"Information is the DNA of the Modern World," so said a robotic voice in the audio-visual introduction of Joe Tucci's keynote address at EMCWorld.
For anyone who doesn't know, Tucci is the Chairman, President and CEO of EMC, which is one of the ten most valuable Information Technology companies in the world.
EMC claims to be the "world's leading developer and provider of INFORMATION INFRASTRUCTURE technology and solutions."
Information Infrastructure? What's that?
You learned all about it in your Computer Science/ Management Information Systems (MIS) courses in college, didn't you?
If not, Wikipedia defines it as "a shared, evolving, open, standardized, and heterogeneous installed base" and by (Pironti, 2006) as all of the people, processes, procedures, tools, facilities, and technology which supports the creation, use, transport, storage, and destruction of information."
It may be useful to understand EMC's purpose which is to "help organizations of every size around the world keep their most essential digital information protected, secure, and continuously available."
I've included the above for the benefit of my Documentum and Captiva readers who may not know much about EMC and its agenda.
And for the benefit of anyone who wasn't aware or doesn't remember Documentum's mission in its pre-EMC days, it was to provide "the ability to manage all of the information that exists inside a company, whether through enterprise document management or Web content management, and the use of that information to drive e-business initiatives aimed at customers, partners and employees"
As the web came of age, Documentum added, "Increasingly, Documentum's Enterprise Content Management solutions are being used to accelerate and extend companies' online presence, delivering active and trusted content to multiple channels."
Getting the right information, at the right time, to the right people in the right format
is how I might have explained it.
Why am I going on and on with these dry explanations?
Because they provide lenses through which to view future discussions.
And, since you've put up with them thus far, here's a treat, the audio-visual introduction to Tucci's keynote address at EMCWorld.
And in case you're interested, here's a link to the actual presentation.
We'll be continuing on this thread a few more times this week.