| Today there is ample evidence to show that competitive, successful firms rely on information, particularly external information, to stimulate innovation.
There is no shortage of guidance on the technology choices to deliver information to the individual and innovation to the organisation.... Essential questions that should be asked are: What are the sources of information being brought together? Do they have the right mix of viewpoint? How will they bring about the actions that drive the success of the organization?..
This paper first provides compelling evidence for the new challenge in the delivery of information in the organisation.
They know how to look beyond mere efficiency, beyond just ROI, and they unlock the profound value of external information within their firm...
We will draw on this distinction, and on a nutritional analogy, to investigate the information 'diet' of the firm.
Healthy informing demands a balance of ideas of sufficient variety and relevance; they must be sourced from inside and outside the organisation, and then presented in digestible form.
However the focus of investment in Information Technology has been on internal information and the efficiency of internal processes.
There is an acute danger in this shift - described as a Faustian bargain by Neil Postman who identifies the very real danger of 'Informing Ourselves to Death".... As the balance of content changes, amplified with electronic delivery, how can we ensure external information gets heard in the battle of words and that external views get fairly surfaced? "On the screen every word is equal, it is only by reputation and opinion that we can distinguish one bit from another"...
Particularly in an environment of information overload, managing the information diet is the key to success...
Max Boisot presents a powerful model to study the information requirements in an organisational context and the types of information necessary for different parts of the business [this model pre-dates the work of Nonaka and Takeuchi in Knowledge Management but explores many similar concepts]...
In the Boisot model the company information systems are concerned with the propagation of internal information - for example the technology transfer and launch activities.
Here we have to be cautious as to the value of the Internet as the dominant information source for scanning.
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