Get Off Your Information Assets
By Stephanie Blundell 

On April 22nd, I finally got off my information assets and drove into Toronto, for what might be one of the best SLA meetings I have ever gotten off my assets and drove into Toronto for. Did I mention I drove into Toronto?

A glass of good wine, a delicious dinner and charming dinner companions, what else could an information professional want? Well enlightenment of course. The kind you get when you feel you have been let in on a great secret from a person in the know. In this case the person is Dennis Gaulin and the secret, well you just should have come to the event. Just kidding. There is no real secret though I definitely left the event feeling as though I was more informed.

Dennis is the chief thinking officer of Infolab, a consulting and training company focused on researching company information. He is charming, engaging, exceedingly astute and very very funny.

Dennis distilled his enormous amount experience into several simple concepts every knowledge worker should know but might not be able to articulate. Peppered with anecdotes, he let us in on prism thinking (anticipating information needs) – the ability to take 'white information' and refract the coloured spectrum of 'applications' hidden within the information.

A reoccurring issue for information professionals is proving the value of their services to the corporation.  But as Dennis asserts, “Information is valued in direct relationship to its impact. Information professionals are valued in direct relationship to their impact.” The information professional through simple strategies can enhance their perceived value to their firm. Dennis distilled his enormous amount experience into several simple concepts every knowledge worker should know but might not be able to articulate.

A few of the highlights:

The 8 A’s of informed decision making. 

 

~ Articulating information needs.

~ Anticipating information needs (prism thinking).

~ Awareness of information resources (spheres of information).

~ Access to the information resources.

~ Acquiring the information.

~ Assimilating the information.

~ Applying the information.

~ Assessing the information’s impact.

See Dennis' full article on the 8 A's in this edition of Courier

The difference between SMART and DUMB. Huh? 

 Information should be:
 Specific – precisely on topic		 People should not be:
Disinformed – deliberately false information
 Meaningful – suggest new knowledge, insights Uniformed – lack of information
 Actionable – directly relevant to decisions Misinformed – information believed to be fact, but is not
 Reliable – accurate and authoritative Biased – information with underlying motive
 Timely – the most current

 “The need to recognize and gather Smart vs. Dumb information, just in time, is the hallmark of information literacy.”

Dennis is a respected professional in the credit management arena and has written two books. The most recent, The Credit Manager’s Internet Handbook: Data to Decisions, is available for purchase at www.prismthinking.com/book/buybook.htm. This guide is an excellent resource for information professionals in any field.

Stephanie Blundell is a solo information specialist with AIC Investment Services Inc. in Burlington, ON. She is the co-editor of The Courier and gets panic stricken every time she has to write something for publication.
 
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