Information Management

Information management is the collection and management of information from one or more sources and the distribution of that information to one or more audiences. This sometimes involves those who have a stake in, or a right to that information. The organizational structure must be capable of managing this information throughout the information lifecycle regardless of source or format (data, paper documents, electronic documents, audio, social business, video, etc.) for delivery through multiple channels that may include cell phones and web interfaces. Given these criteria, we can then say that the focus of IM is the ability of organizations to capture, manage, preserve, store and deliver the right information to the right people at the right time.

There is often a strong crossover in this field with areas outside of technology. People drawn to this area may have a strong interest in how technology fits into an organization's strategic plan. They may be less interested in things like writing code or setting up networks and more interested in bridging the communications gap between the technology team and other departments of a business. Strong communication is an essential skill, as well as the ability to speak and relate to different organizational departments. People interested in this area usually have a strong desire to manage projects and be “big picture” thinkers.

Hard skills:

• Fundamental understanding of information technologies, including database programming, systems design, and networking, along with balanced views of their uses in business context
• User and task analysis for interface development, prototyping, data flow and entity relationship diagramming
• Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) implementation, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Supply Chain Management (SCM), Content Management Systems (CMS)
• Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) process, including Scrum, Agile and Waterfall methodologies
• IT auditing
• MS Visio, MS Project

Some sample job titles:

• Data Administrator
• Business Analyst
• Systems Administrator
• Network Architect