I recently wrote an article on platform intelligence and have come to the realization that intelligence on the platforms that deliver digital products is not the full complement of capabilities required to thrive through in the digital economy. One could excel at managing the platforms used to deliver digital products, but find it difficult to thrive because they are incapable of navigating disruptions, have products that are out of step with the wishes of the marketplace or a host of other reasons. Should they blame their woes on the platforms, they could swap platforms and be no better for these actions. There are six basic forces, or pillars, which if managed, will greatly improve the ability to thrive in the digital economy. There are facilitators, or the levers to be pulled to influence the enablers, and together they form an ecosystem that together form the pillars of value. Clearly information is a primary enabler for all the pillars, as it is the conduit for digital products. Content is the information delivered to consumers in the form of reviews, how to videos, advertising and a host of other information devised to inform and influence the opinions of the intended audience. But having content without a means of monetizing the interactions with the intended audience is not sustainable. The purpose of this writing is to describe a framework for managing an organization’s ability to excel in pillar intelligence. All of the pillars of value are dependent on being skilled in wielding information. Understanding the specific characteristics of information that serve as catalysts of value help thrive in the digital economy.

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ABSTRACT
I recently wrote an article on platform intelligence and have come to the realization that intelligence
on the platforms that deliver digital products is not the full complement of capabilities required to
thrive through in the digital economy. One could excel at managing the platforms used to deliver
digital products, but find it difficult to thrive because they are incapable of navigating disruptions,
have products that are out of step with the wishes of the marketplace or a host of other reasons.
Should they blame their woes on the platforms, they could swap platforms and be no better for
these actions.
There are six basic forces, or pillars, which if managed, will greatly improve the ability to thrive in the
digital economy. There are facilitators, or the levers to be pulled to influence the enablers, and
together they form an ecosystem that together form the pillars of value.
Clearly information is a primary enabler for all the pillars, as it is the conduit for digital products.
Content is the information delivered to consumers in the form of reviews, how to videos, advertising
and a host of other information devised to inform and influence the opinions of the intended
audience. But having content without a means of monetizing the interactions with the intended
audience is not sustainable.
The purpose of this writing is to describe a framework for managing an organization’s ability to excel
in pillar intelligence. All of the pillars of value are dependent on being skilled in wielding
information. Understanding the specific characteristics of information that serve as catalysts of
value help thrive in the digital economy.

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The pillars of value
There have been a few times in history which has ushered in a period of great change. We are amid one
of these times, in which communications and the infrastructure support communications has become
significantly cheaper and is influencing changes for the foreseeable future. In many cases, the marginal
cost of delivering the information, the catalyst for digital commerce is very likely zero in many cases. No
wonder pure play digital companies, who thrive on exploiting massive amounts of data (the likes of
Google, Amazon, Uber, Facebook, and others) can give data away. What they get back is knowledge
about the consumer that is gold for conducting digital commerce.
Because they are always trying to build a better mousetrap to attract consumers to use the information
they make available at no out of pocket cost (we will talk about the true costs to the consumer later),
small enhancements to make the information they splay before the consumer make a big difference in
attracting the attention of the consumer. The big investments they make should be three-fold (they are
not always, which is why some of these firms have difficulty monetizing the investment they make in
splaying information for free), these being:
 Having a relentless focus on understanding how the information they receive from the
consumer while using the information they splay at no out of pocket costs be monetized.
 Having a relentless focus on garnering insight from the deluge of information they receive in a
constant stream of consciousness as consumers use the information splayed for use at the
convenience of the consumer.
 Having a relentless focus on the pillars of value, each of which could potentially derail the ability
to monetize and the ability to garner insight.
What are the pillars
The pillars are the items that can be analyzed and / or managed to ensure both a viable digital presence
and an ability to thrive in the digital economy. There are six pillars, which all look at your digital
presence from a different vantage point. The six pillars are:
1. Consumer: The sheer volume of information available about a consumer is a driver available in
the digital economy. Pure play digital companies have figured this out and go to amazing
lengths to amass volumes of information to understand the behavior and more importantly,
changes in the behavior of consumers. The pillar intelligence necessary is a mechanism to
identify the viability and crispness of consumer information so that it can be used with a high
degree of accuracy at any moment.
2. Product: Having a product that is understood and desired by the participants in a marketplace is
critical to thriving in the digital economy; at the end of the day digital commerce is required to
thrive and that digital commerce is the movement of digital products or the movement of

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physical goods and services through a digital conduit. The pillar intelligence necessary is a
mechanism to measure the adhesion of the product to the trajectory of the marketplace.
3. Media: Media has taken an elevated role, be it the traditional media sources, video blogs via
YouTube and other venues or social media intended to sway the opinion of the market
participants at large. The pillar intelligence necessary is a mechanism to measure the sentiment
of the market and a means to act on that sentiment.
4. Platforms: In the digital economy, much of the interactions with consumers will be orchestrated
through information managed by platforms that together comprise the digital experience
afforded to consumers and customers. These platforms come in a variety of forms, whether
they are used to house digital assets (also known as content), secure winning bids for placement
of content, fulfill orders, invoice or settle payments for participation in digital transactions. Each
of these will create a trail of information ant it is this information that gives insight into the inner
workings of the platforms that comprise your version of a digital experience. A measure of the
platform pillar is the availability and use of analytics that consume information exposed through
platforms based on the interactions of customers, financiers, regulators, partners and others
who participate in your digital ecosphere.
5. Value: If there is no intended method of delivering some form of value for the efforts of creating
and delivering digital products, then the resultant solution will not be sustainable. In the
majority of cases, this value will be monetization for the supplier and a better off consumer
(many not for profit organizations will not have monetization goals but will still be measured on
their ability to deliver value). The pillar intelligence necessary is a measurement of incremental
value.
6. Content: Content is the vehicle used in the digital economy to communicate to and influence
consumers. It is in many forms, be it textual content sent via email, banner ads on web pages or
videos on YouTube or Vimeo. There are several measures usable to manage content, these
being (1) the effectiveness of content, (2) the coverage of content and (3) the conversion rate of
delivered content into commerce.
Pillar Facilitators
Pillar Facilitators are things that organizations can directly and / indirectly control to improve their
influences of the above pillars. Pillar facilitators are the things either directly or indirectly under the
control of an organization that could impact the pillars.
1. Disruptions: Disruptions are a consequence of a fast paced, easily changed environment with
instantaneous communications of the actions in the environment. This disruptive environment
is not going away, and the disruption waves are the Darwinian engine that fuels the changes in
the marketplace. The pillar intelligence necessary is a mechanism to identify and strategize
activities through the four phases of disruption waves. There are four components in each
disruption wave (discovery, big bang, big crunch, new equilibrium) and what each organization
will either thrive or suffer from disruptions will depend on their ability to discover, appropriately
alter business models to match the market trajectories, accordingly execute on the altered

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business models and have the fortitude to weather each of the components so that when the
new equilibrium arrives, its arrival is not a painful one.
2. Information: Information is the catalyst for the digital economy, and as such is an asset that can
and should be wielded for the benefit of the organization. All information has a degrading
value. The rate of information value decay is its half-life. Generally, information made available
by information pure plays has a shorter half-life than other industries. Storing a high percentage
of information that is beyond its half-life is commonly an indication of a high amount of
information clutter, or information that is of lesser value greatly exceeding the information
usable in deriving organizational value. The pillar intelligence necessary is a mechanism to
measure the effectiveness of wielding information, which is measurable through several
metrics, these being (1) the percentage of available information that was used in business
processes, (2) the percentage of information beyond its half-life, (3) the percentage of
information mapped to business processes, (4) the percentage of information used to generate
organizational value and (5) the percentage of information sourced from local data stores.
3. Alignment: Alignment is the assurance that information is aligned with the consumption
patterns of the processes that orchestrate the business models of the organization. The pillar
intelligence necessary is a measurement of the alignment of information to processes devised to
achieve the value propositions of the organization. Generally, the faster the market cycle time,
the higher importance alignment is. Additionally, alignment is critical for reading the tea leaves
in time for disruptive times.
4. Privacy: Privacy has taken center stage for the digital economy. If consumers do not believe the
information entrusted to suppliers for the purpose of engaging in digital commerce, then they
will be hesitant in supplying the necessary information. There are both regulatory (fines and
potential restrictions in engaging in digital commerce) and reputational (ability to engage in
digital commerce because consumers will be reluctant in sharing information with organizations
who are ineffective in protecting personally identifiable information (PI)) components of the
privacy issues, both of which impact the valuation of digital products in the marketplace. Pillar
intelligence necessary is a measurement of the effectiveness of privacy instruments utilized by
both an organization and the platforms utilized by an organization, to the consumer there is no
difference in privacy lapses caused by either.
5. Resistance: Resistance is a measure of information not being used in business processes due to
time, accessibility, availability, context, trustworthiness and other constraints. In most
circumstances, the more disruptive a business scenario is, the higher the resistance.
Governance should be focused on reducing resistance to using information as their single
mission. A surrogate measure (if governance is focused on reducing information usage
resistance as proposed) is a measure of the effectiveness of the governance organization.
6. Sourcing: Sourcing is composed of two independent processes, one devised to make the data
necessary to support the information requirements of business processes available when it is
required. This necessitates a process that maps the information required by business processes
to the derivation of that information and ensuring the source information is available at all
times. The second component of sourcing is to ensure that the machinery necessary to convert
source data into information consumable directly by business processes is in place. The Chief

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Data Officer (CDO) is commonly accountable for both the sourcing and mapping processes that
serve as a blueprint of the information requirements of the organization. A measure of the
sourcing pillar is the completeness of the information requirements blueprint.
7. Analytics: Digital analytics are comprised of two types of analytics, (1) those devised to quickly
corral the information necessary to analyze unexpected market conditions, changes in strategies
and tactics or other items which render previously available analytics less viable and (2)
regularly occurring analytics which are used to assess market conditions, platforms, strategies,
innovations and other items which are repeatable and in most situations triggered by business
events. A measure of the analytics platform is the percentage of analytics which are deemed
regularly occurring, which signifies a highly mature analytics function. The Chief Analytics
Officer is accountable for the analytics function and the conversion of one time analytics into
regularly occurring, scheduled analytics.
8. Cycle Time: The cycle time is a key metric of business processes and defines the time allotted to
determine and execute a specific action in the marketplace. Some markets, like most financial
services, have very short cycle times where the information half-life (the point at which
information is worth half as much as when it was sourced) while others have fairly long cycle
times. The measures of time are (1) the typical cycle time, (2) the percentage of time the
organization is in a disruptive state (typically an atypical cycle time) and (3) the information
preparation cycle time as a percentage of the business cycle time.
9. Constraints: The constraints are anything that limits the actions one can take in the
marketplace, such as regulations, physical constraints (i.e., physical distribution of cement
costing more than the cement), technical constraints, and risk profile constraints (i.e., if an
organization is very risk adverse, they will not undertake a program that carries with it a high
amount of risk). The measurements of constraints are a measure of constraints that prevent an
organization from undertaking actions that others in the industry might undertake.
10. Orchestration: Orchestration is concerned with an organization’s ability to execute actions they
determine appropriate for a particular scenario in the marketplace. The faster execution can
occur, the better the orchestration score. There is a preference for a high degree of automation
and self-learning algorithms in the orchestration pillar. The measure of the orchestration pillar is
composed of two parts, the percentage of business models that have a high degree of
automation and second, the portion of those components governed through self- learning
algorithms.
11. Autonomous: Autonomous operations are concerned with the unmanned operation of the
digital ecosphere when it counts. The autonomous characteristics of the digital economy is
made possible by algorithms which perform some or all functions for some or all processes used
in realizing the value propositions of a business model. Minimally, interactions between
platforms will occur through the use of autonomous facilities, but there are many more
opportunities for autonomous capabilities. The measures of the autonomous pillar are the ratio
of autonomous vs manual processes used to realize value propositions and the ratio of self-
learning autonomous vs autonomous processes used to realize value propositions.

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A Framework for pillar intelligence
It is strongly recommended that each organization measure their pillar intelligence capabilities at least
quarterly and develop active plans to improve their pillar intelligence capabilities. By measuring and
monitoring pillar intelligence capabilities, the chances of thriving with information in the digital
economy is greatly improved. The template below is an example of a means to measure pillar
intelligence capabilities.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mark Albala has been one of the early practitioners in wielding
information as a competitive weapon and has served as an advisor
to vendors and analysts serving the information insight industries.
Mark has served much of his career in devising insightful ways to
deliver information that is most usable to deriving and executing
action plans. Mark has concentrated a significant portion of his
career in ensuring that the information made available is usable by
eliminating the reasons for not using information when it counts.
Mark currently serves as President of InfoSight Partners, L.L.C., which is a firm whose mission is to
help organizations facilitate their focus into wielding the value of their information assets.
Mark has served in a variety of information strategy, architecture and governance roles and has
been an influential futurist in defining ways in which information could be wielded, and has been
an active advocate of the disciplines of information economics and the acceptance and
management of information as an organizational asset.
Mark currently serves as an advisor to companies and analysts and can be reached at
mark@infosightpartners.com.