It’s amazing how much information has changed the last decade.
Really, information hasn’t changed. Access to information has changed and there have been people taking advantage of technology to make more information available to more people.
I didn’t do much studying back in the ’90s. I was in school and mostly out of boredom I skated by without reading much other than books and magazines about sports and hunting. I do remember this time being the end of the era when you had to get information from the library. It was the only source of information other than parents, older friends and other grownups.
That’s really all there was for much of human existence. You had people and libraries. Later came newspapers and radio. Later came TV, which did very well for information and entertainment.
Finally, we had the Internet and things really took off for information.
It’s amazing to think about what we did before we were able to take our smartphones and look up whatever information we wanted at any time. Arguments can be settled in mere seconds. You can search for anything online. We have the Internet to thank. We have search engines like Google to thank. We have human curators to thank (think social media).
But mostly we have information providers to thank.
And that’s where the real opportunity is for anyone willing to take it.
The Business Information Strategy Opportunity
People have a huge thirst for information. Google wouldn’t be one of the biggest companies in the world if there wasn’t a thirst for answers. People go online to find things.
Apple is another example of people’s thirst for information. Without laptops, iPads and iPhones we wouldn’t have access to the Internet and all its information all the time. Apple is one of the most successful companies of all time. They’ve been able to give people access to information on the Internet. That’s really how simple it is.
The real opportunity, though, is not giving people access to information. The opportunity is creating information.
Over the last decade there have been quite a few information creators. We used to have authors and journalists and while we still have those we now have many more variations of content creators. There are writers, video producers and everything in between. Designers are part of the information era where people love reading, watching video and looking at images and graphics. It’s all information that people crave and those that are part of the creation seem to be on the winning end of growing industry.
I venture to say that while there are many more creators in the world today that the majority if people are still mostly information consumers. The reason for this is that creating information is difficult. I often mention how many blogs on the Internet are dormant. The reason is that creating consistent content is difficult. People get excited about creating information, but after the initial excitement wears off they move on and become mostly information consumers again.
I feel, though, that people all have great information to share. We’re all great thinkers. Maybe blogging isn’t the best platform for us. Maybe a podcast or a video cast is the way to go. Some people are great talkers. They can work a room asking questions and sharing insight. That’s a form of being an information creator.
But let’s get into what this has to do with business.
The fact is that people are online searching for information. They seek out search engines. They seek out information from trusted sources on social media and other communities online.
Those people are potential customers. The reason more businesses than ever are creating blogs, videos, graphics and more is because they want to win the attention of people. They want to provide the information people crave. The reason is that when you provide information you provide more value and that makes your brand and your products more appealing. It makes your worth more and people are willing to pay for that.
Being a trusted source of information is very worthwhile. You can earn trust and trust plays a huge role in purchasing decisions.
Call yourself an information company or a media company. Whatever you call yourself the fact is that you have an opportunity to win more customers by creating information.
That’s how a business information strategy works in the Information Age.