Bang!

In last month's Scientific American, there was an interesting article that basically stated that the scientists were wrong; that the universe we all live in is expanding far faster than we previously imagined. 

And they detailed some interesting consequences to this, but -- thankfully -- we wouldn't start to notice for billions of years.

Today, IDC updated last year's landmark study on "The Expanding Digital Universe" with a new one ("The Diverse and Exploding Digital Universe"), basically saying they were wrong, the digital universe is expanding far faster than they orignally estimated.

But, rather than billions of years, the effects are likely to be far more immediate to all of us.

An Update From Last Year

When this study was first published, I wrote a few posts on this (here, here and here) where I tried to share what all this might mean.

Not surprisingly, a few of the themes I theorized about found their way into this year's study.  It's nice to be right, at least once in a while ;-)

I don't know about you, but I hope we can see this study updated on an annual basis. 

Big, Big, Big

The "digital universe" now has a new headline: we'll have 10x times more information sloshing around in just five short years.  Sobering, that.

One of the graphs in the stufy highlights the fact that storing it all just won't be an option -- the amount of information produced will greatly exceed the aggregate media capacity of the industry (disk, tape, etc.). 

This implies to me that deliberate decisions will need to be more frequently made around what gets kept, and what gets tossed.

I've written before about information governance, and how I see more and more organizations realize that this is just as important in its own right as financial governance.

I guess the new IG committee has another project -- what to keep, what to throw away -- and the consequences of each.

Getting Personal

A key theme of the study is that 70% of the information will be created by individuals, but 85% will be managed by corporations. 

Lest you think that's just your digital camera at work, the study points out the "digital shadow" we create online via emails and online shopping, or through our use of cell phones, or perhaps from security cameras.

For me, this brings up all sorts of interesting questions around "who owns my personal information?".  It's pretty clear who owns my money (e.g. I do), but not so clear when it comes to things like the digital shadow I'm creating indirectly.

By the way, there's some new bling for your PC.  Last year, as part of the study, EMC offered up a "digital clock" that attempted to measure all information produced in aggregate. 

This year, there's a "personal digital clock" that (after answering a few questions) will estimate just how much digital footprint you're creating: both directly and indirectly.  It's a bit humbling.

As an example, the personal clock estimates that I've created well over a terabyte of "digital shadow" this year so far.  And that's not even counting these blog posts!

Just doing my part for the storage industry, I guess ;-)

More Cosmology Analogies

The "universe" analogy allows all sorts of interesting comparisons that help us understand just what's going on here.  If you download the full version of the report, you'll notice a discussion about the disparity in containers vs. information, e.g. a small portion of all files contain the vast majority of all information; much like we find matter clumped in galaxies in the physical universe.

Or, one of my favorites, we now have more 1s and 0s in the world than there are stars in the universe.

A Call To Action

IDC is very clear on this point -- this isn't just an IT issue anymore.  It affects all of us; if not at a personal level, then certainly the organizations we all work for.

As individuals, we'll want more control over our digital lives and our digital footprints.  As organizations, we'll be asked to manage 85% of all information created in the digital universe -- and all the responsibilities that entails.

And, in my mind, there are dozens of implications to this mega-trend.  Some of these I've talked about already, but I'm sure I'll have plenty to write about in the coming weeks and months.

For a full debrief, please see the EMC microsite here.

For a sampling of other viewpoints, please see the writeups on SearchStorage, Xconomy and Computerworld.

Comments

[Shibin Zhang]

Good article. Thanks!

[Andrew Lickly]

Chuck:

I found the Digital Shadow aspect of the report very fascinating. It got me to thinking just how much digital info on me is out there. It's been a fun game for awhile to Google oneself, one quote in an article or press release can propagate quickly. But I was thinking hard, where does my shadow fall and is it really that big? I mean I have an adorable 2 year old, there would have to be some serious shadow to be larger than my growing volume of digital pictures. That's when I went into the dentist for some work and they used a very cool digital camera to take a series of photos of my tooth, then stitch it together to create a 3d view. Impressive.. and I suspect digitally dense.

Moving forward, it will be interesting to note just where one adds to the shadow. And I am sure there are some very intersting rights, security and privacy issues that will continue to arise around this.

[beth]

Where's the 'digital clock'? I'm curious how much I'm contributing the storage industry. :-)

[beth]

d'oh! never mind, found it.