Dickeson--Join the Information Age

We're shaking our heads. We just cannot believe that the U.S. economy continues to flourish month after month, year after year. Low unemployment rates, negligible inflation, low interest costs, soaring productivity, a surplus in place of a deficit, all of this and more, while Russia, Japan, Southeast Asia, Brazil and other countries are sinking in recession. There are as many explanations for this economic phenomenon as there are economists!

There are a number of factors operating and interacting. But I'm most impressed with this suggested reason: the impact that IT—Information Technology—is now having on the economy; IT has replaced manufacturing as the driving force of our commerce and enterprise.

We've long suspected and predicted that this would happen. The United States, for the moment at least, is leading the world with computer usage, database systems, Internet linkage, software applications, e-commerce and, most importantly, knowledge applications.

Four Phases of Info Age
I recommend that you read Jeff Papows' "enterprise.com" for a brilliant marshalling of the evidence of what has, and is, happening with IT and the world economy—particularly U.S. leadership in the Information Age. From the aspect of our printing industry, I found Papows' analysis of the four phases of Information Technology enlightening.

We start with data, move to information, then to knowledge and, finally, to work. Let's change "work" to "execution," and we coin the acronym: DIKE for Data, Information, Knowledge, Execution.

Think about this for a moment. Even with all our installed computing power of the '80s and early '90s, we questioned whether computerization really had a "payback." We mostly did things we'd been doing in the same way we'd always done 'em. The spread sheet and word processing programs may have changed our lives, but we still did business as we had for years. We prepared lists in piles of sprocket-perfed printouts.

That was our "raw data" phase. With the growing sophistication of databases, we began conversion of raw data to information by filtering, sorting, grouping, summarizing, calculating and formatting. We analyzed, looked for trends, applied statistical formulae, used regression charting. We called upon new techniques such as OLAP (On Line Analytical Processing) to enable us to spot co-variances or correlations we hadn't identified before.

Knowledge power became real in the mid-'90s. Coupled with the World Wide Web on the Internet, the Knowledge Genie was out of the bottle! Knowledge became the action energizer. We had paid our computer dues and entered the Age of Knowledge Power. The Ages of the Hunter, the Herdsmen, the Farmer and the Industrialist are gone. The Age of Information is upon us. The KW (Knowledge Worker) is now key to enterprise. Has our printing industry kept pace with the economic change?

We're learning, in printing, but we're hardly in the vanguard of knowledge exploitation. With new technologies of composition, photography, imposition and plate preparation, we've kept pace. We had to. Our production people in those centers have moved from artisan to Knowledge Worker.

But in operating presses and finishing equipment, we're still basically craftspeople of the mid-20th Century. We haven't yet moved to requisite knowledge skills. The same is largely true of our print manufacturing and business administration. We collect the data, often directly from the equipment, but our conversion of that data into information is rudimentary at best. We puzzle over stacks of computer listings that are lacking informational properties—still struggling with the second process step to knowledge and execution.

And where is our cadre of Knowledge Workers, the people with the "know hows" and "know whys" for production management and administration to deal with the information, if we had it? Where are the Knowledge Workers required for the "Market Facing Enterprises" needed in order to shift our efforts as rapidly as market demands now change? What are we doing to develop and instill knowledge skills for production and administration staffs to take that third step—using information for knowledge? Finally, how do we facilitate execution based on knowledge? What must we do now to join this Age of Knowledge?

Extracting Information
First, we must concentrate on development of our methods and techniques for extraction of information from raw data. We must progress from our job-cost assumptions to process analysis and overview.

What does the data reveal to us about shifting market demands? Shorter print runs? Increasing machine changeovers? Production stoppages from deficient materials? Neglected maintenance? What equipment/service changes do we need to respond to changing customer needs? Where do we invest our scarce capital resources? Are we utilizing our capacity effectively? ...And on and on in the effort to develop intelligible information from the data.

Second, our Knowledge Workers must be identified, trained, empowered and accountable. How do we do this? (If all this sounds too academic, perhaps you don't yet appreciate what is happening in other businesses. What do we do to bring you and me to the new millennium?)

Perhaps we start by using Lotus Notes and Domino, or similar products, to foster knowledge-sharing internally. Maybe we equip a few computers with CD and DVD ROM drives to tap into whatever training and multimedia interactive educational resources are available on those silver disks. Suppose we encourage Web browsing on the Internet to find materials and participate in industry chat sessions?

Shouldn't we begin to develop KBs, Knowledge Bases, for our own shops, as well as industry KBs, using browser string-search techniques to establish Knowledge Utilities? What a knowledge resource that could provide! (Every major software supplier has KBs for its "tech reps"—that is, its KWs—to access when counseling users. Shouldn't we do the same?)

Ah, to then empower, inspire and hold accountable the KWs for the actions they execute, once they are trained and become expert in knowledge application! Another topic for another day. Right now let's appreciate the challenge facing us and get cracking on the DIKE!

—Roger Dickeson

About the Author
Roger Dickeson is a printing productivity consultant based in The Woodlands, TX. He can be reached via fax at (281) 419-8213 or e-mail at roger@prem-associates.com.