Everything started with this note about Lille Business school and some talks with an archivist, a job I didn’t know at all, or, as a lot of people, a job I thought I knew things about. It gave me the idea to make a little poll around me about how this function was considered within their companies.
I think the result won’t be a surprise for anybody. I’ve been talked about “temple keepers”, the people who know “were information is”. With a strong “achive” connotation. It’s like people were talking about old relicts for those who want to learn about the past but without any use in the day to day job, noboday talking about topicality, intelligence, digital information (as if archivists only knew paper).
Nothing to do with the talks I had with the above mentioned person. Nothing to do with what is made in Lille. A the time when information is becoming more and more strategic, when it’s the basis on collaboration between people, when 75% of the companies’ value is made of intangible assets, it’s somehow a worrying situation.
What do companies need ? Funneling and organizing information that’s pouring into an always increasing numbers of channels. Of course, there’s still “paper information” that’s about both topicality and content. But there are also feeds coming from business/competitive monitoring on the web, since more and more companies try to take the most of each employee as a point of contact with their ecosystem. Of course the number of sources can be reduced but it’s more about closing our eyes to reality than trying to face it. [Read more...]
You can find the "original" french version of this blog here
