Normally I don’t like to post too quickly on a specific topic. This is because I like people to digest the previous post and let it bounce around the net a bit. Today calls for an exception.

As I discussed, I took AIIM’s new Certified Information Professional exam cold. While I did want to judge the exam, there was a second reason for taking it cold. I bet Cheryl McKinnon that I could score higher then her without studying. While I wasn’t overly confident, I figured the odds were even and the conditions of the bet weren’t onerous.

Well, I lost. Cheryl, a vice president of MARKETING, received a higher score. She is the better CIP.

Just Call Me Ike

I can make excuses. She only beat me by a small amount. We may have gotten different questions to account for the difference. It doesn’t matter though. While at the end of the day, we are both CIPs, she got the higher score.

Of course, Cheryl is not your typical Marketing professional. She has been in the Information Management space since the 90s. She has been a trainer and a product manager. She’s fought some real battles as an independent consultant doing information strategy. She’s been an active AIIM and ARMA member for years. Since she has been at AIIM, she’s been helping to turn the focus from Content Management technology to the Information Professional. She is helping refine the definitions.

Cheryl is no ordinary Marketing person. Of course, who is anymore?

Marketing is Information

I was out with some other industry people a few months ago. We were commenting on marketing people. We implied that their job was to make products and offerings “pretty”. This quickly degenerated into how some of us were beyond marketing help.

This over-generalization is false though. I’ve been doing pseudo-marketing for a few years now. This blog and seeing what works to drive business in the consulting world has been interesting. It pales in comparison to what I’m delving into now.

There are numbers. Lots of numbers. Deciding how the content drives numbers. Learning how content drives people to look at more content. Are some people more likely to perform a certain action at 10am on a Tuesday versus 2pm on a Wednesday? What if they are a CIO versus a consultant? If we target the content based upon the medium, role, and time, are we keeping the message consistent?

That is a lot of information to deal with on a daily basis. You have to be able to react quickly, which requires real-time analysis. This is part of the whole Big Data meets Content Management. All this data drives what content is used and when it is used.

Even without her past experience in the Information industry, which is important, Cheryl would still be an Information Professional. Even Records Management is important to her job. She needs to keep a record of what has been done in the past, what worked and what didn’t work. Preservation of the past for future learning is important.

It is currently my job to give her the tools she needs to succeed. Together, our Information expertise is what is going to make a difference.

[Note: Congrats to Cheryl for becoming a CIP. Her 1st reaction after taking it: Don’t take it cold.]