanks, management consultancies, banks, journals and  academic institutions, just to name a few.

Want to find out how much it costs to buy a loaf of bread in Paris? Mumbai? Oregon? It’s out there.
How about a nice glass of wine? The average cost of a bottle of table wine in Zurich last year was $15.93USD. In New York it was $12.74USD, but in Seoul? A whopping  $27.66USD! So, what can this tell us about consumer behavior across the globe?

These seemingly small bites of data can be gathered up to create a fuller picture of what the average American, Korean, Australian or Columbian consumer views as important or necessary or frivolous in their day to day life. These important bits of data allow businesses and marketers to identify key new target regions for business growth, new product development  and trends that may influence how, where and when they do business.

I would encourage information professionals to explore the myriad of options available. Here are a few of my open source favorites:

March Business Information Review

The March issue of Business Information Review has arrived, packed with the normal eclectic mix of content. First off, is the publication of the 26th Annual Business Information Survey. 
BIR Survey 2016: a regular feature of the Journal since 1991, the Business Information survey is now the longest running continuous review of the business information sector in the world. This year’s survey is also the first to be produced by Denise Carter of DCision Consult, who follows in the footsteps of Allan Foster.  The survey reveals that soft-skills, a commercial mind-set, and a future-focussed outlook are at the forefront of skillsets required by the sector. Commercial organisations are demanding more rounded practitioners who can adapt to “internal consultant” style roles. The most valued attributes highlighted by the research include forward thinking, horizon planning, strategic thinking, and future perspectives. The survey also highlighted the value of interpersonal negotiation and networking skills, and data visualisation and packaging. 
The survey highlights a gap between the qualities demanded of information professionals in the commercial sector, and the focus of traditional library and information education programmes, including short course provision. In decline is the perceived value of “core” information skills including taxonomy and classification. Demand for traditional education and training is also declining, as commercial organisations turn to internal company “academies” or “universities” to fulfil specific training requirements. Mentoring and peer training were also commonly used as training solutions. It is essential reading for everyone involved in the business information profession. 
Social Business Adoption: An empirical analysis: also published in the March issue is a paper focussing on the adoption of social business models. Jacob Wood, Assistant Professor at the School of Industrial Management Korea University of Technology & Education, explores the perceptions of social media usage by organizations and how that can affect their take up and adoption of social media platforms.  The article focuses on organizations from South Korea and New Zealand and takes an analytical look at both the benefits and risks of using social media for organizations in order to examine motivations for and effectiveness of use.  Using technology adoption theory they identified several factors by which to measure perceived benefits and barriers to social media usage.
Searching for Talent – Information retrieval challenges for recruitment professionals: Tony Russell-Rose and his co-author Jon Chamberlin take a look at the challenges faced by recruitment professionals in searching for and sourcing suitable candidates.  In particular they look at the information challenges faced in categorizing and identification of key words to find candidates to match their skills with the most suitable vacancies.  They have interviewed recruitment professionals who have provided insights into information seeking behaviour and information search techniques.  The article looks at the complex Boolean searches that are developed, the challenges in using and maintaining them and the types of functionality recruitment professionals’ value within systems.  The article concludes with a discussion around the implications for information systems development and a balance that needs to be created between automated information retrieval and the knowledge and expertise contained within the individual professional recruiter on what search terms work best.
Modeling Customer Knowledge Management to make Value Co-Creation: In this article, Ali Gohary and Bahman Hamzelu of Department of Business Management, Qazvin Branch, Islamic Azad University, Qazvin, Iran review the importance of managing the knowledge of customers in order to anticipate customer wants and needs so as to gain or maintain competitive advantage.   They consider how Customer Knowledge Management, knowledge management applied to CRM (customer relationship management) is highly effective in the development of new products and services but is not in fact well recognised within organisations. The article reviews the processes that need to be considered as well as exploring conceptual models to gain the most from customer knowledge management.  They also explore ‘mass public education’ within customer knowledge management to enhance and develop customer interaction in the service and product development process.
Perspectives & Initiatives: Martin White returns with his Perspectives column.  His article reviews papers very topical to this month’s issue and this time looks at the effects of language on search and search behaviour.  He considers the use of both modern and colloquial languages and how that affects search results. ther papers he reviews are the usage of mobile data services for accessing information both generally and also through library services.   The need for techniques to develop information sharing between teams working in critical environments and the affects of trust in search results on the assessment of valid results.
Allan Foster brings us an interesting review in his regular Initiatives paper.  He starts with a look at the rise of digital partnerships, why they are increasing in popularity and why they are important.  He reviews pieces of research, one from EIU and one from IDC.  The research articles provide some interesting insights including some very specific future predictions on worldwide digital transformation. He also covers the value of information, how is it valued, how is that realised and provides some interesting insights from the PwC report in this area.  Whilst the valuing information is a bit hit and miss it appears organisations are investing in realising value, specifically generating revenue from their data.  Allan reviews an EIU report in this area.  There are other interesting insights from further reviews covering key future trends that could change the information industry, strong growth anticipated for the market research industry and growth of the big data technology and services sector to name a few.

You can find the issue here: http://bir.sagepub.com/content/current

The longest running survey into trends in the information and knowledge sector

The annual Business Information Review Survey has been published annually since 1991, now in its 26th year the survey, due to be published in March’s Business Information Review has some interesting insights from information and knowledge leaders into the ever evolving information and knowledge sector.  Of particular importance is the emphasis on soft skills and a commercial mind-set.  Perhaps controversially, technical skills such as taxonomy and cataloging are not seen as important as they are seen as more easy to teach.  Below is a snapshot of what the survey will report this year including come interesting insights and suggestions into provision of services from information vendors

Read the full report in March’s issue of Business Information Review available to download at the beginning of March

Does your personality type influence your career choice?

By Denise Carter MSc Editorial Board Member and Director of Dcision Consult Sarl
I think it does.  I chose to enter a profession, information, because it fundamentally appealed to my preference for the orderly and organised, my natural curiosity, and my desire to do something helpful. I had also explored being a physiotherapist or speech therapist but even at 15 fortunately for any prospective patients I was self-aware enough to recognise that patience is not one of my virtues.  In my career I have participated in several personality testing workshops, and the results, for examples the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® – ISFJ (Introversion; Sensing; Feeling; Judging), and Success Insights® – predominately  “Blue” (questioning, analytical) and “Green” (caring, sharing) have confirmed that my personality is well suited to the research and information-sharing  aspects of my information roles.
Being an introvert in an extrovert world
However when I view those traits in the wider context of the commercial organisations I have I have worked in, I have in many ways been a fish out of water. In order to succeed in environments where other personality traits are more dominant and can be perceived as having more value, has meant being more aware of not only how I think and react to different situations but more importantly become hyper-aware of how others may think and behave very differently to the same situation.
The view from the other side
Working with, and reporting to, people who naturally respond differently on fundamental issues is something we all need to recognise. One personal example which certainly had an impact for me was being asked at a team-building course to list what would count as a reward. Top of my list was recognition; top of almost everyone else’s was money.  I have to admit money had never even entered my head.  For me it was a light-bulb moment of recognising that the way I saw the world was fundamentally different to the people I was working with on a day-to-day basis, and in order to operate successfully in that world I needed to find a way to put see the world through their eyes when it came to key business actions and decisions. Since then I have learned to have my own reaction to events and situations and then take a few minutes to think through how likely it is others will have the same reaction, and if it is different what would their response be?  It’s not easy but it’s important so you are able not only to survive but also to thrive.
Do all information people think the same way?
If you’ve ever undergone a personality type testing as part of a group you can usually see how the types tend to cluster in teams. In my own experience doing this as part of a business intelligence function where we were all doing essentially similar roles the Success Insights®results were very common across all the group, with only a few outliers.  My guess (no empirical evidence available, and I’m going against my natural tendency for fact not theory) is that the majority of people in the information profession would share a high percentage of common personality traits.  Does that make it harder for information in organisations the visibility it needs? Are we more naturally cautious and not the competitive demanding individuals who always get heard and seen?
What’s the impact?
How we behave affects key business activities:
·      communication with our peers, customers and managers
·      selling the information “brand” within the organisation
·      making decisions
·      managing change
·      managing conflict
I believe that information professionals need to understand better the personal attributes that the information role, particularly in business, now demands and make sure that we develop those aspects of our personal profiles.  We all have the necessary attributes, it just that sometimes they are well-hidden.
What personal attributes are most desired by information leaders for today’s business environment?
In the “2016 Business Information Survey – Demonstrating the Commercial Mind-set”, due to be published in the March issue of BIR,  it was interesting to see how highly information leaders rated certain personal attributes and skills – especially those concerning confidence and communication.  Survey participants responses on desirable skills were ranked, and results clearly showed that having these kinds of personal attributes are valued more highly than information management skills in delivering a first class service.
Your personality type may well influence your career choice but how you then develop your personal attributes and skills certainly will impact your career success.



The importance of speaking up

I reviewed an article recently on communication and the effects of employees speaking up on managerial style and company communication flow. It was an interesting article, which although only focussing on Asian companies, illustrated a number of important lessons including the implications not just for managerial style and management skills but also I felt on knowledge sharing within organisations.

Knowledge sharing is a part of the much larger continuous learning cycle – learn before, during and after doing. This itself relies on a willingness and freedom to communicate, something that the study above shows is an increasingly complex task particularly in large multi-national organisations.

It reminds me of a project I worked on for an organisation about 12 months ago helping them to develop a learning programme that would be deployed globally and taught through e learning and virtual learning. The method of deployment relied heavily on participants to proactively communicate freely, effectively sometimes in a language that was not their mother tongue.

We found that the most effective way to encourage communication was through development of a learning charter that everyone (students and teachers alike) agreed to before commencement of the programme. The learning charter set out a set of guidelines for behaviour, interaction, time keeping and consideration of others. It was the basis for developing an open environment where inPiduals felt they were able to express themselves and would be listened to and where there was no fear of repercussion for getting something wrong. In addition to the learning charter, part of the success of the programme was getting the ‘teachers’ to develop a consultative coaching style to provide flexibility in the programme – giving more time and encouragement to those that needed it. The programme was so effective that within six months of launch it had a waiting list of participants.

We hope to be covering more on communication, learning and associated KM techniques in later issues. We would be keen to hear of your experiences.

Knowledge Management – Don’t Forget The SME’s! 

Guest blog post by Stephen Dale of Business Information Review Editorial Board

The research paper by Cheng Sheng Lee and Kuan Yew Wong in the December of issue of Business Information Review raises a number of interesting points that deserve wider discussion. The research focused on the effectiveness of knowledge management techniques in Small to Medium Enterprises (SME’s) in Malaysia. Though the scope of the research is limited to one geographic region, the findings could – and should – be tested against a wider and more international cohort.

According to the research paper, in Malaysia, SME’s account for up to 98.5 percent of the total number of businesses and contribute up to 33.1 percent of GDP. They employ 57.5 percent of the total workforce.

To offer some comparison, UK, SME’s account for over 99.8 percent of the total number of businesses, they contributed over half of UK outputin 2013 (GVA) and employ 48 percent of the total private sector workforce. The EU average SME contribution to GDP is 55 percent.

It is clear from this data that SME’s make up a significant, and growing, contribution to the UK and European economies. It seems quite odd, therefore, that so little research has been undertaken into how knowledge management strategies and techniques have been utilized within and across this sector.

The Cheng Sheng Lee/Kuan Yew Wong research gives us some insights that could be tested against a wider geographic sample of SMEs. Some key points from the research as follows:

• The literature research identified that the size of an organization affects its behaviour and structure (Edvardsson, 2006; Rutherford et al, 2001) and how it influences the adoption and implementation of KM (Zaied et al, 2012).

• SME’s should not be perceived as homogenized groups. They themselves can be categorized according to relative size, e.g. micro, small and medium, which can influence the way that KM is implemented.

• In terms of human capital, medium-sized businesses (SMEs) focus more on codification strategies (explicit knowledge) whereas micro-sized businesses (SMEs) are more dependent on socialization strategies.

• An obvious point, but reinforced by the research – the need for better infrastructure, such as tools, office layout, rooms etc. increases as the organizations grows.

• Knowledge Maturity is a key attribute that should be monitored measured. The value of an employee will increase in terms of their contribution to the success of the organization as they progress from beginner, intermediate and advanced staged of KM maturity. Clearly the impact of an employee leaving without an effective knowledge transfer process will be more keenly felt by a small organization. [NB. This is not an excuse for large organizations to treat this is a lower priority!]

• Company size does make a difference to KM performance measurements. A number of factors are proposed, e.g. impact of high turnover, limited resource redundancy in smaller organizations, smaller organizations will likely prioritize implementation processes over performance measurements etc.

• KM performance measurement (KMPM) is still new for SME’s, as the majority of analyst reports and case studies remain focused on large organizations, with a mindset that SMEs do not need or are not ready for KMPM.

Overall, this is an excellent piece of research, and highly recommended reading, which despite it’s limited sample size and geographic boundary, gives some very useful insight into how KM is being implemented across SME’s. Reassuringly it shows that a growing number of SME’s see KMPM as vital to the growth and success of their business.

The paper is also a wake-up call to academia, research, analyst and consultancy organizations in that we need for more definitive and comprehensive studies in this field, to embrace UK, Europe and other key industrial and economic zones.

To finish with a quote from the authors: “Enough with large organizations; SMEs should not be neglected as they play a major role in a country’s economic growth”. Who could disagree?

December’s Business Information Review

Our latest issue is now out online and I thought it would be useful to take a quick look at it. The articles are an eclectic mix of topics, covering a lot of ground from knowledge management (KM), to information asset management, professional development to information systems transition. Below is a short overview of what you can expect.

KM performance measures: Cheng Sheng Lee and Kuan Yew Wong from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia take a look at knowledge management performance measures in micro-sized, small and medium-sized enterprises. Professional knowledge is often associated with large companies and organizations, who generally have the resources to develop effective KM strategies utilizing a host of techniques and who stand to get the most out of tacit knowledge. But what of small to medium sized organizations? Is KM a useless concept? Lee and Wong investigated organizations in Malaysia and found there were definite benefits for smaller organizations in utilizing KM techniques.

Why is information the elephant asset? Reynold Leming discusses the importance of treating information as any other business asset, utilizing asset management techniques. He highlights how asset management has often disregarded information from its remit and sets out a clear and extremely useful approach for developing an Information Asset Register.

Towards a Rosetta Stone: Managing legacy systems and migrating information and data is very much an issue in most organizations. Morton, Beckford and Cooke of Loughborough University present their research on the possibility of creating a ‘Rosetta Stone’ to facilitate this process.

Developing your career in information: Both for those just starting out and for the more seasoned professional, this article by Victoria Sculfor, Sue Hill and TFPL Recruitment, discusses professional development, the importance of networking on and off line. It covers all aspects of career development and contains some useful links to helpful resources.

Developing and implementing policy: Another returning author, Danny Budzak takes a look at a continuing concern of many organizations: developing and implementing information policy. Drawing on his professional experience, he looks at what to consider to develop and implement an effective information policy that all areas of the organization buy into.

Also returning in the December issue are Martin White’s Perspectives column and Allan Foster’s Initiatives colum.  Our regular columnists Martin White and Allan Foster return looking at a range of issues from the effects of language and global organizations to the latest in IT and Technology related to information management issues, big data, open data and big data analytics. We hope you enjoy reading!

 

Registering changes in language and technology

The December issue of Business Information Review should be available to download in a couple of weeks, and hard copies will be posted shortly after. One of the highlights of the journal is Martin White’s Perspectives column, which in the December issue explores the theme of Language, communities and virtual working. This raises a question about how technology changes language, and how that affects business processes and our working lives.
One of the most prolific commentators on technological changes to language is David Crystal. Over a long and distinguished career as a linguist, Crystal has written number of accessibly books about the changes to language that technology brings about. These include Language and the Internet (2001) and Txting: The gr8 Deb8 (2008).  Through these works, Crystal attempt to counter widespread anxieties about the damage to language done by the internet, video games, and mobile phones  typified by Robert Winson’s book Bad Ideas? (2010).  You can get a sense of Crystal’s arguments from this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2XVdDSJHqY
Technology may not be destroying language, but it does change language, and this does have profound consequences for the ways in which we communicate in a business context. Over the past twenty years for example we have seen a massive diversification of contexts within which writing is used – emails, SMS, Twitters, virtual worlds, online gaming, blogs, wikis, and so on – the list is almost endless. Each of these brings with it a series of social conventions about the appropriate form language to use – the appropriate linguistic register. We have also seen writing used in many contexts that would previously have been reserved for the spoken word. How many of the emails we receive every day would have been sorted with a phone call twenty years ago? How much ambiguity arises out of the fact that writing now dominates business and professional communication, and writing lacks the linguistic clues carries by gesture, expression, and tone of voice of the written word?
One of the key skills that employers often state new career entrants lack is writing and communications skills. However, my experience as an educator has been that it is not skills in using language effectively that many young people lack, but skills in understanding and adopting the appropriate linguistic register.  And this is understandable perhaps not only because the conventions of communications have shifted to a more informal register over time, but also because those conventions are more fluid as a consequence of the diversification of communications channels. Everyone knows how to open and sign-off a business letter, but practices in opening and signing-off business emails vary wildly. There is little doubt that business communication has become more informal over time, but that dividing line between the appropriate use of more formal and more informal registers has in many contexts become quite difficult to discern. As channels of communication continue to grow more diverse the conventions will almost certainly become less fixed, and the difficulties of adopting the appropriate register will undoubtedly grow.

Luke Tredinnick

New editorial board members for Business Information Review

We’re very pleased to announce that Lynn Strand and Denise Carter have joined the editorial board of Business Information Review. Both Lynn and Denise strengthen the international dimensions of the editorial board, and we’re tremendously pleased to have them involved. 

Lynn Strand is the Principal of Outside Knowledge in Minneapolis. This market intelligence practice serves clients in the technology, finance, healthcare and consumer goods industries. Lynn provides both in depth research services as well as analysis and insights to her clients. Lynn was previously with FICO, a predictive analytics company and Iconoculture, a consumer behavior insights firm. 

Lynn has been published in several information journals and was featured in SLA’s Information Outlook magazine and AIIPS’s Connections newsletter. She is currently the SLA Competitive Intelligence Division’s Chair-elect and was the SLA CID 2014 Annual Conference Planner. She also received the Division’s Outstanding New Leader Award for 2014. Additionally, Lynn is a contributor and guest editor for FreePint. Additionally, she has served SLA as a Division Chair, as a member of the 2012 Conference Advisory Committee. Lynn holds a BA in Anthropology and a Masters of Library and Information Science and executive education in Marketing. You can follow her on Twitter as @KnowledgeMama

Denise Carter is an experienced and creative information professional. She holds a Masters degree in Information Management; is a chartered member of the Chartered Institute of Library & Information Professionals (MCILIP); and a certified Competitive Intelligence Professional (CIP-1).  Enthusiastic for the power great knowledge and information systems can bring to a process, team or organisation, Denise has proven experience in creating and developing knowledge systems to support organizational goals and objectives.

Before setting up DCision Consult in January 2013, Denise worked for 5 years in the Global Business Intelligence department of Merck Serono, a global bio-pharmaceutical company based in Switzerland. She built and led a team: Knowledge Analytics, delivering high-quality competitive landscapes, epidemiology, and other relevant data sets, that supported commercial activities. Prior to that Denise designed and implemented a new global information unit for Serono, creating new services and resources.  She was awarded a Chief Executive Officer Award for customer service in 2006.  Denise began her career at ICI Chemicals & Polymers in the UK as a Librarian, bringing a service back in-house to support 1000 research chemists. Denise has published on different knowledge & information topics and is a speaker at international conferences. 

Both Lynn and Denise bring outstanding professional expertise to our editorial board and we’re looking forward to working with them over the coming months and years. They join our other board members who collectively have an unrivaled breadth and depth of commercial information and knowledge management practice, providing a pool of expertise on which the journal draws liberally. Our full editorial board can be found here: https://uk.sagepub.com/en-gb/eur/journal/business-information-review#editorial-board. 

The first editorial board under our editorship was held in London earlier this week with members of the editorial board joining in person and via video conferencing. It was great to get some open discussions and feedback on progress so far. There were very interesting discussions around the future scope and focus on the journal which hopefully will begin to appear next year.  Updates via this blog, @BIRJournal, and our LinkedIn group.  

Back to Basics?

Another of the issues we look into in December’s BIR is the challenges around the effective implementation of policy, why it is so important and what the solutions may look like.  On reviewing the subject I discovered that poor implementation of policy was not specific to any one sector, the same challenges faced everyone.  Of particular interest was an Oracle sponsored Economist Intelligence Unit report – Enabling Efficient Policy Implementation (2010).  The research investigated both the challenges and opportunities faced by organisations today and discovered that poor implementation of policy could be catastrophic for organisations leading to law suits, prosecution or fines, however these consequences did not affect greatly how policy was created, communicated and implemented. 
We have seen the consequences of poor information security policy implementation first hand with most weeks having a new incident reported in the news.  The latest story to hit the headlines being the security breach at British Gas but perhaps the biggest story was that of TalkTalk.   This illustrates the close link between IT security policy and information security policy but also the lack of clear standards on what levels of security are needed for different types of information held (http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/oct/23/talktalk-criticised-for-poor-security-and-handling-of-hack-attack ).
There is a definite need to be proactive in policy implementation, from first stage communications to effective monitoring, all of which needs to be properly resourced, a challenge indeed in many of todays leaner organisations.  Challenge, yes, but highly important as nicely stated in the EIU report, “policy cannot enact itself”!
But then if resourcing is important so is the need for effective ways to ensure those affected by the policy see the importance of it and adhere to it.  Well yes of course but this seems to be easier said than done.

At the start of our exploration of this area two of our articles look at policy this time, considering the need for information security management and the importance for information asset management.  Read more in December’s issue and follow us on this subject throughout 2016.