3/13/2011

Data Overload Has Economic Costs - N

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OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR

The Digital Pileup

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By SHELLEY PODOLNY
Published: March 12, 2011

SOME facts of life are just plain counterintuitive. It can be too cold
to snow. Heavy things float. Martinis have calories.
Heres another one with significantly greater import: Electronic
information is tangible. The apps we use, the games on our phones,
the messages we incessantly tap all of it may seem to fly through
the air and live in some cloud, but in truth, most of it lands with a
thump in the earthly domain.

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Because electronic information seems invisible, we underestimate

the resources it takes to keep it all alive. The data centers dotting
the globe, colloquially known as server farms, are major power
users with considerable carbon footprints. Such huge clusters of servers not only require
power to run but must also be cooled. In the United States, its estimated that server
farms, which house Internet, business and telecommunications systems and store the
bulk of our data, consume close to 3 percent of our national power supply. Worldwide,
they use more power annually than Sweden.
But its not the giants like Google or Amazon or Wall Street investment banks that are
responsible for creating the data load on those servers its us. Seventy percent of the
digital universe is generated by individuals as we browse, share, and entertain ourselves.
And the growth rate of this digital universe is stunning to contemplate.
The current volume estimate of all electronic information is roughly 1.2 zettabytes, the
amount of data that would be generated by everyone in the world posting messages on
Twitter continuously for a century. That includes everything from e-mail to YouTube.
More stunning: 75 percent of the information is duplicative. By 2020, experts estimate
that the volume will be 44 times greater than it was in 2009. There finally may be, in fact,
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Proliferating information takes a human toll, too, as it becomes more difficult to wade
through the digital detritus. Were all breeding (and probably hoarding) electronic
information. Insensitive to our data-propagating power, we forward a joke on a Monday
that may produce 10 million copies by Friday probably all being stored somewhere.
nytimes.com/2011//13podolny.html?

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3/13/2011

Data Overload Has Economic Costs - N

Despite the conveniences our online lives provide, we end up being buried by data at
home and at work. An overabundance of data makes important things harder to find and
impedes good decision-making. Efficiency withers as we struggle to find and manage the
information we need to do our jobs. Estimates abound on how much productivity is lost
because of information overload, but all of them are in the hundreds of millions of
dollars yearly.
In the corporate realm, companies stockpile data because keeping it seems easier than
figuring out what they can delete. This behavior has hidden costs and creates risks of
security and privacy breaches as data goes rogue.
In addition, large corporations face eye-popping litigation costs when they search for
information that may be evidence in a lawsuit so-called e-discovery that can add up
to millions of dollars a year. Cases are often settled because its cheaper to just pay up.
With so many resource challenges facing them, most companies postpone the effort and
cost of managing their data.
Technological innovation usually carries with it the seeds that spawn solutions. The
demand for power by big and small players alike is driving development of energy
alternatives and data center innovation. Artificial intelligence and other more
sophisticated information retrieval processes are making a dent in the cost of ediscovery and can also help rid companies of their stockpiles. Advances in cloud
computing and virtual storage will help consolidate applications and data. But it might
still be a question as to whether the planet can continue to feed our digital appetite.
Improvements in the digital highway usually just lead to more traffic, and were in
danger of data asphyxiation as it is.
Is there anything we can do? No one wants to give up the pleasures and benefits that the
digital domain provides. But we can at least wake up to the toll that its taking and search
for solutions. We can live a productive digital life without hoarding information. As
stockholders and consumers, we can demand that our companies and service providers
aggressively engage in data-reduction strategies. We can clean up the stockpiles of dead
data that live around us, be wiser data consumers, text less and talk more. We can try
hitting delete more often.

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While some will be tempted to argue that it wont make much of a dent, we have to give it
a shot. As with any conservation effort, its the small actions of a large group that end up
making the difference.
Shelley Podolny works for a company that advises corporations on information
management.
A version of this op-ed appeared in print on March 13, 2011, on page
WK11 of the New York edition.
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Data Overload Has Economic Costs - N

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