IT is not Information Technology

Before you take positions on this title – please examine the words – “Information” & “Technology” to understand their scope.

Information

A small collection of definitions from Internet

                     i.            knowledge: definite knowledge acquired or supplied about something or somebody

                   ii.            gathered facts: the collected facts and data about a specific subject

                  iii.            knowledge that you get about someone or something : facts or details about a subject

            iv.        the communication or reception of knowledge or intelligence

Modern computer science uses this word “Information” word to position maturity above data, databases, analysis, inference and integration. A wide variety of rapidly evolving technologies are developed to detect, classify and present information from digital content.

Technology

                     i.            method of applying technical knowledge: a method or methodology that applies technical knowledge or tools

                   ii.            the use of science in industry, engineering, etc., to invent useful things or to solve problems

                  iii.            a machine, piece of equipment, method, etc., that is created by technology

                 iv.            Technology (from Greek) is the making, modification, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems, and methods of organization, in order to solve a problem, improve a pre-existing solution to a problem, achieve a goal (Wikipedia)

IT

The extreme proliferation of the word IT has dragged its significance away from Information! The term is used in diverse and often unintelligible contexts with great ease.

I had been writing on this for a while. IT has become a vague, overly general and obscuring word.

IT Department

The word IT is used largely in CIO’s world to designate a set of people organized as IT-Department and it functions. A cursory look at any standard IT-Departments services consist of:

Active Directory, AntiVirus, E-Mail Messaging, Enterprise Mobility, File Server Management, IDC Monitoring, IDC, System Integration, IDC Network, Security, IDC Storage, IDC Tape Backup, Internet, IT Asset Management, Lync, Online Meeting, Lync Audio Conference, Video Conferencing, Network (LAN & Wi-Fi), Printing, Remote Access, Right Fax Service, SAP, Sharepoint, Telephone Service, User Provisioning etc.

A role and authority map for Head IT&S (Information Technology & Services) also is largely in line with the above list of services. Examples are:

      i.        Build and provision of all of the

a.      IT applications

b.     digital and communications infrastructure

     ii.        Manage and Operate Risks associated with

a.     Plan and execute the annual program

b.     digital assets such as IT&S systems and digital information facilities:

                                          i.    Platforms

                                         ii.    Storage

                                        iii.    Access Networks

                                        iv.    Facilities etc.

c.     IT Services (TYPICALY - Active Directory, AntiVirus, E-Mail Messaging, Enterprise Mobility, File Server Management, IDC Monitoring, IDC, System Integration, IDC Network, Security, IDC Storage, IDC Tape Backup, Internet, IT Asset Management, Online Meeting, Audio Conference, Video Conferencing, Network (LAN & Wi-Fi), Printing, Remote Access, Right Fax Service, SAP, Sharepoint, Telephone Service, User Provisioning etc. – YOU SHOULD CHECK YOUR IT DEPARTMENT’S SERVICE LIST, If in doubt)

d.     Suppliers and Service agencies

e.     build and provide “infrastructure” for all of the Group’s Information Technology applications (programs)-

                                          i.    Computer-based applications: Applications running on laptop or desktop, servers, workstations, web servers, client-servers, split across multiple platforms etc.

                                         ii.    Telecom applications: Serving functions relating to voice telephony, IP telephony and those running on mobile devices – including voice/data traffic planning and provisioning.

    iii.        Security & Risk management

a.     Access and content security

b.     Business Continuity Plan

 Analysis

21^st century is rightfully the age of “Information”. The computers & communication technologies and the mature software systems – opened the access to, creation of and use of information world-wide in hitherto unimaginable ways. INFORMATION is the product of the data, analysis, knowledge and inference of the 7+billion mankind. TECHNOLOGY is the forefront achievement of the man-kind.

Let me compare the typical IT department to your travel analogy {all analogies have a limited purpose to direct towards a conceptual relation} to argue why IT is NOT Information Technology.

Your Travel

You choose to travel for business or pleasure frequently. There is a specific goal to your travel. Similarly you use “data”, “information” and “technology” to do some specific business decision.

	TRAVEL	INFORMED – TECHNOLOGY based BUSINESS Decision
GOAL	Enjoying the place / Meeting People/ ..	Benefitting from the business decision
You Do	A decision to travel from one place to another	Invoke a decision making forum or a Process
Choose	Transport choices {Airplane, Ship, Car, Bicycle, Bullock-cart, walk-down ..}	Tools {Excel, PowerPoint, SAP …}
Agent	Driver (Pilot, Ship-Captain, Car-Driver ..)	Processing Analyst
Service to Tool	Petrol-Pump, Airport, Maintenance agency (Car service depot ..)	IT Department
Technology of Tool	Who made your transport medium. {Boeing, Airbus, Benz ..}	Creators of your tool {IBM, Microsoft, SAP, Schlumberger …}
Ingredients in use of tool	Route-Plan, Petrol, Airport access, Roads	SOP (or ERP workflow), Data, Application access, Infrastructure capacity

If you follow my thought process, you note that there is “core” technology with Airbus, Ford, or Benz. A small part of it is used by the car-service company in your neighborhood. The pilot or car-driver learns a small functional part of technology, needed to operate the transport. You may not be capable of doing it (I can’t drive a bullock-cart or an Airbus). You decide the mode of travel with main regard to distance, time and cost. The outcome of travel has little to do with technology of Boeing – it is only facilitated by it.

You can see the important ROLE MAPPING between the analogy and the work you do in business.

The data processing person in your business is the one who is creating INFORMATION. It is the transport’s driver {pilot} who is taking you to the destination. But a Pilot really doesn’t have much understanding of the Aircraft technology.

The Service agencies that help you run the car are similar to your IT department. It facilitates to run the tool – reliably and efficiently. They don’t contribute either to INFORMATION or to TECHNOLOGY that such information can create in your business.

The Airbus, Benz, IBM or SAP are the real creators of technology and they determine how and what information is created in your business. 

Unlike the transport analogy, INFORMATION is a living and evolving entity. It develops in to multifarious facets and differentiates the business outcomes. It is the business that should be sensitive to and capable of creating the best information and apply the correct technology.

Creating Technology in business using information or using Technology to address the Information related problems – is not IT as we normally understand.

IT is only a service function that makes your tools and its digital ingredients available for the processing. IT department carries out "computerization".

IT is NOT “Information Technology”.

Wicked Problem

Wicked problems are fundamentally different from big challenges or large problems. Manhattan project, placing man on moon, and Building a super refinery (e.g. Jamnagar) – are large problems, but not wicked.

Many such large problems have – i) A clear beginning and end; ii) Goal; and iii) A clear cut path to be discovered to the solution

WICKED problems are unlike these. Examples are – Climate Change, Extreme poverty, Environmental degradation and Corruption.  Nearer home problem of Mumbai commuting is Wicked. These problems have – i) No unique and clear solution; ii) Complex and Ambiguous statement (goal is farther off as problem statement itself is tough); and iii) Diverse science and points of view.

Digital deluge - WICKED problem

Individuals or organizations are facing uncontrollable deluge of digital contents. Embedded in this deluge are the data, interpretation, inference and knowledge - created. 

Treating it as a simple problem = providing more servers and storage

Considering it as a large problem = implement a document management system

BUT

It is WICKED

What should the CIO do?

Refer: John Kao, Innovation Nation.

Business Information Framework (BIF)

As CIO at E&P, since early 2007 the vision to develop a “Unified BIF” has lingered around. With time and compromises, it is getting confused and often misused (as content management) and soon to be abused. A simple internet search with this term fetched abundant content and images. None of them reasonably represented what was visualized at E&P.

This post will articulate the concept of BIF as envisioned.

Framework

Framework is a term that encompasses a wide kind of thoughts, methods and products. It lacks a single specific meaning or a specific context dependent use. A term sure to confuse and complicate understanding!

1. In computer programming, the term framework is an abstraction to describe generic functionality in software. Quite often the term is used to describe the “LOW-LEVEL” standard functionality provided for development. E.g. Web Application Framework; Ajax framework; JavaScript framework etc. --> Standard set of building blocks
2. An enterprise architecture framework (EA framework) defines how to create and use a practice for conducting enterprise analysis, design, planning and implementation. The term architecture and framework are used to connote the ‘building blocks’ and ‘inter-relations’ that address the expected performance.  EA is divided into 4 layers – Technology{ The word technology is often undermined in IT related documents to wrongly designate exclusively Information Technology}, Applications, Data & Business and they become “domains” of the specialization in work or administration autonomy during implementation.  --> Generalization
3. Conceptual framework or logical framework provides basis of analysis in different scales the problem. They provide means to define atomic elements and their congregations to derive higher-order. --> Abstraction & Scale

This post will use the word FRAMEWORK to specific characteristics around ABSTRACTION, GENERALIZATION and SCALE.

Boundaries

Modern business, including E&P is driven by different technologies that create i) Digital content and ii) Marketable product.

Business performs through – i) Organization; ii) Processes & Workflows; iii) Resources; and iv) Technology. Together these create the “results” --> i) digital content and ii) product. The overall inter-related hierarchies are shown in the figure.

Digital content can be classified into data, databases and unstructured content. Further, they can also be classified into the business through – asset, context, process-element and organization-element which – i) created, ii) approved and iii) uses the content.

There is a very elegant multi-dimensional attribute that is attached to every digital content – which makes it assimilate with the business per-se. 

Digital Content

Use of computers is nearly complete in most business processes. Very little content is created outside the computer realm. These occur in many different forms in a business.

ALL OF THEM HAVE – i) CONTEXT; ii) belong to ASSET; iii) and attached with ROLE. Technology and Process steps essentially provide the context and can be made sub-categories within context. 

BIF

It is the organization model of all digital contents into business boundaries – at “necessary” and “sufficient” depth. Overdoing this content organization can become deterrent to successful implementation and usage.

BIF can integrate all digital contents to their relevance in business. The implementation shall be made with suitable “computer architecture framework” that assures – security, accessibility and operability. A variety of tools, technologies, frameworks and methodologies exist to design the implementation models and operate it on modern computers.

It is relatively simple and highly generic. It covers all databases, datasets, knowledge interactions, communications, records, files, processes and people. By incorporating ‘standards’ a lot of unstructured content can be made interpretable. Simple work discipline like using a “title” for all PPT slides will go a long-way into creating indexed presentation files. 

1. This BIF model is ABSTRACT, GENERALIZED and SCALABLE.
2. It can be developed in cyclic phases of increasing depth and maturity
3. Practiced systematically, it can lead to Information Maturity at the business
4. As it is product or technology-framework – agnostic, the model can be sustained for longer periods
5. The approach overcomes the limitations of hierarchic content management and opens avenues of knowledge discovery, structured vocabulary and ontological inference.

BIF Approach Scheme

Agile Development is mandatory for implementing and maturing BIF. It is impossible to give a’priori full functional description or define the detailed architecture for development.

Maturity CONTEXTS à ASSETS ↓	Acquire	Explore	Appraise	Develop	Produce
India-Block1
Australia-CBM
US-Shalegas
India-Offshore1

  

Maturity CONTEXTSà ORG-UNIT/ ROLES↓	Acquire	Explore	Appraise	Develop	Produce
Business Strategy
Acquisition Team
Exploration

1. Start with a faceted classification of the 3(or 5) main elements for BIF at appropriate depth. Note that there shall be hierarchy while going deeper and that needs to be broadly defined and used. Examples from E&P are at level-1: which is often not sufficient (need at level-3 for effectiveness).
2.  Each unit in the multi-dimensional faceted classification scheme is given a UID – Classification-box-id. They become the logical owners of the digital content. Role-players access the content as per the LDAP security access control.
3. Create a workflow system that traces ASSET-maturity and provide it to the personnel holding different roles in the Asset-team. Digital contents they create are automatically indexed and mapped to the place in the faceted classification. All CONTENTs have method to automatically detect and stay at the relevant slot in its classifications together. An email, meeting notes, short-note, technical report, model data, approval-note – all of them stay together in context|asset framework.
4. CONTENTs are provided with metadata elements like – 1) Type classifiers {e.g. Note, Record, Report, etc.}; 2) Nature {e.g. Draft, Approved, Final}; and 3) Few other
5. The classification is matured with hierarchic details, the incorporation of additional levels; more detailed asset hierarchy (Blockà Prospect à Field à Well à Reservoir à Sample à Analysis) is relatively easy.
6. All other standard content management functions can be implemented upon the BIF.

Content: Collaboration

Learning Environment is the direction for creating successful organizations. Content: Collaboration is a mutual complementing need or scenario. The two must come together to form an integrated content and collaborative-learning environment. Content has become a PILE – millions of documents and datasets – SPACE {Volume of Disk}! Collaboration has become uncontrolled explosion: expender – TIME {consumes}. Learning and Knowledge are typically in 1:n {?10000} proportion embedded within this SPACE-TIME maze.

Wishful needs are: 1) Create compelling content, 2) Structure and protect it, 3) Ensure it’s easy to find and accessible, 4) Manage the content life cycle, 5) Leverage collaboration through social media for content production, distribution,  access and discovery (learning or knowledge creation).

BIF provides a model to manage and provides:

1. Organization’s personnel to communicate short, specific, context relevant
2. Integrate content (notes, reports etc.) with communication (emails, comment etc.) cogently and consistently
3. Provide a natural way to integrate all digital content (see figure), manage and administer its life-cycle through clear and objective methods.
4. Provide intuitive and easy to learn and adopt mechanism {conventionally, paper was organized in E&P into Assets and Contexts}
5. Establish a generalized and highly scalable model – that is product and technology agnostic
6. Pave way for new possibilities like automated knowledge discovery and encapsulation.

BIF is a vision for making information tie with Business.