Executive Master in Information Management

Your career – Your responsibility – Your organization – Your position – Characteristics of the course – Contents - Recommendations and experiences – Contact and route

We provide this information for those non-Dutch speaking individuals who are interested in the EMIM-program, like foreign lecturers or colleagues. We would like to remind the reader that the program however is open only to Dutch speaking participants.
The Executive Master in Information Management program is intended for those pioneers who are keen to translate social and technological developments into their own environment. Individuals who wish to design the information society in a responsible manner and who recognize themselves in the following descriptions.

Your career

Over the last few years, you have been dedicated to acquiring all the necessary methodical tools. You are capable of assessing situations and depending on the situation in question, you apply different management, advisory, design and/or management methods. You do however, also have the feeling that you are about to face new challenges which are strategic or multidisciplinary in nature, challenges pertaining the entire value chain, innovation issues or the infrastructure of your organization.

You are dealing with situations that offer different possible perspectives and which involve a diversity of interests. Your perspective is becoming more strategic. You perceive increasingly more developments in your environment and you feel the need to think these through fundamentally and to influence these, using renewed practical handles. You also feel the need to organize your own experiences and to test these in an environment outside your own organization. You have the feeling that reflection on your experience, extension of your frame of reference and innovative views regarding the domain will provide you with the insights and inspiration for tackling your new challenges.

Your responsibility

Your work is increasingly of strategic importance. The range of your influence changes:

• from direct to indirect leadership,
• from your own department to various other departments,
• from project to programme,
• from systems to infrastructure,
• from within the organization to the value chain,
• from management to leadership,
• from national to international,
• from technological processes to social processes.

Your context broadens and your responsibility for customers, business partners, suppliers, public bodies and society becomes more visible. Increasingly you will have to be able to collaborate with different disciplines. You need sets of thinking instruments that enable you to fathom different disciplines quickly without having to master these completely; you wish to be able to survey the disciplines.

Your organization

You work in a business or public body where information is of vital importance or you work in the field of information, communication, media and ICT. You are regularly confronted with management dilemmas with regard to information management and underlying ICT. You notice for instance that the application of new media regularly comes up for discussion and this open contact with the outside world is always accompanied by worries; about security, damage to reputation or loss of grip on image and identity. You notice that young employees and customers prefer using their own, generally available and internet based technology instead of corporate infrastructure. You notice that carefully collated and refined information is sometimes interpreted in a surprising and unintentional manner or is used for perpetrating politics. You know there is more to management of information and knowledge than simply applying ICT but also notice that technology is the thing that is drawing attention every time. You need foundations that enable you to fathom and manage or break out of these dilemmas.

Your position

The Executive Master in Information Management is a course for managers, policy officers and advisors who realize that information, knowledge, ICT and new media are essential elements of their responsibilities.

Of course, this concerns officials who bear primary responsibility for information management or who advise on this, such as candidate Chief Information Officers, information managers, project and programme managers, policy officers, knowledge managers or advisors.

Because this course also provides you with a clear idea of the information society, the landscape of new media and developments in sectors such as media, ICT, content providers or telecommunication, it is also suitable for entrepreneurs, managers, policymakers and advisors in this field.

Managers and policymakers in the ICT industry or those working in ICT departments will take the course in order to be able to manage their organization more precisely. Employees with an ICT background (such as analysts, architects, project leaders, consultants and designers) will attend our course for broadening their frame of reference towards management issues.

Furthermore, a growing number of employees from the social midfield and semi (public) bodies participate because many topics regarding information, knowledge, media and technology have become societal issues.

Main characteristics of the course

• Reflection, broadening of frame of reference and applicability of new insights.
• Integral outlook on issues in the field of strategy, organization, management, information, knowledge, communication, ICT,
  new media, innovation and organizational change.
• Practice and action oriented.
• Post-experience education.
• Combination of professional and personal learning.
• Academic level.
• Maximum number of participants: 24
• 18 months
• Thirteen three-day training modules:
  • Wednesday: morning, afternoon and evening
  • Thursday: morning, afternoon and evening
  • Friday: morning and afternoon (until max. 16.00 hrs).
• Study load: 1680 hours.
• Language: primarily Dutch, sometimes English
• Organization: University of Amsterdam Business School / Stichting Informatie en Management

Contents of the course

Information Management Fundamentals: semester 1

The theme of the first semester (September – February) is intended to stretch existing frames of reference. Fundamentally new insights and theories will be presented to give information management in the students’ own environment ample critical thought. Part of this first semester is a literature assignment on behalf of which various books and articles have to be studied.

Module 1, Information management

• Perspectives on information management
• Management for the information society
• Developments and trends in media and communication
• Different perspectives on management and organization
• Technological developments

Module 2, Information

• Information as an object and (economic) product
• Information and its social interpretation in organizations
• Communication, social interaction and social software
• Information and power
• Use of information in management processes
• How attitudes and emotions colour people’s way of processing information

Module 3, Organizing

• Organizations seen as information processing organisms
• The dynamic connection between information, organization and ICT
• Knowledge management in organizations: interpretation, knowledge creation and decision making
• Services strategy, organization of service provision and information sharing between customer, front office and back office
• Organization, systems theory and information processing

Module 4, Architecture and Design

• Information architecture: solidity, usability and beauty
• Architecture seen as the creation of space
• Cognitive, aesthetic and communicative aspects of architecture and design
• Designing: mentality, content, shape and process
• Shaping the network organization and network society

Module 5, Technology

• Relevant ICT trends and points of special attention
• Economical aspects of large-scale ICT provisions: economies of scale, network effects, standardization, costs and profits
• Effects of recent ICT developments
• ICT portfolio management: quality, innovation and risk management

Information Management Practice: semester 2

In the second semester (February-June) the focus lies on making sure that the new insights leave a lasting impression, by using them actively in a practice-oriented assignment. This assignment will be designed according to the following design guidelines: making tangible, developing the conceivable, researching the makeable and deciding the feasible. These guidelines will be used as titles for the modules. In addition, various issues that are important in the practice of large organizations will be discussed. These subjects are every time related to the fundamentals taught in the first semester.

Module 6, Tangibility

• Information, organization, management, media, technology and design put into practice
• Methods for imagining yourself in complex practical situations: ethnographical research, contextual inquiry, stakeholder research, etc
• Soft Systems Methodology: responsibly designing organizations and technological systems
• Communicating about technology and innovation with different target groups

Module 7, Conceivability

• Media and technology policy
• Developments in strategic management and scenario thinking
• Strategy, identity, brand, media and communication
• Information strategy: the balance between informing and inspiring
• ICT and information-driven innovation

Module 8, Make-ability

• Prototyping and the symbiosis between user and designer
• Sourcing strategies and the organization of ICT procurement and ICT service provision
• Management of complex information infrastructures in (merged) corporations and value chains
• Alternative information systems: the serious gaming case study

Module 9, Feasibility

• Organizational change and leadership
• Implementation of large-scale systems
• Managing costs and benefits during the systems lifecycle
• Value chain integration through information systems
• (Virtual) identity and identity fraud in value chains and society

Module 10, Integral information management

• ICT governance and information governance: control in interaction
• An exercise in communication of the practical assignment through production of a documentary
• Closing of the first year of the program and reassessment of our view on information management.

Information Management in the Information Society: semester 3

In the third semester (September – January) we will study management of and in the globalizing information society. We will do this in three modules in the form of workshops (partially on location) and during the study trip.

Module 11, Information management for society

• Organization of public information space in relation with private information spaces
• Cross-organizational information infrastructures
• The informational city: effects for businesses and public organizations
• The identity and role of cultural institutions in the light of new media
• Workshop: Museum GoudA

Module 12 and 13, Study trip

We study a society different from our own. A society which is fully part of the globalization but in which concepts such as information and information society have a different meaning than in the Netherlands. This may be due to differences in culture and customs, differences regarding the importance attached to media and technology, or due to the presence or on the contrary the absence of technological or organizational infrastructures. The contrast between Dutch society and a foreign society puts our own information society in perspective and opens our eyes to alternatives. Besides, it will make us aware of the degree to which we shape media and technology from own Western European cultural values.

Module 14, Management in and of networks

• The networked society and the role of ICT and new media
• Effects of globalization on (information) management
• The changing role of the authorities and the advent of new authorities
• Peer to peer organizational configurations
• Workshop: Peer2Peer

Module 15, Management for the information society

• The computerization of individual, organization and society
• Ethical aspects of (information) management
• Future scenarios and their bearing on organizations
• Workshop: reassessment of the shared outlook on (information) management for the information society

This concise outline of modules demonstrates the post experience and post initial character of the EMIM course. We explicitly focus on knowledge and skills that extend beyond the traditional tools of managers or computer scientists. For information management to become effective and appealing, it no longer suffices to simply improve everything that we have been doing for years. We need to start looking for new concepts and a new vocabulary that allow us to enter a dialogue, new approaches for shaping the future and giving it meaning. That is exactly what the EMIM course wishes to provide.

Recommendations and experiences

Hennie Wesseling, Chief Information Officer (CIO) TNT Post and chair of the CIO Platform Nederland.

“Young people aged 20, who in the year 2009 start a career in a company, already have 15 years of experience with all kinds of tools and applications as used in the information society: they have grown up with Nintendo and iPhone. These newcomers expect to find managers and colleagues that have an overall view of the information society and design it themselves.

To previous generations, this involvement in information issues is by nature less explicit. We regard it vitally important that managers take note of the coherence between organization, information, communication, media and ICT; and are aware of the professional impact of these knowledge fields. However, the new business ideas that develop as a result of this cross-pollination are also indispensable for the future.

Anyone taking part in the EMIM course learns to see the broader connections. Using these wider views, one is able to continue to inspire the new generation.”

Jan Willem Duijzer, Chief Information Officer (CIO) of the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality.

Recently, the CIO function has been introduced in all ministries in order to enable better control of the sometimes large and risky ICT projects within the ministries. Before starting to work in this function, Jan Willem applied for the EMIM course.

“I had already acquired a lot of experience with ICT projects but does that suffice for becoming CIO? Apart from administrative experience, I also considered intrinsic authority important in this function. I do not wish to flesh out my new function in a superficial way and I certainly do not wish to lay a one-sided emphasis on ‘governance’. I find it especially important to be able to direct the use of information within the ministry.

I found out about the EMIM course when visiting Rik Maes’ website. His way of thinking and fundamental approach of the information management domain caught my immediate attention. I would first like to develop a view on information and only then start using technology and tools. Within the program of the EMIM course these things are worked out very well. The course is intensive, broad, stimulating and really gets me thinking; not in the least through the meetings with many interesting fellow students! For some time, I had wanted to get back into the ‘think tank’; learn new skills and develop a new perspective. And that is exactly what happens. The course has helped me in my work as a CIO from the very first day and also helps me in my personal development: it helps keep me ‘fresh’ and in one fell swoop puts me in touch with the latest developments regarding ‘information thinking’. Furthermore, I find the atmosphere of the program and the personal supervision during and around the monthly ‘three days’ truly marvellous; I did not know things like this existed.”

Peter Beijer, Enterprise Architect HP

I participated in the EMIM-course a few years ago. The course inspired me enormously; I can honestly say it set me up for the rest of my career. It made me realize that technology and information are two separate quantities. Interestingly, over the last few years I came across increasingly more information issues in the market in which I operate on a daily basis. The course has opened my eyes to this and at the same provided me with the tools for tackling these issues. Over the last 5 years I have for instance worked a lot using information-related processes within parliamentary environments such as in the Dutch Lower House. It is fascinating to see how many stakeholders prove to be affected by these processes. In my masterproof I have developed a social network perspective on architectural and infrastructural issues, which I still regularly use in everyday practice. Ultimately I am in the process of further developing this in a doctoral research in the field of information governance, say the creation of a climate in which people are able to give a meaning to information and are able to share this in a meaningful way. I do this in addition to my daily work for HP…busy but extremely inspiring. I remain focused on practice but the scientific frame from which I work these days has made me a lot more effective and has put me closer to interesting issues.

Maurits Ros, ICT policies advisor of the Board of Directors of the Academic Medical Center Amsterdam.

Part of his function is being General Manager of the String of Pearls Initiative (Parelsnoer Initiatief). The String of Pearls Initiative is a cooperative project of the eight University Medical Centers, at a budget of 67 million Euros. The project is aimed at realizing a common infrastructure; for high quality patient data and body materials, for the benefit of medical science.

“I started the EMIM course from the question how the information management of a health care institution can be set up optimally in the current changing strategic context; and how this can be organized and approached on a large scale. The EMIM course has provided me with the right handles to do this. At a fundamental level, in other words no superficial tricks but  thorough content. This intrinsic baggage has provided me with more confidence as well as a confirmation of a certain professional level. I started to think strongly in terms of the function of information in organizations. Step-by-step, the course has freed me from my existing frameworks: I am now able to focus more clearly on issues.”