We’re pleased to bring you a series of interviews with some of the presenters at The Information Governance Conference 2018. The Information Governance Conference is the only conference designed from the ground up to help you strategically protect and extract value from your organization’s information. The Conference, going into its’ fifth year, brings together the top leaders in the emerging field of Information Governance.
We had the honor of interviewing one of those top leaders in Information Governance: Kevin Parker, Founder and CEO, Kwestix.
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IGGuru: Kevin, thank you for joining us today! Let’s dig right in – the headlines keep being splashed with information breaches, name two things organizations must do to stop the threat.
KP: First, appoint a real CIO—as a member of the Board who reports directly to the CEO—who truly understands Information Governance, Cybersecurity, and Privacy and will lead Digital Transformation initiatives taking all of these into account. Second, properly fund her or his department and give them the authority—along with an Information Governance council—to truly transform the business into one that leverages information assets strategically and securely. There is no shortcut.
IGGuru: What skills will information governance professionals need in the 2020s?
KP: Information Architecture, Cybersecurity, and Privacy Protection are skills all InfoGov pros need now and will continue to need. We also need to be on top of advancements in IoT (smart homes, smart offices, smart cars, field devices, etc.), camera footage (body cams, dash cams, more security cams, and smartphone cams), and new ways of interacting with computers through voice and even brain waves. How do we protect all that information? What information is kept? Who gets to see it? Where and how do we store all of it? Many more questions like these are why InfoGov pros will be even more important in the 2020s and beyond.
IGGuru: How did you get into the information governance profession?
KP: I started out in IT management and was always looking for ways to make information work for the business goals and needs. Over time I discovered groups of information professionals that also cared about how information was organized and leveraged, from Information Architecture to Knowledge Management to ECM. As Information Governance emerged as an umbrella discipline, I was one of the many professionals who saw it as the way to describe what we were already doing—and how to do it better.
IGGuru: Attracting youth is a big part of growing any profession, how would you advise a young person to prepare for a job in information governance?
KP: The first step is exposing them to what Information Governance really is and why it is so important. I look for young people starting out in various IT fields and other InfoGov-related fields and encourage them to check out free resources from groups like Information Coalition to discover why it matters and how to grow and effect change in their organizations. They should also grow their knowledge and their network by attending local meetups and a conference or two, and of course, they should be active on LinkedIn. Ideally, they should find a trusted mentor who is a respected leader in this space who can guide them as they begin and beyond.
IGGuru: If you had to recommend one book for someone to read, what would it be?
KP: The Art of Enterprise Information Architecture: A Systems-Based Approach for Unlocking Business Insight (IBM Press). Everyone who is leading Information and Technology Governance and Digital Transformation needs at least a basic understanding of the concepts in that book.
IGGuru: Name one speaker that really changed the way you think about information governance.
KP: Nick Inglis has helped me see Information Governance from the vantage point of overall strategic corporate governance rather than just as a tactical controlling of information, which Nick maintains is really Information Management. Different groups still see InfoGov as strategic or tactical, whereas I now see it as both.
IGGuru: Kevin, thank you so much for taking the time to share with our readers.
KP: My honor, I’m looking forward to sharing more at The Information Governance Conference this year.
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Kevin Parker is the Founder and CEO of Kwestix. He will be presenting as a part of The Information Governance Conference 2018 – learn more or register at https://www.infogovcon.com/.
