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Value of Information Kishore (December 2002) Information Age is not hype. Information Technology strives to provide the right information at the right time. I had simple experiences where I realized value of information. Example 1: A few years back I was working in Madras, India. One day while at office, I was in a meeting and after coming back, I was ready to leave for home. Someone called me back and told me that I received a phone call when I was in meeting and told me that it was my cousin and he was not coming to Madras as planned the next day. It was a small detail but that made a big difference. I was planning to go to Railway station the next morning for which I have to get up early in the morning and travel 12 kms and wait for my cousin to arrive. If I had missed this little but important information, I would have undergone lot of stress of wasting time and energy and at the end of it getting frustrated when I don't find my cousin on the train. This experience keeps coming back to my mind many times. Information means many things to many people. I believe more information is better than no information. Sometimes we find ourselves deluged with lot of information which may be irrelevant at that moment. But it may be valuable information at a later moment. For example, phone number of relative jotted down casually may be 'the most important' information at another time. Example 2: A related lesson I learned from one of our professors at IIT Kanpur goes like this. This professor was very systematic and organized. He wanted things to go in a smooth manner and plans very well. One day he asked one of the students to come and meet him in his office. The student went to his office and finding the office closed, he came back to hostel. Later that day the professor was annoyed that the student didn't meet him. When the student tried to explain that he indeed came to meet him and went back after waiting for sometime, professor told this advice. He told the student that it is his responsibility to let the professor know very clearly of his attempted meeting. He told always do something that let's the other party know that you have been there. He told that a simple post it note on his office door which says "I was here at xx:xx" would have been proof enough for him that the student indeed tried to contact him and then it becomes responsibility of professor to ensure such a thing does not happen again. It was again a small piece of information which was not conveyed that could have led to 'better understanding of the situation'. Responsibilities of a 'Information Sender' If you are the only person who comes to know about a particular piece of information, then it is your responsibility a. To determine who else needs
to know this Don't hold information for too long lest the cost of not disclosing information becomes high. Especially at work, we find dynamics of information go around a lot. And managers who keep getting lot of information every minute need to make the decisions to convey the right information to the right persons in the right manner. This calls for lot of rewording and conveying it appropriately. Sometimes we may even find that there is repetition of information which can be attributed to their caution of not missing any person. Responsibilities of 'Information Receiver' With deluge of information coming our way, ignoring information is not the right method. Information receiver a. should determine relevance
of information and process information Most important things to remember is conveying the information in appropriate manner. Summary I have always wanted to share the above two experiences which taught me to be careful in both aspects of Information Receiving and sending. Hope this article conveys what I had in mind. Remember at any time we are wearing the hat of 'Sender' or 'Receiver'. Every action of ours speaks and how responsibly we are doing it can change based on our awareness of our responsibility. Did you ever feel something similar? Let me know your thoughts. |