Blog for October 2020 Seminar: Information as an Asset and the Hawley Report

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In 1995, a ground-breaking report, Information as an Asset: the Board Agenda (which came to be known as The Hawley Report) was published. This report called for a recognition of corporate information as a strategic asset and laid out the responsibilities of boards to identify their information assets and to ensure that these are managed appropriately and deployed to best advantage. It was developed by a group led by Robert Hawley, the CEO of Nuclear Electric, and aimed firmly at boards and senior executives. The report itself disappeared from view for several years after publication, but it remained an important milestone in corporate knowledge and information management.

In 2017, CILIP and KPMG launched a joint programme of work to plan and deliver an updated version, which was published in February 2019 as Information as an Asset: today’s board agenda’. This was based on a survey of over 540 respondents who gave insights into their respective organisations. The authors noted several developments in the field since the original Hawley report, including the importance of AI, text and data analytics, machine learning, and robotics; the development of systems which learn faster than humans; the growth of ‘big data’; the increasing need to protect information assets; and the socio-political climate around recognition of the value and management of personal data. In early March 2020, a further report, ‘The Edge of Intelligence’, was published by the Financial Times.

Twenty-five years on from the original Hawley Report, the information landscape has changed considerably, but the need to manage information as a corporate asset is arguably greater than ever.

NetIKX was pleased to welcome Stephen Phillips, an information professional whose experience spans over 30 years and includes having been Global Head of Business Services at a leading investment bank, to provide an overview of Hawley’s legacy and the subsequent developments within corporate knowledge and information management. Stephen took us through the key themes of the three reports and posed the question of how organisations are dealing with the current COVID-19 crisis in addition to those challenges already facing them pre-pandemic. Key findings of Dell’s recent Digital Transformation Index emphasised the importance of knowledge sharing, extraction of insights from data, skills in data analysis and related disciplines and the need to make business decisions based on data in real time. This survey was undertaken in July and August 2020, so reflected concerns raised by the COVID-19 pandemic more closely.

Although some issues raised in the Digital Transformation Index are specifically related to the current crisis – such as lack of economic growth and the need for increased cybersecurity due to home working – the key themes from The Edge of Intelligence remain relevant.

Stephen went on to explore these four themes, which reflect the areas where most companies lack confidence about their competencies – limited horizon scanning, ‘lost in translation’ (bridging the gap between data science and operational expertise), technical failure, and ‘data without democracy’ (sharing market intelligence across functions). In the 2019 Information as an Asset report, market research was consistently viewed as the most reliable source of intelligence, but there are signs that this may be shifting – particularly in light of the growing importance of AI and the Internet of Things (IoT). The McKinsey COVID Response Center has produced a set of response tools for business leaders which highlight the importance of talent (a factor which was notably ranked low in responses to the FT survey) and supply-chain resilience, as well as cybersecurity and the need to re-evaluate analytics models.

Drawing on the information from these sources, Stephen then invited us to consider a proposed set of priorities for what has come to be called ‘the new normal’:

* accelerated decision-making

* horizon-scanning

* data deluge

* talent

* democratising data

* insight

* intelligence and knowledge

* ethics and integrity

This formed the basis for discussion in the breakout sessions, where we shared our own views and experiences of issues such as the risks of decision-making based on algorithms, the increased role of social media in sharing information (or disinformation!) and the continued need for us as information professionals to convince others of the commercial value of knowledge and information management. As we navigate the ‘new normal’ – whatever that may turn out to be – our skills are increasingly needed.

October 2020 Seminar: From Hawley to the Edge of Intelligence : the continuing evolution of Knowledge and Information Management to adapt to the new normal

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Summary

This seminar was all about the ‘Financial Times’ survey entitled ‘The edge of intelligence’ published in early March 2020.  Stephen Phillips is a member of CILIP, the Library and Information Association, which worked with the ‘Financial Times’ to commission a survey of its readers. The purpose of this was to build a better understanding of their perception of knowledge and information management.  This exercise followed on from the release in 2019, of ‘Information as an Asset’,  an update of an earlier report from the mid-1990s issued by the Hawley Committee.  NetIKX has always been deeply involved with this work and therefore wanted to provide an overview of the new report and how it had developed from the previous Hawley Report.  Stephen also discussed the ‘Key findings of Dell’s recent Digital Transformation Index’ which emphasised the importance of knowledge sharing, extraction of insights from data, skills in data analysis and related disciplines and the need to make business decisions based on data in real time.

The seminar therefore gave the audience an opportunity to reflect on the key findings of the survey and then discuss the practical ways that Knowledge and Information Managers can help their organisations going forward, through the pandemic, constantly maintaining and building on their success.

Speaker:

Stephen Phillips is the owner of Smart IM Ltd which he has created following on from a highly successful thirty year career in the financial services industry where he developed and implemented KM and IM strategy, 3rd party data sourcing and management and onshore/offshore staffing models. He has a track record of innovative use of technology to shape and manage workflows, 3rd party inventory, entitlements, credentials and usage tracking, machine translation and KM platforms. Smart IM provides strategic support to deliver these capabilities, including research, information and knowledge management solutions.

Stephen believes that world class Knowledge and Information Management enables good decision making and competitive advantage. Organisations can be helped to address four strategic imperatives : to increase revenues; to reduce costs; to mitigate risks and to comply with legal and regulatory obligations.
Stephen is 2021 Conference Chair for SLA Europe and Vice Chair of CILIP’s Knowledge and Information Management Member Network. He has previously served as President of the European Chapter of SLA and actively contributes to industry events and journals.

In his spare time, Stephen is a school trustee, he is a keen golfer, he likes to vacation in Portugal with his family and he enjoys long walks with Reggie, his Airedale terrier “discussing life, the universe and everything” …

Time and Venue

22nd October 2020 at 2:30 pm on the Zoom platform. This is a virtual session.

Slides

Will be made available after the session for members only.

Tweets

#netikx106

Blog

See our blog report: Information as an Asset and the Hawley Report

Study Suggestions

1995 Information as an Asset : the board agenda – https://cilip.org.uk/informationasset
2019 Information as an Asset Today’s board Agenda – https://cilip.org.uk/informationasset
2020 The Edge of Intelligence – https://intelligence.ft.com
Covid Impact on The Workplace – https://www.thebcfa.com/bcfa-covid-19-impact-survey
McKinsey : COVID Response Center – https://www.mckinsey.com/about-us/covid-response-center/home
Dell Digital Transformation Index – https://www.delltechnologies.com/en-us/perspectives/digital-transformation-index.htm

Blog for the September 2020 Seminar: TRIZ

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TRIZ (a Russian acronym for a phrase usually translated as ‘the theory of inventive problem-solving’) is not a well-known technique in knowledge and information management circles. It is the brainchild of Genrich Altshuller, an engineer, scientist, inventor and writer – who, incidentally, paid the price for his innovative thinking style by displeasing Stalin and consequently being sent to a labour camp. However, he used his experiences there to further refine his problem-solving techniques!

TRIZ is still most widely used in the engineering field, but the TRIZ principles are applicable to any kind of problems, not just technical ones.

Ron Donaldson, NetIKX committee member and TRIZ expert at Oxford Creativity, took us through the fundamentals of TRIZ in an intensive yet enjoyable seminar, enhanced by the wonderful cartoons of Clive Goddard. The TRIZ approach is based on the principle of analogous thinking – often we limit ourselves to the solutions found within our own area of expertise, whereas in fact we could apply solutions from other domains where similar problems have been faced. The advantage of this approach is that you learn to think conceptually and to view a problem in an abstract way, rather than becoming bogged down in detail.

But, given that most of us lack this breadth of knowledge, how do we access these creative solutions? Altshuller analysed 50,000 patent abstracts to identify how the innovation had taken place. From this he developed the essential TRIZ methodology: the concept of technical contradictions, the concept of ideality of a system, contradiction matrix and the 40 principles of invention. He also modelled creative thinking tools and techniques from observing creative people at work and uncovering patterns in their thinking.

At the heart of all problems requiring an inventive solution, there is a contradiction: for example, we want something that is both strong and lightweight, but how do we increase strength without also increasing weight? The existence of a contradiction does not mean you cannot solve a problem: Ron suggested that we need to ‘channel our inner Spice Girl’ and state what we ‘really, really want’ as there is usually a way of getting it without having to change anything!

Altshuller’s research identified three characteristics of creative people: they think without constraints; they think in time and scale, and they get everything they want. When you have identified your ideal outcome, you can work ‘backwards towards reality’.

One of the TRIZ tools is the contradictions matrix, which allows you to map the contradictions inherent in your problem and to identify inventive principles to solve them. We saw examples of the principles and how they can be used in different contexts: for example, principle 13 (The Other Way Round) could involve turning an object upside-down, or making the fixed parts moveable and the moving parts fixed. TRIZ also emphasises the importance of using the resources that you have, which supports sustainability and reuse.

Ron set us two questions to consider in the breakout sessions (which luckily, we were able to replicate effectively via Zoom!): how would you use TRIZ within knowledge management? and which bits of the session really inspired you? This led to a discussion ranging across the design of tin-openers, Altshuller’s science fiction stories and the challenges of applying inventive solutions in the public sector. It is safe to say that we were all intrigued by what we had learned and keen to explore further.

TRIZ is open source and is not copyrighted – so you can try out the toolkit for yourself. The contradictions matrix, the 40 principles and other tools are free to download from the Oxford Creativity site, where you can also sign up for free webinars on TRIZ. Give it a go and unleash your genius!

By Carlin Parry

Carlin’s LinkedIn web address is : https://www.linkedin.com/in/carlinparry/