The Information Asset - The Foundation for a New Information Model

 

An information asset is a fancy name for a set of files, tracking data, logs, rules, etc., that collectively form information meaningful to your business.   We’re going to let you in on a little secret.  People, like yourself, who run your organization using files are already intimately familiar with the idea of Information Assets.  You use them every day.  They are what you work with, the way you communicate, what you get paid for, and what you might get yelled at about.  It’s the computers that don’t understand.

 

Isn’t it time to mold computers into the way you actually run your business rather than the other way around?

 

Expedite finally brings computers up to your level by expanding how they work to match what you already do.

 

The information assets form the core concept behind Expedite.   Storage people have always thought people just work with files.  As long as they provide ways to create, edit, and delete files, that should be all business people really need.  The problem is, you as a business person don’t work with files.  You work with something at a higher level.

 

Here are some attributes of an information asset:

 

1. Is a business term, not a storage term.

2. Is a collection of items, not just an individual file.

3. Includes everything needed such as other files, images, scanned paper, emails, tracking data, rules, policies, audit logs, security, etc.

4. Is the atomic unit of work that is meaningful to your business.

5. Defined by the people who are attempting to run their organization with file data.

6. Are important and have value to the organization.

7. What people who work with files use, produce, get judged upon, (and get yelled at over).

8. Have a lifecycle they go through.

9. Sadly, are not supported in today’s computer systems!

 

The Information Asset in a bit more detail...

 

The idea of an information asset is a powerful new concept that is designed to bridge the gap between how business views information and how computers manage files.  The information asset is an entirely new perspective of data and is necessitated by the fact that business users intuitively include much more than just an individual file when referring to their information.  Simple things like, what is actually in the file, who it is for, etc., is often confusingly and inconsistently encoded in the file name or implied by its directory location.  Other information such as prior revisions, the template that was used to create the file, associated files such as pictures, scanned copies, or other working documents, not to mention the relevant emails, are simply scattered if recorded at all.  As one customer put it, “We have more controls, tracking, documentation, rules, checks, and management oversight of our petty cash than we do over our information assets”.  The result of this is that computers are simply not designed to know what an information asset is, and therefore, are completely unable to manage it in any way.

 

To be clear, information assets are not simply the collection of files on a file server.  The formal definition of an information asset is the set of all data, rules, and procedures that, collectively, represents a concept meaningful to the business.   This set of data can include not only a collection of files but other important items such as tracking and descriptive information (e.g.  the name of the customer), audit logs, emails, supporting documentation, images, etc., that collectively, have meaning to the business.  These can range from a few items to very complex asset that might include thousands of files.

 

This new concept is best explained by example.   Let’s take the common business concept of a contract, a written agreement between two or more parties enforceable by law.  While that’s its definition, what actually constitutes a contact?  Isn’t it just that Word document?  That seemingly simple question points out why today’s computer systems are so unaware and unprepared to manage this type of asset from a business perspective.

 

An Example:  The Composition of a Contract

 

This type of asset, at least on the surface, appears to be pretty simple, probably manifesting itself as just an individual file.  However, even a cursory analysis reveals there’s a bit more to it.  The table below defines some of the components that can make up a contract.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The table simply lists the many things that can make up the contract asset.  When these items are put into action in the real world of business, the complexities get even more interesting.  Often times, managing something is simply the ability to answer some basic questions about the asset.  Where is it?  Is it on the server, on someone’s computer, on someone’s laptop that is traveling right now, in some email message in my inbox?  Which one of these 5 copies is the right one?  Which one did we send to the customer?  Did they ever get it?  Who was supposed to approve it? What state is it in?  Has it been signed yet?   Which template was used to create this?  I have the PDF version, where is the real Word file? Who added this paragraph?  Did anyone scan in the final signature page?  Where did that go?  What about that costing spreadsheet we used to derive the number?  The list could continue but it should be painfully obvious that successful management of this information asset must encompass more than storing a file out on a file share someplace.

 

As can be seen from above, a contract is actually a quite complex entity.  Anyone who has been involved in contract negotiations knows that problems related to managing just a single one of these assets can be costly often resulting in possible lost revenue, follow up opportunities put in jeopardy, employee productivity impacts, management stomach acid, and company reputation and brand impact.  Contracts are just one example of the thousands of information assets that businesses struggle with every day.

 

Common Across All Departments

 

Every group within an organization will probably have some set of information assets they need to manage.  (Click here to see the list of Asset Examples.)  It is not uncommon to have 3-4 important assets that a department is responsible.  High level managers of these departments are bombarded with requests to purchase applications or sign up for software services for each of these assets.  A manager in charge of 7 departments, each of which has three assets to manage can result in the need for 21 separate applications.  Having IT go out and identify, evaluate, source, test, and deploy 21 applications, and finding the budget to pay for all of this is simply impossible for most originations.   Having 21 different applications with 21 different user configurations, and 21 different security models, training requirements, user interfaces, and with a high probability none of them can work together or cooperate is simply a path to disaster.  What is a manager to do?

 

This is where Expedite can play an important role in improving the quality, productivity, and performance of your organization.  We have found that the great majority of the so-called applications are really just managing information assets.  Instead of dealing with the nightmare of many different applications, creating a process that can control the information assets is a significantly cheaper and much more successful and practical approach to process improvements across an entire organization.  Each department can begin to roll out their containers to support these assets incrementally, which vastly improves the success rate as well as can control costs at the department level.  Have a similar user interface across all information assets allows for very quick transitions to the use of new information assets.  IT can concentrate on keeping the infrastructure alive and operational rather than being distracted by huge numbers of different applications.