SAVING ITS SOUL - HUMAN-CENTERED INFORMATION MANAGEMENT

IT specialists often promise that technology will serve as a catalyst for change. They agree that shared databases will allow employees to i nteract with other departments, creating heretofore unheard of synergi es. But, as Thomas Davenport points out, it is a promise that usually goes unfulfilled. IT managers put too much emphasis on hardware and no t enough emphasis on the soft science of how people actually share inf ormation. Too many managers still believe that, once the right technol ogy is in place, appropriate information sharing will follow. By contr ast, Davenport, who is director of research at Ernst & Young, argues t hat to achieve its promise IT needs to take a human-centered approach. But implementing such an approach is far more difficult than figuring out which computers work together and how to construct a new network. It means building flexibility and disorder into information systems. It means accepting that different departments frequently can't come up with a shared definition for things that might seem obvious, such as what constitutes a drug, an airport, or a sale. And it means changing corporate behaviors that discourage information sharing.Looking at com panies that have successfully addressed this problem - like Symantec C orporation, Chemical Bank, Hallmark Cards, and Rank Xerox, U.K. - Dave nport directly addresses how to rebuild an organization' s information culture and how to get beyond the technologies to changing people's b ehaviors.