October 31, 2003

Well, duh. That's why it's

Well, duh. That's why it's called the information age. Sink or swim.

A few academics in Berkeley (which makes anything they say suspect, of course) claim that we are "drowning in a rising sea of information."

Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, say the amount of information being generated worldwide has increased by 30% each year since 1999, and that the amount being stored has doubled in that time.

That's great! Knowledge is power. But psychologist David Lewis disagrees:

But last night David Lewis, a psychologist who works with big business to tackle stress and information-overload problems, said: "I certainly think there's a data overload - and an awful lot of the data that is generated is entirely redundant. Information is something which is valuable, which you can use. Data is just junk."

My emphasis. At least one psychologist admits that data is unimportant to him. One might argue that that proves that psychology is not a hard science. But I digress.

Data is the source of information. Data is refined to make information. People are usually paid to refine data into useful information. data : information :: gold ore : wedding ring

And the more information you have, the more power you have over your business. That's the job of the manager: To understand the information and guide the company with it. That's why people have been trying to get this kind of information in the first place; that's the whole "Information Technology" industry.

Besides, who made Berkeley academics the arbiter of how much information is too much? The arrogance of these people, honestly!

Posted by Blog Jones at October 31, 2003 09:56 PM
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