On my way to work I often end up on the phone with an old friend. I keep threatening to podcast the conversations because they’re often pretty insightful, even if I do say so myself. To make up for it, they’re sometimes just drivel.

But back to the insight.

Today we came to a great conclusion:

Information isn’t power. It’s fuel.

To put it another way, information doesn’t do great things, it enables great things. In order to get the great things out of it, you have to act on it, which means it must have some value to drive action. It must be actionable.

But many folks have this backward. They think the action part is mostly supposed to be about gathering the information, and that once gathered it will somehow produce benefit by its mere existence.

Are you doing this? Are you collecting status reports from your people, filing them away, distributing them to people all in the hopes that by some sort of motive osmosis power will be extracted from them? It may be that those reports contain a lot of information, but it’s not actionable information because it’s not needed.

The best way to differentiate real buyers from tire kickers was to ask about the details of their need. When do they need the product? When do they want it delivered? Why do they need it? If there’s detail in the answers, then you have a real buyer. If not, then you have a tire kicker. They may be interested in buying someday but they don’t have the real need yet. It’s the same with information. If you need it, you know what you need because you have questions to be answered.

If information is fuel, strategy is the engine.

If you have lots of information lying around and don’t know what to do with it, it’s probably a symptom that you lack a focused need. Strategy is what guides the business and ultimately creates that need. Strategy is executed through tactics, which require planning, which in turn requires information.

Symptoms of the lack of strategy:

1. You’re drowning in reports and other information, but you can’t seem to get value out of it. The need isn’t there, so the information isn’t actionable, and no action is taken from it.
2. Major decisions are made (not thought about, not discussed, but actually made) as a reaction to outside forces. A customer demands new technology, cancels an order, or switches to a competitor and someone snaps and a decision gets made. The world is fluid and reacting to it is often a large part of business, but it shouldn’t drive the business.
3. Discussions about “What business are we really in, and where are we headed?” and similar subjects erupt unexpectedly during meetings, and delay activity. The key here is that they delay whatever was about to take place. If there’s no delay, then the eruptions are more likely caused by a lack of communication on the strategy rather than the lack of strategy itself.

Do you have an engine to burn your fuel?

So I’m in the line to board a Bombardier CRJ900 regional jet out of Atlanta on my way home from the Primir winter meeting. Every single roll-aboard in front of me had been stopped and tagged with one of those pink gate-check tags. While gate-checking is a lot more reliable than regular through-checking, I still prefer to have my stuff with me and tossed about by annoyed baggage handlers. I did a quick mental scan of what was in the bag. My computer was in my Metro briefcase. The only breakable thing in the Air Boss was the coffee mug I’d bought for my wife and it was pretty sturdy. Ok, if they ask to gate check it I won’t object.

My pulse quickened a bit as I got to the head of the line, but Mr pink tag just waved me through.

Of course, I was carrying the air boss properly loaded and not bulging at the seams, so it didn’t look much bigger than the Metro briefcase I had on my shoulder. Either that, or perhaps that both are saffron made me look just weird enough not to triffle with.

Once on the plane, one that has overhead bins substantially shorter (in the vertical dimension) than the other planes I’d been on, the Air Boss slid neatly into place without any shoving, the metro under the seat. Two people nearby had those newer wheeled briefcases that must have held several versions of the tax code plus an 90’s vintage laptop. One fit in the overhead with two people persuading it. The other didn’t.

I’ve been toying with getting a Sky Train, but I think I’m going to stick with the Air Boss.