Information Storage today reminds me of the automobile industry just before the Japanese began to impact the market. Those glorious days of flat head V-8s, in-line 6 cylinders, long flowing, racy tail-fins and 6-9 miles to the gallon. A designers dream? GM told me they were giving me “What I asked for and wanted!”. I drove a Volkswagen bug (beetle) at that time and never looked back.
My happiest years were in Japanese cars. So driver/owner oriented!!!

I wish I could say the same about Storage products.
My memory of Storage products is all the “good ones” that disappeared into some black hole and the endless gamesmanship with the Storage “lawyers”. I wish I had video of every time I asked for something really useful to me and they fell down laughing.

Here is one of the influences driving the change:
“Why Applications Are Like Fish and Data is Like Wine”
http://redmonk.com/jgovernor/2007/04/05/why-applications-are-like-fish-and-data-is-like-wine/

Which leads directly to this:
“Data is the Intel Inside?”
http://www.accmanpro.com/2006/10/page/8/

but more importantly to “pace layering”:
“Learning, Doing, Selling: 2006 IA Summit Wrapup: Monday”
http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/learning_doing_selling_2006_ia_summit_wrapup_monday#donnamaurer

“IA Summit 2006: Main Conference details”
http://iasummit.org/2006/conferencedescrip.htm#164

“From Pace Layering to Resilience Theory: The Complex Implications of Tagging for Information Architecture”
http://iasummit.org/2006/files/164_Presentation_Desc.pdf

A PowerPoint Presentation of the paper above:
http://iasummit.org/2006/files/164_Presentation_Desc.ppt

Mashups and Tagging: Which Pace Layer are they in?
“Mashing my own personal Blogosphere”
http://chieftech.blogspot.com/2007/04/mashing-my-own-personal-blogosphere.html

Some great “Entity Relationship” maps from mashups, tagging and blogging:
“Exploring Enron”
http://www.accmanpro.com/2006/10/26/exploring-enron/

“Blogroll-graph”
http://www.metaportaldermedienpolemik.net/blog/Blog/2007-04-04/blogroll-graph

“Social Networks and Blogs to Save a Life”
http://rohitbhargava.typepad.com/weblog/2005/07/social_networks.html

I wish all Storage came with the ability to build “Entity Relationship” maps for the dual purposes of Information for the LOB (Line of Business) and for IT Portfolio Management and “Pay it Forward”. The ability to build a “Risk Relationship” entity map is critical to the “Consumerization of IT”.

There is still the ongoing discussion of whether these tools should be in the Storage box or outside. Think about the Pace Layering approach. The LOB has different Information needs than the IT Portfolio Management. Different layers, different information. Why not?
Dream the Impossible Dream! “Field of Dreams, Build it and they will come!”.

“Pay it Forward”, it’s everywhere!
“Consumerization of IT”, it’s everywhere!!!
How do you “Pay it Forward!” for the “Consumerization of IT”?

Wikibon
http://www.wikibon.org/index.php?title=Home
Since then I have lived on that site.

Go to the Wikibon home page.
Select any topic and enjoy the ride.
Or go to “Storage Research Domains” and pick any topic.
A couple of my “Pay it Forward” favorites are:
“Organizational imperatives for future perfect records management”
and:
“Recovery point objective / recovery time objective strategy”

Dave Vellante makes a fine point in:
“Google?s SLAs: Fine print gives false hope”
http://www.wikibon.org/index.php?title=Google%27s_SLAs:_Fine_print_gives_false_hope

“Pay it Forward”