Transparency of information
Albert Einstein’s quote: “Know where to find the information and how to use it – that’s the secret of success.” provides us with the ultimate reason why information should be transparent. What is information? We cannot find a uniform definition, but words linked to information are: facts, knowledge, intelligence, data: accurate and timely – to name a few. The second part of the quote refers to “and how to use it”, that is, if we can use and analyze it. The total should enable us to obtain that transparency, basically “the quality of being done in an open way without secrets” (according to the Cambridge Dictionary).
This Compact edition is all about getting the data, transforming it into information and its usage, exactly as Einstein would have liked it. We are very proud of and thankful to the co-authors from different organizations. They have shown us that this subject is highly relevant. Companies have definitely passed the exploration phase. As transparency of information is key to further development of the use of data and information, such as Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, its importance will only increase.
Articles in this edition address structured and unstructured data, tools to visualize and analyze data, use of data in a digital strategy and use of data in the financial audit, carried out by internal and external auditors.
We thank the contributing authors and hope you will enjoy this edition and get a good understanding of transparency of information, and how it is used by companies. If you would like to explore these ideas and concepts further, we invite you to contact us or any of the contributing authors.