In the unequivocal words of the old song
Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin
"At Google, we are never satisfied. It takes a tenth of a second for light to go around the world. At Google we will not be satisfied until that is the only barrier between you and your information." said Google fellow, Amit Singhal during the launch of Google's new search features at the Computer History Museum in sunny California.
Taken in context with the IDC Predictions for 2010 report which "expects more than 1 billion mobile devices will be accessing the internet, boosted by the growing popularity of smartphones and the arrival of Apple's iPad tablet computer" and the later statement by Google's Vic Gundotra that "when you take a sensor-rich device and you connect it to the cloud - yes, it could be that we are at the cusp of an entire new computer era."
Yes, yes, yes, corporate hyperbole but just think for a moment that the rather ancient machine I'm capturing this on is less powerful and has less than half the disk space of an entry-level iPhone 3GS and you get a flavour of the almost invisible tsunami of change that has overtaken us. And it's ramping up in every aspect of our "always on", info-junkie lives.
Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'
Let's take a metaphorical dip in the oceans of the past few years of informatics supply/demand and take note of the overwhelming statistics of the US hunger for information contained in the report at the Global Information Industry Centre. The report informs us that “in 2008, Americans consumed information for about 1.3 trillion hours, an average of almost 12 hours per day. Consumption totalled 3.6 zettabytes and 10,845 trillion words, corresponding to 100,500 words and 34 gigabytes for an average person on an average day. A zettabyte is 10 to the 21st power bytes, a million million gigabytes. These estimates are from an analysis of more than 20 different sources of information, from very old (newspapers and books) to very new (portable computer games, satellite radio, and Internet video). Information at work is not included.”
For a bear of little brain like me, thatуs pretty staggering and the long words like zettabytes bothered me. Fortunately, the authors of the report quantified 3.6 ZB of data for me as being equivalent to tightly stacking a 7ft high pile of Harry Potter style tomes across the entire United States, including Alaska. Fully a third of that content/text/information is being accessed via computer and the end result of our ever more socially networked and mobile connected world.
Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'.
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'
If that’s not enough to make you think a bit then consider the fact that the Federal Trade Commission held a two-day workshop earlier this month on the future of journalism in the internet age. The great, the good and the greedy were all there and among the topics were tax law changes that would allow media companies to earn tax credits or even become tax-exempt entities. Copyright law changes that would force search engines and other online aggregators to compensate media companies for the content they produce and even a proposed change in antitrust rules to allow newspapers to jointly negotiate payments from web sites that use their content. There is even a proposed bill in progress by a Senator Cardin that would allow newspapers to restructure as non-profit organisations. What a change in mindset of government this is from even five years ago and all in pursuit, apparently, of a free and democratic press in our new mega-connected age.
And let's not even talk about a YouTube executive addressing a Westminster parliamentary group this week on the power of video sharing in the campaign process as we gird up our loins for the great electoral blowathon next year.
Yowzer!!
Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin'.
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'.
But, you ask, what's all this got to do with business alignment? Well, quite simply, business functions must align with technology functions or slip soundlessly into the mire of history.
The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin'.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'.
Thank you Bob Dylan – Quod Erat Demonstrandum
Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin
"At Google, we are never satisfied. It takes a tenth of a second for light to go around the world. At Google we will not be satisfied until that is the only barrier between you and your information." said Google fellow, Amit Singhal during the launch of Google's new search features at the Computer History Museum in sunny California.
Taken in context with the IDC Predictions for 2010 report which "expects more than 1 billion mobile devices will be accessing the internet, boosted by the growing popularity of smartphones and the arrival of Apple's iPad tablet computer" and the later statement by Google's Vic Gundotra that "when you take a sensor-rich device and you connect it to the cloud - yes, it could be that we are at the cusp of an entire new computer era."
Yes, yes, yes, corporate hyperbole but just think for a moment that the rather ancient machine I'm capturing this on is less powerful and has less than half the disk space of an entry-level iPhone 3GS and you get a flavour of the almost invisible tsunami of change that has overtaken us. And it's ramping up in every aspect of our "always on", info-junkie lives.
Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'
Let's take a metaphorical dip in the oceans of the past few years of informatics supply/demand and take note of the overwhelming statistics of the US hunger for information contained in the report at the Global Information Industry Centre. The report informs us that “in 2008, Americans consumed information for about 1.3 trillion hours, an average of almost 12 hours per day. Consumption totalled 3.6 zettabytes and 10,845 trillion words, corresponding to 100,500 words and 34 gigabytes for an average person on an average day. A zettabyte is 10 to the 21st power bytes, a million million gigabytes. These estimates are from an analysis of more than 20 different sources of information, from very old (newspapers and books) to very new (portable computer games, satellite radio, and Internet video). Information at work is not included.”
For a bear of little brain like me, thatуs pretty staggering and the long words like zettabytes bothered me. Fortunately, the authors of the report quantified 3.6 ZB of data for me as being equivalent to tightly stacking a 7ft high pile of Harry Potter style tomes across the entire United States, including Alaska. Fully a third of that content/text/information is being accessed via computer and the end result of our ever more socially networked and mobile connected world.
Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'.
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'
If that’s not enough to make you think a bit then consider the fact that the Federal Trade Commission held a two-day workshop earlier this month on the future of journalism in the internet age. The great, the good and the greedy were all there and among the topics were tax law changes that would allow media companies to earn tax credits or even become tax-exempt entities. Copyright law changes that would force search engines and other online aggregators to compensate media companies for the content they produce and even a proposed change in antitrust rules to allow newspapers to jointly negotiate payments from web sites that use their content. There is even a proposed bill in progress by a Senator Cardin that would allow newspapers to restructure as non-profit organisations. What a change in mindset of government this is from even five years ago and all in pursuit, apparently, of a free and democratic press in our new mega-connected age.
And let's not even talk about a YouTube executive addressing a Westminster parliamentary group this week on the power of video sharing in the campaign process as we gird up our loins for the great electoral blowathon next year.
Yowzer!!
Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin'.
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'.
But, you ask, what's all this got to do with business alignment? Well, quite simply, business functions must align with technology functions or slip soundlessly into the mire of history.
The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin'.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'.
Thank you Bob Dylan – Quod Erat Demonstrandum
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