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30 years ... and still evolving
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Monday, 11 November 2013 20:56

30 years ago I had of my first job as information professional. I was the responsible of the Documentation Centre of Arthur Andersen, at that time one of the largest auditing firms in the world (the know as the Big Five).It can be said that the essence of the work I do has not changed, as it is managing information, but techniques, instruments and tools have been continually evolving since there.

In my first job as a information professional, I had to manage external information that partners, managers and employees of the Firm (as we called it) might need to fulfill better their work. When I entered the office did not have computers and my best sources of information were the general and specialized press, official gazettes, and magazines and books from our small library . That was the time of the expropriation of RUMASA , and Arthur Andersen was the auditor hired to liquidate it, I became popular because I could answer in the phone immediately to any audit team the stock market price of any company share to February 23 ( the date of expropriation). I had on my table the Stock Exchange Bulletin of that day in a plastic to avoid deterioration by manipulation.


After that, I worked on many projects with many other approaches to information management. While the tools, especially computers and communications, became more sophisticated; information grew exponentially and requires new skills and knowledge to manage it.

And looking to the future evolution must continue. Every day there is something new to learn, and the information society brings us new challenges to solve. Here are my new bets for the future:

- The "information governance" . I believe that all organizations need to take seriously this strategic component. Every day I am surprised about how inefficiently information is managed in some organizations.

- Control and management of data to be exploited or reused. We talk a lot of “big data " and " open data”, but to obtain quality data they need to be managed from its inception.

- The challenges of Web 2.0. How to appraise and retain in the medium-long term the information put on Facebook , Twitter , Linkedin , etc. by organizations.

- The paradigm change of managing our information in a third-party infrastructure. The storage of information in “the cloud" and the use of software as a service are changing the fundamentals of the information management.

Serve this "post" as a tribute to my friend Anne Dart, who has left us a few days ago. She was my partner in the Documentation Centre of Arthur Andersen and I learned from her some valuable things. She didn’t let me touch the typewriter to avoid an information professional was confused with a secretary. She showed me that her experience worth equal or more than my new title. And she made me to practice English with tirades in this language included in our funny conversations in perfect Spanish. You will always be in my memory.

Last Updated on Tuesday, 12 November 2013 09:13