E-business, e-government & information proficiency.

• Author: Dearstyne, Bruce W.
• Position: Cover Story

Institutions' growing reliance on digital information is leading to some profound changes in how they are organized and operate. Ironically, the rising importance of digital information presents both unprecedented opportunities and unprecedented challenges for information professionals. To understand how the advent of e-business and e-government relates to the mission and role of information professionals, it is useful to begin with three varying perspectives on the value of digital information:

Unrestrained enthusiasm. Many analysts trumpet the transformational potential of digital information, often reducing it simplistically to the concept of information technology (IT). "If you want to be an effective leader in our networked world, you need to engage IT issues," asserts the Kennedy School of Government. It recommends using IT to reshape work and public sector strategies, affect major innovation, and stimulate economic development.

Tempered enthusiasm. A recent report from the Council for Excellence in Government asserts that electronic government "has the greatest potential to revolutionize the performance of government and revitalize our democracy" by speeding transactions, increasing efficiency, and bringing people closer to their government. But it acknowledges "the huge amount of information that government must generate, update, and manage and ... the difficulties of putting programs and organizations of the government's size and complexity online."

Balanced view. A more realistic view acknowledges the fundamental need for sound information management. "More information is not better information," notes author Charles Leadbeater. "Our capacity to generate information far outstrips our ability to use it effectively ... The explosion in our ability to communicate explicit knowledge and to share information makes us far more productive, but only if we can get the right information to the right place at the right time ... What matters is not information but the capacity to make sense of it quickly, turning it into understanding, insight, and judgment."

The message is decidedly complicated and mixed: exuberance about the transformational potential of digital information but continuing questions about how to manage, evaluate, and measure it. Many of the developments in the information field are playing out at high speed within what might be called the digital triangle: e-commerce, e-business, and e-government. E-commerce includes all aspects of business and market processes that operate on the Internet or use World Wide Web technologies. A company can open an e-storefront, but "along with customers, it will also find its suppliers, accountants, payment services, government agencies, and competitors online. This online or digital partnership demands changes in the way we do business from production to consumption ... electronic commerce will lead significant changes in the way products are customized, distributed, and exchanged and the way customers search and bargain for products and services and consume them" (University of Texas at Austin 2001).

E-business denotes "one in which strategic options have been transformed - and significantly broadened - by the use of digital technologies ... A digital business uses digital technologies to devise entirely new value propositions for the company's own talent; to invent new methods of creating and capturing profits; and, ultimately, to pursue the true goal of strategic differentiation: uniqueness" (Slywotsky and Morrison 2000).

E-government refers to the emerging reliance of government on digital information to make information and services available and to engage citizens in a way that meets their needs and reduces apathy and suspicion about government (NASIRE 2000). Digitally borne institutions put information to work for key enterprise purposes (see sidebar on following page).

E-Perplexity

Technology has made it easy to create, store, transmit, manipulate, customize, and use information. In a sense, as a society we may have enough information technology but need more information savvy to filter, select, manage, and apply it wisely. That situation would appear to be a good opportunity for the ascendancy of information professionals. Instead, it is a time when many of the traditional information professions are re-examining their traditions and earnestly searching for new roles that will align information management with enterprise purposes.

ARMA International, for example, is moving in this direction through its new priority of strategic information management, which is defined as "skills that will enable professionals and their organizations to make well-informed decisions resulting in a distinct competitive advantage in the business world. It draws upon skills from records and information management, information technology, and strategic management." The Special Libraries Association asserts that its mission is:

"To advance the leadership role of our members in putting knowledge to work for the benefit of decision-makers in corporations, government, the professions, and society; as well as to shape the destiny of our information and knowledge-based society. Our vision is to be known as the leading professional association in the information industry - a catalyst in the development of the information economy, and a strategic partner in the emerging information society."

Why is it so challenging for information professionals to master and define their roles in these new information-supported phenomena? Several factors make it difficult for us to find and keep our footing, including:

1. Developments are open ended, change is constant. Everything seems in motion in the information world. E-business and e-government are new. Wireless technologies have burst onto the information scene. People's expectations for 24/7 access and service date from only a few years ago. "Growth in the available measures of e-commerce ... is outpacing last year's most optimistic projections," according to a 1999 U.S. Department of Commerce report. Furthermore, by 2006, about onehalf of the U.S. workforce will be employed by industries that are either major producers or intensive users of information technology and services.

2. Criteria for relevance are changing. There are three emerging criteria that define expectations for information management: (a) pertinence-the desire for appropriate, relevant, customized information that fits an individual's or institution's particular need; (b) speed - the desire and expectation that needed information can be located quickly; and (c) ease of access and use - the notion that information will be compact and relatively easy to identify, access, download, and use.

3. The stakes are high. E-business and e-government value speedy reactions and program deployment. Information equates to money, time, and strategic advantage in the mind of the CEO. Information management has moved from a secondary, support operation to one that is front line and high consequence...