Infomediaries: The Vision For IANS

In 1999, John Hagel and Marc Singer coined the term “infomediary” in their groundbreaking text Net Worth: Shaping Markets When Customers Make The Rules. Their premise involves the shared needs of vendor marketing departments and the customers they seek to engage, as well as the misalignment between these two groups’ motives: while the correct matching of goods and users results in success for both sides, vendors’ desire for information about their customers runs counter to the customers’ desire for privacy. Without the right information, marketing departments are ill equipped to target and interest the right people, and the lack of trust in marketing departments leaves consumers taking advice from each other when making buying decision. Hagel and Singer propose the role of a go-between that can resolve this conflict, the infomediary.

The book defines these “information intermediaries” as objective third parties that can aggregate consumer information and use it to negotiate with vendors on behalf of their customers. They are able to bridge the gap between consumers and the companies selling them products and services, ensuring privacy while enabling vendors to accurately profile their market.

IANS was created to serve exactly this function in the information security space: we listen to practitioners and connect them with IT security vendors. Our peer-based, bottom-up approach to research means we can deliver high-quality ideas and rigorous thinking, producing proprietary insights for practitioners and vendors alike. Practitioners benefit from a wider range of experience and knowledge when making information security decisions, and vendors get high-quality information that enables them to better target their customers and sell their products.

Want to know more? Contact IANS.