Thad McIlroy - The Future of Publishing

1. How Much Information? 2003

A famous study by faculty and students at the School of Information and Management Systems at the University of Berkeley.

Professor Hal Varian of the University of Berkeley and his colleagues set out to answer the enormous question "How much new information is created each year." This team of researchers estimates that the world's total yearly production of information in the four physical media of print, film, magnetic and optical content would require roughly 1.5 billion GB of storage, the equivalent of 250 MB per human. Where possible, they have also compared their findings to their similar study done in 2000, to find out how much the amount of information had increased. Read on...and try to get your mind around this one!

http://www2.sims.berkeley.edu/research/projects/how-much-info-2003/
http://www2.sims.berkeley.edu/research/projects/how-much-info-2003/printable_report.pdf

2. The Global Information Industry Center (GIIC)

Located here, this group "seeks to identify and describe through its research programs the underlying issues and consequences of technology enabled change in information and communications practices in government and industry, and those affecting individuals. The Center functions as a collaborative research and learning environment for faculty, industry professionals and students to engage in projects, discussion forums, and events focused on the major program areas of the Center."

The key program underway from the Center is intended as the follow-up to Dr. Varian's work mentioned above. Called, of course, How Much Information? (or HMI? for short), the long-term research project addresses: "What is the rate of new information growth each year? Who produces the greatest amounts of information annually? Individuals? Enterprises? How does information growth in North America compare with growth in other geographies, markets, and people globally?

"To answer these questions and others, an updated and expanded How Much Information? (HMI) research program is underway."

Some of the first research briefs are available for download.

3. How Much Information Is There In the World?
By Michael Lesk (http://www.lesk.com/mlesk/ksg97/ksg.html)

A shorter and more modest paper on Varian's topic, probably written about 1998.

4. HotTopics: Information Industry Outlook 2010: A New Dawn, New Day, New Decade
From Outsell Inc.

This yearly report from Outsell presents "information industry" predictions and expectations for the coming year. It's an good resource for getting a handle on the information industry. (It used to be free and 40 pages, but the 14-page 2009 report is $495!)

5. Slow Down, Brave Multitasker, and Don't Read This in Traffic,
by Steve Lohr, The New York Times, March 25, 2007

A very good overview of current theory and research into the failure of multitasking, whose ease of mastery is underestimated by too many "knowledge workers." "Several research reports, both recently published and not yet published, provide evidence of the limits of multitasking. The findings, according to neuroscientists, psychologists and management professors, suggest that many people would be wise to curb their multitasking behavior when working in an office, studying or driving a car."

6. Was I Right About The Dangers of The Internet in 1997?
by David Shenk, Slate, July 25, 2007

In 1997 Shenk published a book called Data Smog. He explains the genesis of the book: "...while doing research in Washington into public political knowledge, I started to realize that our postindustrial society was in the midst of a true phase shift - from information scarcity to information glut. Even for a culture with a basic faith in human progress and technology, such a transformation clearly presented serious personal and political challenges." This article revisits his study and its conclusions a decade later: he was mostly right!

7. Defining huge amounts of storage
It's always handy to have a simple reference nearby when trying to get your mind around the amount of information out there, expressed in computer storage terms.

kilobyte           KB       1000 bytes
megabyte        MB      1000 kilobytes
gigabyte          GB       1000 megabytes
terabyte           TB       1000 gigabytes
petabyte          PB       1000 terabytes
exabyte           EB       1000 petabytes
zettabyte         ZB       1000 exabytes
yottabyte         YB       1000 zettabytes

A piece of byte-sized trivia: According to Ian Ayres in his interesting book Super Crunchers: Why Thinking-by-Numbers is the New Way to Be Smart (New York: Bantam Books, 2007) the prefix "tera" derives from the ancient Greek word for monster, and as he comments: "A terabyte is truly a monstrously large quantity."

8. "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."
This quotation is attributed often to Mark Twain, who in turn attributed it to the British politician Benjamin Disraeli. The phrase has made its way into the title of several books on the abuse of statistics, including Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics: The Manipulation of Public Opinion in America by Michael Wheeler (published in 1976 and now quite dated), Damned Lies and Statistics: Untangling Numbers from the Media, Politicians, and Activists, by Joel Best (followed by More Damned Lies and Statistics: How Numbers Confuse Public Issues), and the 1954 classic How to Lie with Statistics by Darrell Huff. I'm very aware of this issue in my work on this website, and try as hard as I can to find data from multiple sources before putting forward an argument.

9. The Information Overload Research Group
The Information Overload Research Group seeks to "work together to build awareness of the world's greatest challenge to productivity, conduct research, help define best practices, contribute to the creation of solutions, share information and resources, offer guidance and facilitation, and help make the business case for fighting information overload." It includes a link to the:

10. Information Sanity blog
"Named for the challenges we all face managing the information that comes at us everyday, from every possible direction, making human attention a scarce commodity, this blog serves as a quick reference point for coping with information overload. See what we are up to - cool events, breaking news, interesting trends and industry commentary - in the spirit of providing relevant information to help you work smarter, faster and better." Not frequently updated...I'd like to find something better.