The Changing Face of Information -- Intro

Sorry for being a bit delinquent in posting here regularly.

I've been travelling more than usual.  Although air travel these days can hardly be described as glamorous (insert long list of major grievances here), there is an upside: you get to meet great people, and you get some time to yourself to think and reflect.

I thought I'd do something different here, and offer up a consistent sequence of posts about the powerful forces of information-related change that's sweeping our society, and the resultant consequences that are likely to occur in the next few years. 

I've touched on many of these concepts in my last few hundred posts, but I thought it'd be worthwhile to present an organized view for consideration and -- hopefuly -- discussion.

Part of my motivation is reading the prognostications of others. 

I either find (or get sent) just about every "looking ahead" piece that gets written.  Although I always find a few things that I can agree with, I often find that I'm saying to myself "gee, they really missed that one, or this one". 

So I'm going to try to do a bit better.

We're Going Need A Backdrop

If you're going to paint a picture, you're going to need a canvas, right?

My most useful backdrop is "the digital big bang" as captured and communicated by IDC's recent report covering how much information we're all generating now and in the near future, and some of the likely consequences as a result.

If you haven't seen this material yet, it's a good starting point for the discussion that I'm about to embark on.

Start By Thinking Really, Really Big

We're creating a ridiculous amount of information, that's increasing roughly 60% every year.  Now, year to year that doesn't sound too onerous, but compound the trend over 5-10 years, and we're talking multiple orders of magnitude.

To me, this explosive information growth is nothing more than a symptom of a dramatic shift in our economy and society -- we're now living in an information world.

As an example, we've got the opportunity to create a new word every three years or so that conveniently describes how much information we're all creating and using.

This year's word is "zettabyte".  What's a zettabyte, you might ask?  Easy -- it's 1,000 exabytes.  Oh yes, an exabyte is a thousand petabytes, and (of course) a petabyte is a thousand terabytes.

IDC forecasts that -- by 2011 -- the amount of active information we'll be generating will be roughly 1.7 zettabytes, or 1.7 billion terabytes. 

Don't even think about storing it all; the amount of information generated each year has exceeded all forms of magnetic storage produced for many years, and this trend will likely continue.

This, of course, brings up the interesting discussion of what will be kept and what will be discarded, who will decide, and why.  Of course, no easy answers to that one.

We Need To Change Our Thinking About Information

One of the more interesting points that IDC points to is that the sources and types of information produced has already shifted, and will continue to do so in the future.

The headline stat is that 70% of all information will be created by us as individuals.  For those of you who grew up in a world of corporate-generated information, this is a different world. 

We're talking about simple things like our photos and movies.  If we're knowledge workers, our output of emails, reports, spreadsheets and powerpoints.  Going farther, how the information we produce is captured by healthcare, finance, and government.  Or, perhaps, CCTVs as we go about our everyday business.

The vast majority of this information will be unstructured, rich content.  It will be essentially valueless unless it's classified, tagged and retrievable in multiple contexts.  This kind of information is very different stuff than transactional data that we're all used to. 

I guess all those classes I took on database architecture won't be quite as useful as I thought ...

The other shift is the prediction that we'll trust 85% of all information to corporations and organizations to store, protect and manage. 

My favorite analogy is when I think of information as money.  Much like we've learned to trust banks and other financial institutions with "our" money, we'll be trusting similar organizations with "our" information.

A Good A Backdrop As Any ....

Spend just five minutes thinking about it, and the macro picture is becoming pretty clear. 

We're becoming an information-centric society.  Information is the "new wealth" that makes our lives better and makes the world a better place to live.  The amount of information we're producing and using is simply an indicator of this trend; and not the trend itself.

The primacy of information in our society and economy has happend with startling rapidity as compared to other historical shifts.  Historians measure the shift, for example, from an agricultural to a manufacturing society in many decades.  By comparison, this information-centric shift is happening in just a relatively short few years.

We have plenty of technology -- but will we know how to use it?

What I Want To Talk About

In future posts, I want to stretch out and explore some of the implications of this.

As an example:

• what's the new role of the CIO in a world where information has to be managed and governed like money?
   
• if information is the most important stuff we have, how will we manage information risks?
   
• in an economy of knowledge workers, how should we think of IT differently?
   
• in a world of multiple information sources and uses, how should we think of applications differently?
   
• if virtualization is changing the economics of IT, how should we think in terms of new IT value propositions?
   
• if computing becomes liquid and virtualized, what does the new data center look like, and -- does it have walls?
   
• if 70% of information is personally generated, what will we want for "our" information?
   
• if information has new value in multiple contexts, how will we tag and label it in this new world?
   
• finally, how does the traditional IT value proposition change in this new world?

In physics, the ultimate quest is for a GUT (Grand Unified Theory), or -- perhaps -- a TOE (Theory Of Everything).  The goal is to link multiple disparate observations into a coherent model with predictive power -- from the very large to the very small.

We may not be able to achieve anything nearly so ambitious with regards to information, but many people I talk to are starting to see interesting connections.  If I can help expose this collective thinking, maybe we can have a preiminary GUT or TOE about the next phase of our information economy.  Or not.

If nothing else, it should be fun!

Comments

[Scott Quick]

Great series of posts Chuck... and kudos to EMC for the information ticker concept. It's a simply brilliant metaphor for communicating the impact of information overload - across all disciplines and corporate strata.
Scott Quick, Principal
The Catalyst Group
www.scottquick.com

[Joshua Konkle]

Hi Chuck

I stumbled upon your ramblings this morning. Interesting take on /information/. At first glance this all /sounds/ great.

In the last month I spoke to your company about the grand paradigm for the "information economy" and the best it offers is a tangent to reality.

EMC potential to create any imminent GUT/TOE as it relates to actually handling unstructured content as a by product of non-deliberate processes - remains nebulous at best.

I appreciate you and your team helping you write all the information contained above, but the proof is in your companies execution. In the world where I live, EMC has been no part of a much needed "lyceumic enlightenment" period where physical storage meets data and data meets information.

Two cases in point...

EMC content archiving calls back to explain solution frameworks
http://www.dciginc.com/2008/04/emc-content-archiving-possibility-or-reality-pt2.html

and

EMC content archiving group still talks about possibility, not reality
http://www.dciginc.com/2008/03/emc-content-archiving-possibility-or-reality.html

JK

[Chuck Hollis]

Hi Joshua

I think you're trying to make a point, I'm not quite sure what the point might be, though.

I'm guessing that your observation is that we should be doing more, doing it faster, doing it better, etc. All fair observations -- but I'm wondering if there's something more specific you're after.

Two minor points:

1 -- I can't find any definition for "lyceumic" in any of the standard online sources. Neat word, though.

2 -- All the posts here are 100% my own work, warts and all. There is no "staff" ;-)

Cheers!

[Joshua Konkle]

Hi Chuck

I was mimicking the style that you, and the marketing team that writes your blog, have written in.

As words are concerned, I figured if you could pull "preiminary" from the abyss that is your Ad libitum Support System, then I was free to jargon'ize Lyceum. Given the context is Information, Lyceum fits.

I will settle for "doing it" as opposed to the "better" and "faster" components. At this point, the only thing I have experienced from EMC is more of the same.

Using one word, not ad lib'ing, to sum up EMCs activity around /information/ it would be "imbroglio."

JK

[Chuck Hollis]

Hi Josh

Two thoughts (again).

First, nobody writes in this blog but me. Ask anyone. It's all my own work, no reviews, no staff, no committees, etc. Warts and all.

Second, you're a really hard guy to follow. I think you're trying to make an important point, but I just don't know what you're trying to say.

Want to try again?