We shared corporate data before we had computers

We have been sharing corporate data poorly for years. With computers, we can share more efficiently. But how do we really improve sharing corporate data? We share four things in making decisions: data, information, decision mechanisms, and data processors. Sharing data processing tools has a smaller effect than the others. If someone else reconfigures your terminal, library, typewriter, slide tray, or schedule book and you don't know it, you have problems. Sharing data, information, and decision mechanisms can have the greatest effect of all. If someone reviews your planning document and changes your intent, you have even greater problems. The lessons learned from manual sharing can help us reduce problems when we have the widespread sharing computers allow. Experiences with sharing data, information, decision mechanisms, and data processors without computers are used as the basis for defining and learning the variables to use for analyzing the conditions of sharing. After understanding the variables, we can apply them to sharing situations, such as using corporate databases involving computers. Variables involve personnel, procedures, and control. We must first understand what we do to share intelligently in manual systems before attempting automated ones. Let's clean up our sharing protocol before we automate mediocrity.