Happy New Year to you as well and thanks for commenting. I suspect that any answer I give to this grand nature vs nurture question will be pithy, but here goes: it’s firstly about attitude, which is a far harder thing to develop than skills.

Providing help with resolving rigid outputs is a common entry point for an adviser into an organisation documenting human rights. You tend to see IM systems which can produce relatively accuracy outputs, but are costly to run relative to the value they produce, do not allow re-use, and are excessively labour intensive. So, doing anything else with the information collected is incredibly time-consuming and wasteful.

Breaking out of this way of working and improving the documentation system so it better meets the organisation’s objectives can be really challenging for information workers. In doing this, I’ve been most impressed with staff who are adaptable in how they work, but committed to ensuring accuracy. I think this is the starting point.

Do you think better information management can be taught and embedded in an individual or is it more of a skill that is inherent in certain personalities…and if so, what personal qualities are most important?

Dennis King
US Department of State