|
Integrated Information Networks A Framework for the Age of Networked Intelligence By Jerry Ash The Problem The Age of Networked Intelligence has arrived in a world with no information network. Professional and amateur conclaves perpetuate an outdated and fragmented information anarchy that blocks a company's transition from the Industrial Age to an integrated, knowledge-based Information Age enterprise. The Information Age requires networked intelligence and places the handling of information at the center of what a company does. Yet at the dawn of the Information Age, the intelligence function is scattered about in many ancillary corners of an outmoded Industrial Age model. Professional communicators are narrowly focused on their specialties -- business, marketing, public relations, publications, employee relations, data and finance -- disconnected from one another and protective of their segmented turfs. Amateur communicators in literally every department or function add to the anarchy. During the past few years, public relations practitioners have been threatened by such new concepts as Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC), Integrated Communications Advertising and Public relations (ICAP) and Marketing Public Relations (MPR). PR Quarterly reports that there is "near hysteria in some PR circles about what is seen as an attempted takeover of the public relations function by marketing." Old hierarchical cultures of the industrial era die hard. Consolidation of marketing and public relations functions appears to be motivated by a principal once expressed by Peter Drucker who said, "The aim of business is to create a customer," and expanded by IBM Communications Director Don Frischmann's view that "public relations and marketing are inextricably linked." Frischmann also admonishes his colleagues: "We're communicators and PR people -- not marketers -- but the company sells and we better be part of the process." Unfortunately, the convergence of marketing and public relations functions is not necessarily driven by a broader vision of the future, with its networked intelligence or central business role in the Information Age. Rather, it appears to be driven by the soon-to-become-outdated business process reengineering (BPR) phase of the fading Industrial Age, with its downsizing and consolidation strategies for making the old ways of doing things more efficient. Nevertheless, the consolidation of marketing and public relations fits well into the future. Frischmann's statement can be broadened to say: "Communications will be at the center of what the company does and we better be part of the process." Whether change comes through BPR or a fundamental shift to the Information Age, anxiety and resistance are to be expected. Marilyn Ferguson, the first to popularize the notion of the paradigm shift in her book Aquarian Conspiracy, observed that "new paradigms are nearly always received with coolness, even mockery or hostility. Those with vested interests fight the change. The shift demands such a different view of things that established leaders are often the last to be won over, if at all." It is likely the rivalry between marketing and public relations practitioners will pale and anxiety will grow when these professionals realize that the very words that have historically describe them -- "information" and "communication" -- have been captured by computer technologists who are busy designing and implementing the systems that will define the Information Age. Job descriptions using these words are aimed at "techies" not wordsmiths. "Communication" is now a means, not an act; a technical exchange of electronic bits -- not a creative exchange of ideas or messages. Information Age communication has left the eventual users of the technology behind, largely uninvolved in the rapid development of new information systems. Though Marshall McCluhan once opined the medium was the message, computing is actually the first communications medium designed by "mechanics" who are more interested in the process than the product. Print and broadcasting were media developed for the message from day one, but computing is still in the hands of that professional group unaffectionately referred to as computer nerds. But the problem goes deeper than personality. These propeller-heads are graduates of the mysterious school of data processing and financial analysis and their approach to communications is barely translatable to other functions of business and mass communication. Marketing, public relations and advertising people, who now try to commercialize the Information Highway, are finding its adaptation extremely difficult. Debates about the appropriateness of the merger of marketing and public relations, then, are moot at a time when every piece of the information anarchy must be drawn together to form an integrated information system worthy of being at the center of a knowledge-based enterprise. Hopefully the debates will be more positive and relevant, when framed in the context of the paradigm shift from information as ancillary function, to information at the very center of what a business does. The Solution Until communication becomes both a means and an act, the Knowledge Age will not have arrived. Until the handling and use of information has been fused, the information-based enterprise is ineffective. Integrated information networks must be established to accommodate the convergence of the media (including computing), the methods (all communications specialties) and the messages. Changes in both corporate structure and professional culture must occur. The change will require strong and knowledgeable leadership from the executive suite to the loading dock of any organization. |
