My OxyMoron guest today is Steve Weissman, the Info Gov Guy™ at the Holly Group. In addition to being a friend for 25 years (Yikes for both of us), Steve is a highly-credentialed consultant, analyst, instructor, and speaker in information strategy, information and process management, business-minded needs assessment, and RFP development. He is an AIIM Fellow and is a recent recipient of their highest honor, the AIIM Award of Merit.
The core value proposition of the Holly Group is refreshingly straightforward:
Information is tricky. You know it exists, but you can’t find it. You can find it, but you can’t get to it. You can get to it, but you don't know if it’s reliable. The wrong people can also get to it, only you may not know it. So do it right, right now!
Here’s my summary of my OxyMorons conversation with Steve. Any errors in transcription or curation are mine.
What's the most unexpected thing on your Spotify playlist?
it's funny, I love music, but I subscribe to none of the services because I'm always bouncing around, depending on what I'm in the mood for. I don't know that there's anything terribly surprising; my tastes do run everywhere from Western swing to the Glee soundtracks. Typically, I’ll put on background loops of jazz or something and I forget about it. About two and a half hours later, I look up from my keyboard and wonder, “Is this still on?”
What are your favorite TV binges?
Recently, we couldn't get enough of Succession. It's so deliciously evil and twisted and so well written and performed. Lately, we're into Around the World in 80 Days with David Tennant on PBS. And one more - a Danish production called Borgen. It's a political show and I found it fascinating because it's all about the machinations of a coalition government, which of course we don't have here. And I never really thought about how that works.
What are the most important OxyMoron skills in making governance happen?
For one, it helps to have a thick skin; no there’s a skill to develop! More seriously, if I pick one word, I'd say communication. In two words, I would say surprise avoidance. That means you need to communicate in all directions in the organization, up, down, and sideways. It is vitally important to be able to communicate or translate appropriately in multiple directions.
How has the pandemic and remote work impacted interest in governance?
Remote work and the pandemic have become such a part of daily life -- both professionally and personally – that I sometimes get the sense that they don’t dominate governance conversations like they used to. And I find that interesting. For a lot of organizations, the whole “work from home” thing surfaced issues that they probably should have already been paying attention to but didn't. One of the things that drives me most crazy is even when information endpoints are fortified, there is so much “in between” that gets ignored. When people are working in a coffee shop, are they using a VPN when they connect to their WIFI? If they decide instead to get a hotspot through their cell phone, do they realize that the carrier owns that connection? Now is the time when you really need to pay attention to these issues. It’s time to unfold the security onion, please.
What are you going to talk about at the MER Conference?
I'll be talking about augmented reality. I know that sounds a bit out there. But the idea for the session came to me based on something that Mercedes Benz is doing. They have basically turned their repair manual into a deck of cards. Essentially all the car’s components are captured in a deck of cards, and the connections from the cards show how the components work. You hold a cell phone or iPad in front of the card and up pops a color-coded three-dimensional rendering of the part, that show what it does, what it’s connected to, and how it works. It’s basically a 3D maintenance manual in playing card form that a mechanic can keep in their pocket. So, my question for the session – how do you manage and govern all the information that makes this application work?
MER is an interesting kind of conference in an age where conferences are struggling or disappearing. MER has longevity; it's become a regular touchstone for people, which I think is really important. And also, they have the magic “E” – electronic – is the middle of the name. A lot of a lot of other groups claim to talk about electronic information, but they didn't have that right there in your face from the start. At a lot of other groups I could start talking about my 3D document and their eyers would glaze over. (MER Registration information and the Conference agenda are HERE.)
What do you what do you know now that you wish you knew then?
I think for me, I now better understand the disconnect between the logic of things and the people of things. So many of our conversations are about politics, baggage, and religion. Politics because people tend to think, “This is my budget, not your budget. So, I'm more important than you are.” By baggage, I mean the claim that, “We tried that it didn't work.” And then you dig a little deeper and you find out that the technology actually worked fine, but the organization created obstacles to using it. And then I run into technology religion all the time. “We’re a Microsoft shop.” “We don’t use that vendor.”
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