By Thornton May
Futurist, Senior Advisor with GP, Executive Director & Dean - IT Leadership Academy

Some medieval scholars believe that institutional information management originated in 540 AD with the scriptorium created by Flavius Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus [Cassiodorus]. A scriptorium is a room, typically at a monastery but sometimes in the castle of a king or a lord, purpose built as a place for the collection, copying, and preservation of texts. The scriptorium Cassiodorus built at Vivarium [southern Italy] featured self-feeding oil lamps, a sundial, and a water-clock. There were desks for the monks to sit at and copy texts, as well as ink wells, penknives, and quills. This could be considered the first “data center” of the Dark Ages. 

The scholarly journal Speculum [Volume XIII October, 1938, 433-447] reminds us that Cassiodorus’s legacy goes far beyond just building a place for monks to copy texts. “Before the founding of Vivarium, the copying of manuscripts had been a task reserved for either inexperienced or physically infirm devotees, and was performed at the whim of literate monks. Through the influence of Cassiodorus, the monastic system adopted a more vigorous, widespread, and regular approach to reproducing documents….” Cassiodorus introduced process to information management. Who is introducing process into information management at your institution? 

Thirty-seven years of futuring tells me that every future is comprised of three change elements:

1.     Change  That Is A Predictable Linear Extrapolation of the World We Live In Today

2.     The “Oh S_ _ _!” or “Ah ha, Eureka” Unexpected Change

3.     The change we cause to happen/want to happen 

We abbreviate this troika as “trends,” “wild cards,” and “dreams”. Much of the futuring which appears in the media deals with “trends.” Not enough deals with “dreams”. Before spending dime one on outside consultancy it makes enormous good sense to poll your employees asking them to a] enumerate the trends they are paying the most attention to; and b] the change they want to see happen. I suggest validating these “trends” and “dreams” maps with peers in your industry [i.e., trade or professional associations].

Next go to the marketing and sales teams. Ask them to describe who they think their customers will be in 2020. Who will they be selling product and services to in 2020? As a side bar ask them to characterize the mindset and sentiment of customers today.

One of the trends that surfaces in every such exercise I have been involved in during the past three years is the sea change in how the public thinks about data. On November 10^th NBC News breathlessly announced that “average Joes are starting to wonder:  Where is all my data going?" They observe that data management practices and data privacy issues are now being discussed by regular folks in the supermarket checkout line. Two years ago, this was not the case. They quote a data consultant who is delighted that "I go to parties now and I feel like a C.P.A. at tax time."

In the Middle Ages, power, prestige and oft times profit was a function of one’s relationship with God. In our more secular age, power in society, profit in the economy and prestige in the organization will be a function of one’s relationship to creating value with data.

What are you doing to upgrade your data skills?