ChapterOne.The Inescapable Data Vision


Chapter One. The Inescapable Data Vision

There is a way in which technology is inexorable, so I doubt there is a way to stop any of this.

Harvard University Sociologist Nicholas Christakis

If you look closely, you will see data collection and emission devices all around, often discreetly located and sometimes barely detectablethings such as mobile phones that double as Internet gateways, chemical sniffers in major cities, discrete radio tags on commercial products, and video cameras (seemingly everywhere, and sometimes in some curious places).

These devices are already ubiquitous, and their numbers are growing at a furious pacefrom home electronics and appliances to video-surveillance cameras on school buses to sensory microchips embedded in our bodies. We cannot help but wonder whether these new and increasingly pervasive wired and wireless data collection technologies will usher in as yet unforeseen benefits or become the electronic sentinels of Big Brother's kingdom. Those who choose to master this Inescapable Data envi ronment will specifically look for new streams of data that can be combined and analyzed (often in real time) against streams of historical data in an effort to derive both business and personal power.

In Inescapable Data, we see the beginnings of a fusing of technologiesdata collection on a massive scale with wired and wireless communications coupled with a steady advance of information processingthat could, for example, enable a manufacturer to track inventory levels better and in real or near-real time. But that could be just the first link in a massively strengthened value chain that also pulls together raw materials suppliers, distributors, and retailers; that crosses corporate boundary lines and, for the sake of efficiency and flexibility, even includes companies that normally compete with each other. The same fusing of technologies will also make your child's medical record available to you electronically and enable you to correlate that record with those of thousands of other children (and even generate a detailed analysis of his or her personal genome).

Demand continues to grow for continuous connectivity with the important people in our lives (our spouses, our bosses, our customers), sharing data that has become a part of our everyday lives (our shopping lists, sales orders, and inventory levels). Whether it is in instant message communication with customers in different time zones, or e-mailing better directions to a soccer field where a game is being played, we have discovered the value of being and staying connected. In fact, many of the tools we use in our business lives have become the exact same tools we use in our personal lives, allowing for a blending of bothwonderfully liberating for some, stressful for others.

Here's our vision: We are about to see an onslaught of massive data collection and delivery capabilities that will usher in both opportunities and some worries. It is not about Internet II; that is only part of the story. It is more about what can happen when billions of wired and wireless data collection and delivery devices are attached to networks, possibly empowering our businesses, reaching into our homes, and even improving our bodies. It is also about huge data stores and computer processing capable of making sense of this new world, and entry points that enable each of us as individuals or businesses (even individuals as businesses) to tap in.

We happened on this vision over lunch. Professionally, we are both in computing technologyone a data-networking industry inventor, the other a data storage industry analystand we have come together over low-carb salads and a mutual interest in all things data related. We identify that the fundamentals of computing (data and networking) are being energized by both the solid pace of data growth as well as dramatic changes in communication style and information exchange. So we started with a pen and paper napkin and made a list of computing's new fundamentals and the impact of the coming fusion:

  • Data. Data-everywhere devicesfull-function cell phones, biosensors, miniature digital video cameras, GPS transceiversall generate massive amounts of new data that can be captured and mined for new value in real time.

  • Communications. Demand for more "asynchronous-yet-immediate" conversation technologies such as wireless e-mail and instant messaging will drive further conveniences and efficiencies in both our personal and business lives.

  • Networking. Radical new strategies for the networking of anything electrified. Things as common as refrigerators and automobiles can and will be given wired or wireless networking interfaces.

  • Information processing. Information will become more easily accessible to increasingly greater numbers of peoplepeople with only a modicum of computing smarts. Information traditionally locked up within machines, available to only those with degrees in computer science, will rapidly become more open, aided by self-describing data representation styles.

Staring down at the list we created, we began to think that we were looking at the cusp of a new world, where data will not only be everywhere but it will be fully interconnected, delivering us values that were never before anticipated. Historically, businesses were driven exclusively by higher profit and individuals by greater personal freedom. In the new world we envision, the synergy of both personal and business goals can drive unprecedented values for both, made possible by pervasive devices that generate massive new volumes of data, their processing counterparts collecting and transforming that data into information, and by the invisible wired and wireless networks that will blanket our lives.

We decided to call this phenomenon Inescapable Data. Our Inescapable Data vision suggests that it is not just advances in each of these technologies, it is the combination of these fundamental elements that will break barriers and magnify gains to levels not yet anticipated. We think these new combinations will lead to an explosion of benefits driving both higher personal and economic satisfaction. That is the upside. The downside could be loss of personal privacy, identity theft on a monumental scale, and trust in information sources whose authenticity cannot be verified.

Great vision we thought. So we decided to see whether we could find itor at least its beginningsamong the tangle of technologies here today, those promised to arrive soon, and the purported creative future visions. Our path through this exploration took us to prominent computer industry people, testing our visions while exploring theirs. Our interviews also extended to a variety of industry segments, from mundane footwear to medicine to sports to business to warfare. We conferenced with notable sociologists, leaders of computers and networks, military thinkers, and, of course, those money-gambler "venture capitalists" who fuel revolutions.

Inescapable Data is at once empowering and worrisome. It is up to us as members of an increasingly techno-savvy society to determine how it will best be used. One thing we can say with certainty: It is coming.



    Inescapable Data. Harnessing the Power of Convergence
    Inescapable Data: Harnessing the Power of Convergence (paperback)
    ISBN: 0137026730
    EAN: 2147483647
    Year: 2005
    Pages: 159

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