Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Data is money. Information is money. Here is a precise, concrete, and specific example.

Data is money. Information is money. Yeah, we hear that all the time. Really? What are you trying to sell me?

A few years ago (dates and names withheld to protect the guilty) I worked in a job where we shared information about what our company did. One engineer wrote a one page of words describing how we did something (again, specifics withheld for proprietary information). I put that one page of words into a larger document that brought our company more business.

Consider that one page of words. It costs the company $1,000 to produce. It was worth a hundred times its costs in new business.

That one page of words was worth $100,000. That is data; that is information, and that is money.

In vain, I pleaded with those managing the company to save that one page of words in a place where we could use it again and again. Would we buy set of computers, use them one day, and throw them away? Of course not. We were, however, doing the same with this one page of words. We needed to put it into a system where it was easy to find and reuse.

The answer? “Mr. Smith knows where we keep everything.” We were going back to “warmware.” Need an answer? Find a warm body. What happens if Mr. Smith isn’t here? No answer.

Data and information are money sitting on the table. We can use the money or let it evaporate. One page of words is data and information. We can use the money or let it evaporate. We choose.

If you can, put the one page of words somewhere you can search, find, and use.