Information Architecture is not a Web Site Architecture

Before you can manage enterprise information you must first architect enterprise information. Our industry has relegated the meaning of Information Architecture to mean Web and Portal site content, document management, business intelligence, business analytics, and content management, which is only a small fraction of enterprise information. We need to resurrect the true meaning of Enterprise Information Architecture and elevate it to a more important role in the Enterprise Architecture realm.

Information Architecture should and must mean the creation and design of information structures that support business function and business users within their context of usage and meaning. An Information Architect must identify the data elements within data sources that are needed by specific users and processes throughout the business functional lifecycle, and semantically align these data sets to the context of the user and process that needs this information. Information Architecture is driven by the users meaning and context not just the business process context.

Information Architecture is more than Data Architecture and the two are distinctly different. Information is the meaning and context of data, in databases today (whether structured or unstructured) the meaning and context of data is not stored with the data element. Data tables and data records only store the structure and syntax of the data not the meaning.

A database is designed and implemented from the requirements and definition of entities that will be stored and manipulated in a physical database. The meaning of the data is reflected in the structures and relationships between tables and records that a group of designers create. Each entity must have one and only one meaning or you break the fundamental theory of data design. The intent of the database is to store, manipulate, and report on the data that the organization needs to accomplish its business for a specific set of users and processes. If you use this data for any other group of users, that the database was not designed for, then that group of users and processes must either accept the meaning of the data or translate that data into meaningful data for their use.

It is evident that business users and process need “their” own data, just look at the hundreds and thousands of databases that a company maintains. There is not “one version” of truth when it comes to the information a company needs to be effective, efficient, and profitable in today markets. Forcing everyone in an organization to use one defined set of information is like forcing everyone on earth to speak one language. But our industry continues to force this definition by addressing the problem with Data Warehouses, Data Marts, Metadata, MDM, and Enterprise Data Models, which all have failed in meeting the business needs of an enterprise because it is focused at the data not the information needs of the users. When I say the word “ship”, do you think of something on the water, or do you think of moving a package from one point to another. Without context and meaning “ship” could mean several things to a user. This same principle applies to the data that is stored in databases today.

Just getting started

Just getting started with this new blog, I plan on writing about what I find of interest in my career and clients that I have had.

So bear with me and more will come as I have the time to share my thoughts and interests