Michael Borges Kicks off IM2008.

Today and tomorrow we are visiting Platons IM2008 which is the largest Information Management (IM) in the Nordics. There are loads of very interesting speakers and some exciting keynotes ahead.

IM2008 started with a blast from the past and a short video of Borges fighting his way from the office to Scandic Hotel in the beautiful sunny Copenhagen.

Information strategy is the issue and more than 50 experts from Nordic businesses will cover their perspective on managing the flow of information and the development of the business.

The basic message of Michael Borges’ keynote speech was to stop and think. BI is developing extremely fast and today we need to think more holistic about our business. This goes for IM as well. We don’t need more isles of data and fragmented strategies will not be able to transform the company to a real information driven entity.

And the way to do it is to focus on the information strategy and make it a continuum: No surprises, no abrupt changes, but at a steady development of the company’s information and the use thereof.

Michael summarized the current issues in a short list of the 7 deadly sins within IM:

Seven Deadly sins of the Information strategy continuum

Sin #1. Wait for the silver bullet
Waiting for the final solution that will suddenly appear out of nowhere – IT WILL NOT HAPPEN. The need is there now and the challenge will only increase with time.
Nobody will provide a ”killer-app” that will fix all you problems just like that.

Sin # 2. Bite off more than you can chew
Focus ! But remember there are synergies that can be harvested through BI. And about 80 percent of data in any company is unstructured

Sin # 3. Choose a technology focus
Strategy is NOT choosing between Microsoft or SAS, and still 9 out of 10 think this choice is strategy. But it’s important to involve the business, and it may seem like a hassle, but this way we open up for the vast knowledge inherent to the company. But, this too have challenges because the existing organization does not work with the information strategy. Based on that companies can continue to establish the information strategy that comprises policies about how the company wants things to work.

Sin # 4. Allow a process vacuum
You need a transition strategy to get from where you are to where you want to be; it’s clearly not enough to define your goals – you need to think about how you get there. BI never ends; data grows and changes and we need to adapt our business and BI-systems accordingly.

Sin # 5. Ignore execution
“Vision without execution is day dreaming” as bill gates once said. You need to DO, thinking and wondering is clearly not enough. We need strategy yes, but we need to act on it. TIP: If you measure it, it will happen. This is very basic but if you don’t measure your progress, how will you know how to go forward: you don’t even know where you are. Build the program, govern the program, review the program, modify and then start over

Sin # 6. Make nobody accountable
You need someone to take charge of this, because your company needs the focus and this is NOT easy. Also, your company probably sports loads of different opinions on what is good and not so good and there will be wildly differing ideas on the right way for this to work. Make one person accountable – that is the way to push the company forward. And let formal power follow the accountability

Sin # 7. Make information the “be all – end all”
Information is never enough in it self; to get the value of information you need to process it and use it where its useful. And even tough data is extremely important, other parts ot the organization might not even think about the data. You need to be able to understand how the information is being used and what the people with the information prioritizes.

Have you committed a sin? Mr Borges invited anyone who had committed a sin to come to him and make a confession – under a wow of silence naturally.

/Nikolaj Henrichsen, Acinta.dk