One of my favorite quotes comes from Oliver Stone’s iconic Wall Street villain, Gordon Gekko – “Information is the most valuable commodity I know.”  That was 1987 – when a gallon of gas was 89 cents and the cell phones were ENORMOUS!

The same year, a 30-something-year-old Steve Jobs delivered a speech at the Council of State Government’s Annual Meeting in which he prophesied about the shift to an information-centric workplace: “You’ve heard this phrase ‘knowledge worker’ – we’ve seen a shift from managers…to people who know how to manipulate information and know how to derive wisdom from this vast amount of information we can get our hands on now to be the brains of the organization and tell it where to go.”

Over twenty years later, information is now at everyone’s fingertips – and we have new problems.  Information governs the world, but who governs the information?

In 1987, I wasn’t watching R-rated movies or C-SPAN, and I certainly had no idea that I would grow up to work as an information specialist at one of Wall Street’s most infamous firms.  My group was responsible for getting any piece of information anyone in the company asked for – fast.  We also helped groups with their knowledge management projects, creating more user-friendly experiences to access critical business information.

It still surprises me that, even with all the information and smart people we had around, Wall Street came crashing down as hard as it did.  Shouldn’t something as catastrophic as an overabundance of toxic assets showed up on someone’s radar sooner?  In the aftermath, consumers and employees are demanding more transparency. The market is demanding business and government leaders to get a grip on their information and knowledge assets. Any organization that wants to ensure its future success cannot ignore this imperative.

Since leaving Wall Street, I’ve been working with businesses of all sizes to help them gather and analyze research about their various industries.  It can be a challenge to convince business leaders to make investments in information and knowledge – sometimes it seems “over the top” and frivolous.  Google is a great tool, but it cannot replace the expertise of professionals who understand due diligence and how the world of information works.  The risks of not knowing the right information at the right time are great.  On the other hand, careful and thoughtful knowledge and information management distinguishes great companies from the rest.  Now we know, and to quote another 80s icon, perhaps more appropriate for my generation bracket, “knowing is half the battle.”