Our information eco-system rules are a lot more similar to our natural eco-system than we realise!
Business information assets are keystone species in our business ecosystem. They might be intangible assets but they are very real and can make or break our success.
Think for a moment the definition of the keystone species in biology:
“A keystone species is a species which has a disproportionately large effect on its natural environment relative to its abundance, a concept introduced in 1969 by the zoologist Robert T. Paine. Keystone species play a critical role in maintaining the structure of an ecological community, affecting many other organisms in an ecosystem and helping to determine the types and numbers of various other species in the community. Without keystone species, the ecosystem would be dramatically different or cease to exist altogether.”
From <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keystone_species
Now visualise your work or your business… Is everything critical? Is everything so influential that can make or break your reputation? Is everything financially important? That’s an easy answer: no, not everything is critical. But which ones are the keystones?
This is the reverse question (the one we really need to ask!) and it does not have an easy answer. Worry not, you are not alone. Many generations of people, scientists, businessmen, entrepreneurs and so on, tussled with what is called ‘the reverse problem’ or reverse equation in maths. In simple words, how to go from the result to the cause.
If this is difficult in the real world, it is even more difficult when we deal with information. Why? Information is an intangible asset. For example, if I want to back-track and find out what went wrong with a tangible asset (say, money), I can do an audit of all the transactions and pinpoint the genesis of the disaster. How do I do that with an intangible asset? And the question becomes even more interesting when we want to look forward instead into the past: how do I identify and know my ‘keystone species’ of my information assets so I do not do anything drastically wrong? Even better, how do I use them well for my information eco-system (and my business) to thrive? After all, information being an intangible asset, cannot be taken to the bank or be put in an oak cask and for you to wait for this fabulous single-malt to emerge after 30 years.
In the world of information assets we all work in, keystone species (keystone information) is critical but the problem is that not all information is keystone. We know that. It is obvious. For instance, a contract we have signed is clearly keystone information because it sets the expectations of all parties involved. It is also clear that the actions linked to this contract support this keystone but they are not keystones themselves. And yet things go wrong. Why?
A keystone species needs a specific environment to live and interact beneficially with the rest of the species in this environment. You cannot take a shark and try to replace wolves!
Keystone information needs and depends on context - a story line on a time line that reflects what happened, why and to what result (achieved or expected). If you cannot do this, you take the context away and you degrade information to just data – not a very astute business move.
i4cu gives you an environment where your information assets are always linked to the context of your business, to your story lines (business lines) and all stay organised in logical, timely manner. This is how the i4cu working space makes it obvious which information assets are ‘keystone species’ to your business so you can make sure they thrive and work for you.
