Does this quote hit home? "Knowledge about the 'how' of information use is inadequately developed and poorly applied in very nearly all private and public sector organizations."

If it does, you may want to investigate its source, a new book called "Hearing the Voice of the Market: Competitive Advantage through Creative Use of Market Information."

Combining a textbook's theoretical approach with a how-to book's practicality, co-authors Vincent Barabba and Gerald Zaltman have created an interesting hybrid. Barabba is currently executive director of market research and planning at General Motors, and he has worked in similar positions at Xerox and Eastman Kodak. Zaltman is professor of marketing at the University of Pittsburgh.

In the course of outlining a system for firms and organizations that want to use information more intelligently and creatively, the authors explore a number of concepts and ideas, but ground them in a recognizable context to avoid spiraling off into abstraction.

Thus while presenting models of information use they also discuss the practical hindrances to their adaptation and use in the day-to-day setting.

Inquiry center

The main model of information use outlined in the book is the inquiry center, defined as "the ideal mindset in a company for effectively and efficiently reconciling the voice of the market with the voice of the firm." The authors leave the concept loosely defined in the belief that ideas have a better chance of being adopted if "they can be easily adapted to the real lives of those who will use them." Rather, they discuss the component parts, physical and psychological, that make up the inquiry center ethic.

The inquiry center builds on the oft-repeated idea that within any company or organization there are internal "customers," and that it is important to make sure those customers are getting what they need from the research "service" within the company, as this passage discusses: "People involved with an inquiry center must view all functional areas and staff groups within the organization as their clients or customers. This is a departure from the more limiting and common arrangement where the market research department treats the marketing function as its only significant client. This broader perspective is difficult to achieve when a firm has no in-house research expertise and buys all such expertise from outside. For that matter, it is not particularly easy even when there is an internal research staff. Many market researchers are closely tied to the market organization and have little incentive to develop other clients. Additionally, the demands made of research staffs leave them little time to cultivate other clients. This problem is often compounded by the marketing function's resistance to sharing market data."

Effecting change

Aware of these constraints, the authors begin the chapter "Implementing the Inquiry Center" with the acknowledgment that in most firms or organizations it is difficult to effect change - and especially a fundamental change - in the way an organization uses information.

Too much stands in the way - tradition, different learning styles, job boundaries, egos, budget constraints. The authors recommend incremental change, and call upon researchers or anyone within the organization who decides to champion the inquiry center to demonstrate the value of the concept to the rest of the organization. As the book states it, they must become "change agents."

That's a tall order for someone who, if he or she is like 99% of the rest of the people in the work force, is so swamped with day-to-day work that the thought of taking up the additional role of crusader is too much to handle.

For those who decide to take up the challenge, the book offers plenty of assistance in determining how to best take the concepts and make them work within your company. The authors push the reader in the right direction by providing what they call thinker toys - "tools or devices to focus attention on current practices and thinking, and to examine the reasons why they should or should not be continued or modified."

For example, they offer six key questions to ask before trying to introduce organizational innovation that address the likelihood of success, the effects of the change on personnel, and the benefits. The first question is, "Have top managers agreed there is a need for the proposed change?"

Of further help, the book includes the statements of the policy of information use in Eastman Kodak and General Motors, the A VICTORY model - an acronym of the factors that have to be considered when trying to effect change - and other guidelines to assist the reader in implementing the inquiry center concept.
Sections analyzing learning and the exchange of information, in the context of the relationship between managers and researchers, provide insight to information needs and modes of interaction.

The chapter "Research-Use Technology" provides a procedure for increasing the value of research to managers and includes the seven deadly obstacles to the effective use of research, from post-survey regret ("I wish we had asked...") to pseudo-clairvoyance ("I could have told you that").

"Developing Analyses and Breaking Through Biases" discusses a number of problems related to data analysis, and in its appendix shows examples to enable the reader to identify and understand some of the mental obstacles he or she may encounter within the company.

I can't say whether the "system" will work and what the ultimate rewards will be - that depends on how well your organization understands the "how" of information use -  but "Hearing the Voice of the Market" presents a strong case for making theeffort to find out.

"Hearing the Voice of the Market" (294 pages, $29.95) is published by the Harvard Business School Press, Boston, Massachusetts 02163.