Our discussion in class today made me think of the related concepts of information overload and the lawyer's job as data wrangler (I think I made that one up.)
I'm offering this Wired magazine article as a further addition to our XML conversation, particularly the parts to do with XBRL and SEC-mandated reporting.
Here's a neat excerpt from Wired:
"But the volume of data obscures more than it reveals; financial reporting has become so transparent as to be invisible.... Undoubtedly, the warning signs of our current crisis - and the next one! - lie somewhere in all those [securities] filings, but good luck finding them."
However, this theme of information overload is going to be a recurring one in the rest of this course and in our lives. We'll talk about it more especially when we discuss e-discovery.
But just think about how much more information there is out there now. It holds true on any level, whether its computer storage space. I remember the first time I heard of a 100GB hard drive thinking it was ridiculous. Now 1TB (terabyte) is no big deal. I won't be surprised when 1 PB (Petabyte) rolls around in a few years. This is also true for the ever-increasing tide of SEC filings. We are also consuming more information ourselves, as this study (among many others) attests. What will be the effects?
In a more business-oriented context, the special report at the center of this week's Economist magazine is on "The Data Deluge." I haven't had a chance to read it yet, but I look forward to it. I also encourage you to think about what this information explosion means to the future of lawyers and if there is anything to my "data wrangler" idea.
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