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Roadmap to Information Architecture 

As explained in The Quest for Insight Productivity, making your organization smarter will help build competitive advantage.  However, it takes more than just the latest and greatest tools to do that.  Building an organization is much like building a house: a solid foundation has to support the processes, workflows and tools that enable you to succeed.  When seeking to maximize insight productivity, your IT infrastructure is this foundation.

Building architects must consider the paths that occupants will follow between a building’s functional areas.  Information architects must do the same. When doing so, information architects must optimize a variety of different systems and data sources to satisfy their audience’s information needs:

• Gateway Layer – the means by which users access information within the enterprise.  This is typically a direct conduit to information, such as a web browser, standalone application or a colleague who is asked for information.
  
• Distribution Pathway – the traditional approach to information dissemination within an organization.  The Distribution Pathway is push-oriented, with systems that give users access to pre-organized information.  Examples can include ERP systems, CRM systems, document repositories, corporate intranets.
• Demand Pathway – the channel used when individuals know what information they need but do not know where to find that information along the Distribution Pathway.  Unlike the distribution pathway (which is “push”-oriented), the demand pathway is “pull”-oriented: a user understands what information they are seeking, expresses his need, and something responds to that need providing highly contextualized, relevant information.  The most traditional example of a Demand Pathway is “asking a colleague”.  Enterprise search is another example.
• Data Access Layer – the technical elements within an organization’s architecture that controls and automatically optimizes access to underlying information.  Examples can include a variety of middleware applications, including ETL platforms, CRM query engines or even basic DBMS systems.
• Data Storage Layer – where the data actually resides.  The information can be Unstructured (e.g. documents, files on a user’s hard drive, knowledge in an individual’s brain) or Structured (e.g. information stored in a formal relational database).
• Resources – the systems and tools that assist other components in doing their jobs.  Resources can often include such elements as identity management systems, corporate taxonomies, MDM systems, business rules engines or IT personnel who can “get stuff done if needed”.
  

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