Think Tank

Computerworld - Camera Phones Become an IT Issue

Camera phones have been a huge success—IDC estimates that more than 600 million will be in use by 2007—because people can easily send and receive snapshots.

What does this have to do with corporate IT? Plenty, according to an article in Accenture Ltd.'s online journal Outlook: Point of View. Researchers Andrew Fano and Anatole Gershman at Accenture Technology Labs say that as people grow comfortable using camera phones, they'll begin to use them to interact with businesses. So customer contact centers will need to be able to handle incoming instant photos.

"Instead of trying to describe an object using words, consumers will send snapshots," the authors say, which will give a service agent a better idea of the customer's needs. A customer can send a picture of the environment in which the product will be used, such as a yard, room, office or workshop, which can help the service agent sell the right products. A series of photos (or a short video) could even capture how a customer is using or assembling a product, so the agent could correct or train the customer on the proper procedure. Consumers could also use camera phones to document damage or repairs.

But managing this influx of images will require "a substantial redesign of customer service processes and systems," the researchers predict.

Best Bits

The most useful parts of recent business and IT management books

The book: Information Nation: Seven Keys to Information Management Compliance, by Randolph A. Kahn and Barclay T. Blair (AIIM, 2004).

I'm not sure about the appropriateness of the title Information Nation, but this is an eye-opening book about the legal issues of information and e-mail management. Did you know that a voice-mail message from a federal regulator could be a vital record that should be preserved? Did you know that an instant message about a business contract might need to be retained for legal purposes? Before your eyes glaze over at the word legal, consider that allegations of records destruction, mismanagement and falsification have brought down huge corporations like Enron and Andersen. And that's why we have Section 802 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which states: "Whoever knowingly alters, destroys, mutilates, conceals, covers up, falsifies or makes a false entry in any record ... with the intent to ... obstruct [a federal investigation] ... shall be fined, imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both."

Suddenly, records management seems important!

This book is a practical guide—full of checklists and sample policies—to help keep your company out of hot water. And that seems like something a chief information officer ought to do.