Information-Driven Business

Information-Driven Business
How to Manage Data and Information for Maximum Advantage
Robert Hillard

Technology gardening
Published: Sun, 19 Feb 2012 10:05:52 +0000 by Robert Hillard
There is little that is guaranteed to soothe the stressed mind as much as a well-structured garden. It brings together order and nature in a magic combination. From a distance, the garden follows a clear plan that has probably been … Continue reading →

The CIO of 2020
Published: Sat, 21 Jan 2012 11:29:29 +0000 by Robert Hillard
What will the role of Chief Information Officer (CIO) look like in 2020? The CIO role is one that really appeared during the 1990s in response to the increasing profile of Information Technology (IT) in organisations. Previously, the person in … Continue reading →

Value of decommissioning legacy systems
Published: Sun, 18 Dec 2011 04:32:06 +0000 by Robert Hillard
Most organisations reward their project managers for achieving scope, within a given timeframe for a specified budget. While scope is usually measured in terms of user functions most projects usually include the decommissioning of legacy systems. Unfortunately it is the … Continue reading →

Embracing the unexpected
Published: Sun, 20 Nov 2011 09:58:39 +0000 by Robert Hillard
The nineteen century belonged to the engineers. Western society had been invigorated and changed beyond recognition by the industrial revolution through its early years and by its close the railroads were synonymous with the building of wealth. The nineteen century … Continue reading →

The future of social networks
Published: Sun, 23 Oct 2011 04:36:31 +0000 by Robert Hillard
When the telephone was invented the first networks were private, typically between rich individuals and their industrial interests. Pretty quickly, though, people wanted to be able to talk to each other without the need to worry about multiple networks and, … Continue reading →

Paying for value rather than activity
Published: Sun, 25 Sep 2011 10:02:44 +0000 by Robert Hillard
Since the 1980s the costs associated with functions that are shared have been increasingly allocated to business units in such a way as to drive accountability. For information technology this was relatively easy in the late 1980s as the majority … Continue reading →

A small idea with big implications
Published: Wed, 24 Aug 2011 08:16:22 +0000 by Robert Hillard
In the 1990s Philippe Kahn, a founder of Borland (a big name in programming languages), left and began a new enterprise called Starfish. He talked in several interviews about creating small lightweight software that ran as part of the desktop … Continue reading →

CIOs need to measure the right things
Published: Sun, 24 Jul 2011 04:50:11 +0000 by Robert Hillard
If you’re a Chief Information Officer (CIO) there are three things that your organization expects of you: 1) keep everything running; 2) add new capabilities; and 3) do it all as cheaply as possible. The metrics that CIOs typically use … Continue reading →

The “four layer” model applied to unstructured content
Published: Fri, 24 Jun 2011 12:04:28 +0000 by Robert Hillard
In my book, Information-Driven Business, I introduce a four layer model for information. You can also read more about this model in the MIKE2.0 article: Four Layers of Information. The four layer model provides a way of describing information in … Continue reading →

Can we make the Information Revolution better for society?
Published: Sat, 28 May 2011 11:22:26 +0000 by Robert Hillard
It is easy to assume that access to massive amounts of information is good for society. Perhaps we should also look at the role the move to an Information Economy is having on the reversal of generations of movement towards … Continue reading →

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Robert Hillard and his book, Information-Driven Business, have received great coverage in the media.

"The question that any organization needs to ask itself is whether it is using information to create the most dynamic, responsive, and adaptable enterprise possible or is it using information to satisfy the need for power by a privaleged few?"

from Information-Driven Business: How to Manage Data and Information for Maximum Advantage

Managing information has become as vital to a business as managing financial information is to its accounting functions. With information pervading every aspect of your organization—from report ing and marketing to product development and resource allocation—it only makes sense for your business to turn its data into functional knowledge that powers revenues, manages costs, and achieves a consistent level of profitability.

Drawing from techniques that author Robert Hillard has applied in some of the world’s largest companies and government departments, Information-Driven Business reveals how business leaders can more effectively govern, manage, and exploit their company’s most important asset: information.