Business Information Review

Discusses the difference between what is useful and what is merely interesting, in the sense of information that may be deemed relevant but is in fact inessential for some purposes, in the context of the transactions that take place between the information professional and the information user. It is noted that the tendency to give irrelevant responses to enquiries is one that is more likely to be the fault of information users than of information professionals. The usual reason for such responses is that enquirers have failed to ask the right questions or to specify the purpose of their enquiries properly. In order to avoid this situation, information providers should see themselves as producers or specialist distributors of their product, not general retailers. They need to understand the nature of information, not just where to get it from. Users are not necessarily competent to handle the information they are supplied with and they should be helped to do so. Someone has to make sure that a proper contract exists between enquirers and providers and assigns responsibilities to both parties. Some examples are given to illustrate the competence of the information professional viewed in terms of: the relative nature of information; drawing inferences from information; educating the users; and deciding what kind of information is suitable for the decision at hand and its background circumstances.

This article examines the role of user psychology in the development of new approaches to information retrieval. It outlines the broad requirements of any system designed to overcome the problem of information glut, and explores methods for understanding users and eliciting information about their requirements. The importance of systems capturing context is emphasized: both the user’s changing requirements in the context of their underlying preferences, and the context of information contained within documents. The author provides an overview of different technological approaches to classifying information. The article concludes that information retrieval systems can only be truly effective if they construct deep, rich profiles of users as well as understanding the information that they require. Decision Intelligence theory asserts that it is only by bringing together these two halves of the information retrieval equation that users can be matched to content that is truly relevant to their decisionmaking.

Defines the meaning of the term “information architecture” in terms of their functional components and argues their importance within the modern business environment in light of two research projects and multiple consultancy engagements undertaken by TFPL. Defines the scope of an information architecture within an organization in terms of: structure; people; process; and tools. Within any organization there are three areas information architecture issues which must be considered: the classification of the organization by focusing the information an organization produces (apart from information relating to goods and services); the information within the organization that primarily relates to products and services produced; and the people in the organization encompassing both the information architecture team and end users and the content they need and use. The methods used to implement information architectures are discussed in terms of: the information audit processes; the tools for information architecture; and post-implementation tasks. The research undertaken by TFPL into the nature of information architecture has led to a number of conclusions: that the development of an information architecture demands significant planning and effort in developing objectives and specifications; that a degree of cynicism has developed as organizations have discovered that there is a significant gap between user requirements and vendor offerings; that most organizations are multifaceted entities with complex problems; and that organizations need cross-disciplinary teams to develop information architecture approaches.

The information services developed to serve the needs of financial services and investment banking information users have evolved rapidly in recent years as the way in which such information is used has changed. Users want to take content from a variety of sources, combine and integrate it into their own working tools and portals and not be constrained by vendors’ predetermined formats. Investment banking information services have moved from a situation where most information retrieval took place via an intermediary and had a significant hard copy component to one where users typically do a good deal of their own searching and retrieval using electronic sources. Examines what investment banks do for their clients, the major drivers for change in the industry that might affect information professionals and the implications of this for the information services. Specific aspects of information provision cover: information use in banks; delivery of financial information; and new trends in information distribution (including Application Programmable Interfaces (APIs)). Concludes that it will require a greater effort on the part of the workforce in this sector to meet the information needs of their users and a more substantial evolution of their professional skills than has recently been demanded. If managers fail to lead their organizations in the right direction by reacting to these changes, then they are likely to see their role diminish.

It is argued that a great deal of money is spent on gathering, indexing, sorting, processing and delivering information, but relatively little on ensuring that the results and implications of this research are communicated to and understood by the organizations that commissioned the work. Examines the ways in which information becomes incomprehensible and how better comprehensibility will assist the process of information management. The “technology industry” is blamed for being responsible for continually pushing back comprehensibility in order to push products, arguing that it has yet to be proved that the phenomenal IT investment by companies over the past 20 years has yielded any real productivity gains. This rush to fuel the IT industry, aided an abetted by the World Wide Web, has led to a jargon-driven workplace and distracted the collective attention of business from the urgent need to get some value out of the vast quantities of information that it has built up. Suggests five practical steps aimed at boosting the value of information with good writing: think of the audience; recognize the limitations of different media; take advantage of the power of stories and storytelling; remember that not everyone is a good writer; and build style guides and processes and apply them. Concludes that good writing is not a management fad and it is not always easy to get people excited about it. However, the effort expended in replacing corporate psychobabble with relevant, well-written pieces of narrative the company’s products will repay the investment handsomely.

The simple fact that a company has a Web site is insufficient in itself and such a site needs to be able to act in a dynamic way to help the company to achieve its maximum effectiveness. It is no longer acceptable to have a Web site that just sits there doing very little but needs to be vibrant, attractive, informative and engaging. Companies need to make their sites stand out from the rest and this requires constant attention, constant updating and as much involvement as possible, both from both the company staff and the site’s visitors. Apoor site will turn people away, not only from the site itself, but quite possibly from the entire organization, but a well produced site will reap many rewards, both in the short and long term. Offers very useful advice on how organizations can assess how good their Web sites are currently and ways in which they can improve the design, layout and content to make them more effective.

Individuals have become increasingly concerned about data protection issues in recent years and due largely to the Internet, where there have been concerns about the level of unsolicited commercial Email ("spam") received and the amount of personal data about themselves which has been processed via the Web without their knowledge. The Internet and electronic commerce has created potential threats to consumers' privacy on an unprecedented scale. The principles of good information handling that are aimed at protecting against such abuses appear in Schedule 1 of the Data Protection Act 1998, where the eight data protection principles are that data must be: processed fairly and lawfully; for limited purposes (notified to the Commissioner and the data subject); adequate, relevant and not excessive; accurate; not kept for longer than is necessary; processed in line with the data subject's rights; kept secure; and not transferred to countries without adequate protection. In addition, the Office of the Information Commissioner has produced some guidance relating to the protection of privacy on the Internet specifies that, in using the Internet for their business dealings, data controllers must take into account the privacy rights of individuals and their own responsibilities under privacy and data protection legislation. This was followed in June 2001 by some compliance advice concerning Web sites where to be fair, Web site operators must ensure that individuals are aware of: the identity of the person or organization responsible for operating the Web site; the purposes for which the data are to be processed; and any other information that is needed in order to ensure the fairness of the processing of the data. Pays particular attention to such issues as: data protection and privacy statements; direct marketing applications; cookies; Web bugs; junk Email and spam; and data security.