Dealing with consulting of companies on web sites creation, I often come across companies lacking a clear informational policy. I mean that company’s associates simply do not have a clear vision of what information and in what sequence should be presented to the Internet users. And it is not that they do not obtain this information, they just cannot estimate the actuality, importance and value of general information about their company. And the only reason for this is the absence of a clearly formulated informational policy, which naturally affects web publications and all company’s activities as well.
 
So, the main aim of informational policy is to present an efficient instrument and rules, which will help the associates estimate the importance of the obtained information and use it to the company’s and their own interest. Here one should better apply the medical principle “not to harm” in order to minimize the risk of negative impact on the company’s main activities. However, we should not forget that the absence of any clear information on the company’s activities, as well as its surplus, can negatively affect the company’s development and activity. Everything should be moderate.
 
Informational policy represents some scale (ruler) or several scales helping people estimate and analyze the obtained information. Further on, having projected the results of such analysis on the task we can finally decide whether to use this information or not and whether to publish it in the Internet or not. Here I should mention a widely spread mistake when associates creating informational policy forget to mark control dates on some points. This mistake is very dangerous, as information should always be actual. Try “walking” in the Internet and you will find lots of proofs of absence of control points in informational policy of this or that company. The most popular thing is when information presented on the web site is dated two or three years ago. In this case we come across either the total absence of informational policy or the absence of control time points. If your system is created so that it is able to react to the expected situations, you will always obtain actual and valuable information both from the point of view of presenting it in the Internet and in general.
 
Let us analyze possible informational qualifiers, which actually determine informational policy. First of all, let us analyze the degree of information availability. We divide information into confidential, which is available to a limited group of people, official, which is available to almost all the associates, but is not subject to free publication, and public, which is available to all the humanity. I should mention one more type – obsolete information, which is actually available to all but does not impose any interest. The publication of such information can bring unpredictable results (either harm or good), thus it should be treated depending on situations.
 
Now we have come up to the next qualifier – information value relatively to the company’s main activity. As you can see on the picture above the cost of information is falling as the time passes. It is a natural process, like people growing old, which leads either to the dying away of information or to the fall of its social status. Certainly, we may suppose that all obsolete information has a lower social status (finally becoming public), however it is not the rule. Take numerous closed governmental archives for example. Though the value of information dated the previous age is not as high as it used to be, still we cannot even imagine the social consequences of its publishing. Thus, it is very difficult to estimate the value of such information. That is why we do not publish it according to the mentioned principle “not to harm”.
   
The next qualifier is the relation of information to this or that kind of company’s activities. It is simple. If we divide the company’s main activity into several types, then we will also have to make a certain classification of its information content. As a result, we will get a wider classification due to the fact that along with the relation of information to certain areas we are likely to get intermediate border information classes. Here I should mention an interesting thing – it is rather difficult to estimate the value of such border information, as the latter can be highly valuable for one area, while its value for another area can be extremely low (does not it remind you of rarified sets?). Thus, in order to estimate the summary value of information for bordering areas we should use integral indexes, which are likely to include areas coefficients as well as other coefficients determined by general informational policy.
 
Each scale and qualifier should be marked with control points indicating informational transition from one status to another. One should not forget about the time factor, which actually modifies the social status of information according to the changes in the company’s main activity. Our qualifier can be represented in any form including the one I have suggested. It is not the principal matter. The main thing is that any associate should be able to precisely estimate importance and value of any information, that in its turn can raise informational security and reduce expenditures on informational support.  
 
It can be achieved through the interrelation between control points in informational policy and a complex of measures accompanying the changes of informational status. (Web publication, removal from annuals reports, renovation of advertisements, etc.). Coming back to informational security we should add two more things to our diagram: monitoring system and associates’ responsibility. The first thesis implies control of usage according to the social status of information. Though confidential information is not subject to free publication, we need to know what measures to take and how to define the infringer and his aims in case the confidential information happens to become a public matter. Here we speak of associates’ responsibility, accepted in accordance to informational policy. As a rule, it is the absence of the latter that results in thefts and information leakage. Certainly, self-interest is the main reason for that, however it is easy to avoid punishment given a complete informational chaos in the company. It is interesting to mention reverse processes - the absence of a clear policy can result in inactivity of some associates, in some kind of escape from responsibility, and parasitism.      
 
In order to answer the question if there is an informational policy in your company, you should define top people responsible for informational policy, determine whether they have been given some tasks to create informational policy and whether any basic documents regulating informational policy are present. If all the above-mentioned factors are present, then it is possible to estimate successes and failures in the informational activity of your company and to plan its further development. However, if some factors are missing, you should think of possible measures to solve this problem. Primarily, you should determine people in the top management who will solve such problems. And I remain with my best wishes to you in this important and complicated affair.

Last modified: 15.06.2003
Translation by Elena Polyanskaya