I think this technology is more focused on monitoring hardware-specific resources. Where I think this could go: attempt to determine the value of specific information by tracking who is using it, when, where, why, and how. In order to do this you need to observe the big picture, to notice how information is moving throughout an organization–this big picture “watching” would seem to be the big trick of this technology, because you need full access to virtually everything in the organization that matters to your business.
I can’t say that I really know for sure how CIMS Lab works its magic, but I had a related idea a while ago. Let’s say that you have a programmer that comes up with some useful code for applications A, B and C. Later that same code is found to be useful by other departments and the code ends up in various applications X, Y, and Z. I’m not a software architect, but I have used a version control system, so I know how fragments of code can be tracked. This isn’t just about code though…over a year ago on WIRED there was a tool mentioned that would track down (and map, generating a diagram) the source/origin of a buzzword on the web, as it spread from website to website (let me know if you have that link).
The basic concept here is that you are trying to see the big picture. Where are the useful ideas coming from? How do they transform and move throughout the organization? How much is this fragment of code worth compared to that fragment of code? Still, these are really only approximations because there’s always intangible, subjective value in just about everything. An idea might transform such that a tracking system will fail to notice the origin of the idea.
Notice that the words “can help companies more easily understand” are used. This is not to say that we don’t already have a vague idea, and it’s also not saying that we can tell you for sure. Maybe it was determined that some key concepts or indicators were powerful and useful enough, such that they could be used to generate “organized financial information”. More importantly I think the big trick here is the “more easily understand” part. I would assume that some kind of visualization tool is involved, in order to see and “more easily understand” the big picture.
Numerical extrapolations will not necessarily give you the best insights, and I think that we should also consider how employees feel about this. If you put a price on every bit of information, you might find your employees looking for simple ways to “tease” the tracking system. You are going to lose productivity if everyone is focused on how the tracking system works, if it is working properly, etc. I think it would be better to simply follow information over time (to its various destinations) using versatile diagrams, with emphasis on the “character” of individual movements, and how this knowledge can be used for everyone’s benefit.
“The USS Enterprise D Master Systems Display”
You’ve probably seen “Star Trek” and you know that the engineers are always tapping their fingers on very intricate visualizations of the ship’s “power grid”. This is how I see the future of information mapping working, and also for “cyberspace” in general. The old charts and graphs just can’t cut it when you are looking at very large, complex, multidimensional systems. If you want to see how information is moving throughout your organization, you are going to need something big–what I call “the big interface”. You’ve seen these control rooms in the movies: Star Trek, Star Wars, War Games, Minority Report, but it’s not fiction anymore.