4 C’s for Information

Over the last couple of years content has arisen as a subject on its own, claiming its rightful place in the project. Thanks to many professionals speaking on conferences and writing books, the good news travelled across the world. The business value of content got attention; sometimes because a client goes for quality, but often through fear and embarrassment. To keep the current management attention focused on the content, we need ways to measure and report on the information quality. People often mention timeliness as the most important aspect of content quality on the internet. And yes, it is important, but there are a couple of others around as well.

I have been measuring information quality in 4 C’s. That’s easy to remember, since the quality of diamonds is also measured in 4 C’s (carat, colour, clarity and cut). For content they translate into: clear, complete, current and consistent. Some people have tried to add ‘correct’ as fifth element, but apart from losing the link to diamonds which I do not like anyway, I do not think that it adds more value.

Clear content is content which message is exactly what the intended audience was looking for. Content should be written in the right language but in the right jargon as well. Content should convey the message, nothing more and nothing less. Clear also goes to grammatically correct and legible. A Dutch insurance company takes this very seriously: they have a separate department that checks outgoing letters and grades them on clarity of writing. Outstanding letters receive a company award.

Completeness is a cumbersome dimension for the information quality. Initially it is already difficult to get a full picture of all the content that is needed. Often you are talking about thousands and thousands of documents. Yet to embed processes in an organization that take care of them over time is a very hard task that requires close integration of ECM with the core business process. Not only should all the required content be there, but you should also not overload your audience providing too much information.

Current, or how timely is your content, has gotten its share of attention because of the internet. In today’s society no person of sound mind will accept yearly reports on his retirement funds with more than 6 months delay. The concept of monthly magazines is being challenged by blogs on daily basis. The digital publishing interval is still reducing to even smaller bits and pieces with people twittering away on the internet.

The last component of information quality only recently is getting attention: consistency. To me the most interesting and also the most challenging. How to guarantee, with all the timing problems that the text on the box is the same as the text on the internet, as the text in the advertorial, as the text in your press releases, as the text on the leaflet? Especially in an environment where content is alive and nothing, not even a USB stick, is presented to the public with the same information during its life cycle.

The 4 C’s provide a starting point for the discussion on information quality. The issues are recognizable for managers and translate quite well to added value, increased costs or reduced risks. I challenge you to challenge these 4 C’s.

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 4th, 2008 at 18:39 and is filed under 4 C's, information quality, information value. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.