The soft side of practice - relationships
Jinfo Blog

By Scott Brown

Abstract

While I enjoy the 'hard' side of information work - data, competitive intelligence, visualisation - I continue to find the 'soft' side of information work fascinating.

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I like analysis and industry data just as much as the next person. (Really, I do.) As the FreePint Report on Competitive Intelligence guest editor Yulia Aspinall states, ‘Answering the “so what?” question requires not just access to relevant resources, but also the selection of the right analytical tool.’ The report covers a variety of content areas and aspects of competitive intelligence – a little something for everyone to add to their practice.

What strikes me in this issue of the Information Practice Newsletter, though, is the recurring theme of the importance of the ‘soft’ side of practice, and specifically relationships, within the organisation. Even when Tim Buckley Owen looks at a decidedly technical topic – BYOD in the organisation – he points to a recent Economist Intelligence Unit report that finds the C-suite wanting Human Resources to take a key role in strategic planning for BYOD. Tim indicates that the C-suite has ‘a generally “close and trustful” relationship with HR’ – and these kinds of relationships are going to be one key in solving complex issues in the organisation. If an organisation doesn’t address a BYOD process, people will find ways to bring and use their own devices anyway. Info pros can help in this in many ‘low-tech’ ways, such as participating in developing good data protection practices.

On the social media side, James Mullan indicates, quite rightly, that implementing a social media policy in the organisation is in many ways no less formidable a task than implementing BYOD – at least from the ‘soft’ side of making it all work smoothly and effectively. In another piece, James reflects further that a major reason why people share content in the first place is to create relationships. Sharing our own work, and sharing knowledge we gain as part of our roles in working in the organisation, is rewarding to us. At a basic level, we believe others can benefit from what we’ve learned.

While I enjoy the ‘hard’ side of information work – data, competitive intelligence, visualisation - I continue to find the ‘soft’ side of our work fascinating.

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