An Information Roundabout is an infrastructural facility. What does that mean?
The word infrastructure is composed of infra and structure. Infra means below. Therefore an infrastructure is a structure that supports and facilitates other, say, above-of-it structures and manifests itself as a firm and singular foundation for all these structures.
An Information Roundabout… is a single information provisioning structure that simultaneously facilitates (serves) a multitude of other – above-of-it – structures with information of clear meaning in a successful and highly valued manner.
These “above-of-it structures”… what exactly are they?
They’re information processing facilities in the broadest sense. These above-of-it structures all get their information from the Information Roundabout. They process it and provide the results to their users. Of course these processing results can also be added to the Information Roundabout for future use.
How does an Information Roundabout exactly serve these above-of-it structures?
An Information Roundabout contains information that is… systematically organized. That’s why it is perfectly able to facilitate various as well as varying above-of-it structures with ever actual and situational – i.e. clear and to the point – information. Furthermore an Information Roundabout contains facilities that process information requests in order to enable its users to receive and provide information from/to the above-of-it structures. Last but not least: an Information Roundabout strictly works by the book of an effective set of information traffic rules in order to build and maintain trust between any and all participating in information traffic: what information may be accepted/provided from/to who for what purpose and for which period of time?
What exactly is meant by “systematically organized”?
Currently, we organize our information in all kinds of specific ways. And every specific way perfectly matches a specific set of situations annex behaviour – and poorly matches other situations (that, of course, require other specific ways of organizing information). So… as long as that set of situations does not change… the associated specific organization of information is perfect, but only for that specific set. Nowadays, however, and we are very well aware of that, situations… do change. Yes…, even change ‘rather’ often – which causes any specific organization of information to… miserably fail sooner or later. Nowadays usually sooner than later.
To overcome this – killing – problem, we need to reconsider our current view/mindset with respect to organizing information. We need to shift our view/mindset from specific to systematic. In other words: we need to infrastructuralize our view/mindset with respect to the organization of information and let go of the specific one. We need an Information Roundabout. Why? Specific organization of information cannot keep up with contemporary situational dynamics anymore.
In case you want to know more: Systematic Organisation of Information.
Okay…, but…, what’s really new here?
The really, really new thing here is the organization of our information: an infrastructural way of organizing our information in order to make information Durably and Meaningfully reusable for any and all – any time and anywhere. New technology is not required; current technology is (more than) sufficient. At an Information Roundabout we ‘only’ use quite another and a far more durable way of organizing our information.
What are the benefits of an Information Roundabout?
An Information Roundabout gets you one, singular, new – infrastructural – organization of information that durably facilitates a multitude of human beings with clear meaning of information in a multitude of situations resulting in far more effective human behaviour.
Some benefits:
• Substantially reduced information inconsistency.
• Substantially reduced duplication of information.
• Significant drop in time-to-market of information provisioning facilities.
• Significant drop in costs associated with information provisioning.
• Substantial increased in adaptability to change.
What’s an Information Roundabout going to cost me?
It’s going to cost you your old view/mindset with respect to organization of information – you’ll have to let go of it and replace it by a systematic one. It’s also going to cost you serious efforts and money to install an Information Roundabout and subsequently, to one-by-one connect your existing information provisioning facilities to it.
And the benefits? The benefits start coming in the moment you completed the groundwork and start connecting your existing information provisioning facilities.
October 2011, Copyright (c) 2011 – Jan van Til/Information Roundabout