Information Age Fails to Deliver

Information Age Fails to Deliver

Contact: Dr. Thomas H. Davenport
[email protected] or 512/471-2362

July 3, 1997, Austin, TXóDespite the world-wide investment of trillions of dollars (and other world currencies) in more than 20 years, technology still falls short of providing the information we most need and want, finds Thomas H. Davenport, director of the information management program at The University of Texas at Austin and a regular columnist for CIO magazine.

ìOur information past has not only overemphasized technology, it has devoted too much energy to information on computers. Computerized information,î says Davenport, ìis easy to manipulate, distribute and store, but itís not particularly flexible or informative, making it less valuable to humans.î The information we get from computers, he says, is usually dated, with little or no context or clues to meaning, devoid of sequence or causality, presented in impoverished formats, in much greater volumes than we care to sift through.

Davenport proposes a new way of managing information for human consumption that he calls information ecology. Rather than placing the primary emphasis on generation and distribution of reams of information, information ecology focuses on the effective use of a relatively smaller amount. This ecological approach to information management is more modest, behavioral and practical than the grand designs of information architecture and machine engineering.

Emphasizing the difference between simple ìstate dataî and information that adds value for its human users, Davenport prescribes a looser approach to structuring information that is much more appropriate for managing information of all kinds, not just the data that can scroll down a computer screen.

In his new text titled Information Ecology: Why technology is not enough for sucess in the Information Age, Davenport presents a model for information ecology that ecompasses several interconnected components including the information, organizational and external environments and the information ecology ëwebí.

For a book excerpt, contact Pam Losefsky at 512/471-3998 or [email protected].