ABSTRACT
In today’s competitive marketplace, the capacity to access the right information at the right time is critical both to personal productivity and firm-wide success. Information is indeed an asset. Many companies are overwhelmed by a constant flow of raw data, and feel overwhelmed by it. But those organisations which are able to deal effectively with corporate information have a crucial competitive advantage. The problem is that it is far easier said than done. I believe that one of the reasons why information overload happens is that people think knowledge is power, and that therefore they must have access to all information even when they don’t really need to know about some of that information at all. It reminds me of an episode of the wickedly funny BBC series Yes, Prime Minister66 where Sir Humphrey is keen to find out what is going to be said at a meeting to which he has not been invited. In conversation with Sir Humphrey, Bernard says ‘But you only need to know things on a need to know basis,’ and Sir Humphrey responds by saying, ‘I need to know everything. How else can I judge whether or not I need to know it?’
