Here's a fascinating data storage challenge. According to New Scientist magazine (1), the new Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in CERN Geneva, Switzerland, is expected to churn out 450 million GB of data during the next 15 years. But what exactly does that mean? Well, broken down it equates to an average of 9.5 GB/min round the clock. And just how big is a gigabyte? 1 Gigabyte could hold the contents of about 10 yards of books on a shelf (2). So imagine being tossed almost 100 yards worth of books per minute! If you are starting to talk in tera bytes (3) that's 82 TB/day. Can you imagine storing that amount of data? How long would a backup take!
It does raise a good question though. Are we storing our data efficiently? While storing it digitally is more cost effective than storing physical documents, could it be that we have duplicated data across the network? It pays to have a way of organizing data so that this doesn't occur. As you can see, for small amounts of data this is not a problem but as it grows, well..., just look at what smashing atoms gets you.
1 Paul Marks, 8 December 2007
2 http://www.whatsabyte.com/
3 1TB = thousand gigabytes
4 (450,000,000/3)/8,765 = 3,423 GB/hour
Monday, December 10, 2007
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Starting Document Management
What Do I Need to Manage My Documents?
Even if you had limitless funds, what would be the best solution for your business? The temptation is to buy a product that does everything except make fresh coffee. Often the fear of having overlooked some small feature, which later becomes an essential one, causes us to buy the 'Enterprise' version - just in case. One of the dangers with this approach, apart from the heftier initial cost, is that it will involve more and lengthier training. Also, general maintenance will cost more. In some cases, the system just becomes too cumbersome for the average user who, somewhat understandably, resorts to re-filing documents the now 'old-fashioned' way. Do you remember looking at 25+ buttons on a photocopier when all you wanted was a quick reproduction!
What to Do?
Start with thinking about what it is you need to manage.
How many documents do you have?
Where are those documents now?
Where would you like them to be?
Who would you like to be able to retrieve them?
While these may appear to be basic questions, they do help focus our minds on the potential benefits. It may not be readily appreciated just how much business information flows through a business. When you can see boxes of files piled up in a corner or a stack of folders (yes piles of documents equate to work load) on the edge of a desk you get a feel for how much there is. But scanning folders on a hard drive does not give you the same grasp. And just how much documentation do we process electronically?
According to Herbert L. Roitblat, Ph.D., "More than 90% of the average company’s communications are electronic." He then adds this poignant observation: "When dealing with paper based documents, the limited space available for filing cabinets was a strong incentive to save only the documents that were actually needed. Employees had to make an effort to file a document. With electronic documents, the opposite is true. There is very little incentive to discard an email message, early draft, or other electronic document. They do not take up perceptibly more space in the office. Rather than having to decide to keep a document, employees have to make an effort to delete electronic documents." So, by default paper documents get discarded while electronic documents get stored.
Joseph Menchaca, CPA and president of EmeraldKey Technologies, Inc also observed: "Document management has become a critical challenge for CPA and accounting firms due to the tremendous amount of paperwork generated by their tax, audit and financial services operations. [...] today’s firms are quickly moving toward electronic or paperless document management processes." He discusses how you may manage your documents using software tools you already have. He also suggests "The best place to begin is to appoint someone on your staff as the designated “Chief Documents Officer,” (CDO) whose sole responsibility is to meet all present and future document management requirements." While this may seem like overkill for a small business, it does make sense to designate someone to pursue the document management initiative. Give them some ownership, some reward and follow through. Start with a pilot project which can potentially show benefits before you put all your interns to feeding the scanner machine. This will help launch, and more importantly, sustain a larger initiative.
Sources:
1. http://www.discoveryresources.org/pdfFiles/Proactive_Solutions.pdf
2. http://www.accountingsoftware411.com/AcctSoftware.nsf/00/TIS1220058AB
Even if you had limitless funds, what would be the best solution for your business? The temptation is to buy a product that does everything except make fresh coffee. Often the fear of having overlooked some small feature, which later becomes an essential one, causes us to buy the 'Enterprise' version - just in case. One of the dangers with this approach, apart from the heftier initial cost, is that it will involve more and lengthier training. Also, general maintenance will cost more. In some cases, the system just becomes too cumbersome for the average user who, somewhat understandably, resorts to re-filing documents the now 'old-fashioned' way. Do you remember looking at 25+ buttons on a photocopier when all you wanted was a quick reproduction!
What to Do?
Start with thinking about what it is you need to manage.
While these may appear to be basic questions, they do help focus our minds on the potential benefits. It may not be readily appreciated just how much business information flows through a business. When you can see boxes of files piled up in a corner or a stack of folders (yes piles of documents equate to work load) on the edge of a desk you get a feel for how much there is. But scanning folders on a hard drive does not give you the same grasp. And just how much documentation do we process electronically?
According to Herbert L. Roitblat, Ph.D., "More than 90% of the average company’s communications are electronic." He then adds this poignant observation: "When dealing with paper based documents, the limited space available for filing cabinets was a strong incentive to save only the documents that were actually needed. Employees had to make an effort to file a document. With electronic documents, the opposite is true. There is very little incentive to discard an email message, early draft, or other electronic document. They do not take up perceptibly more space in the office. Rather than having to decide to keep a document, employees have to make an effort to delete electronic documents." So, by default paper documents get discarded while electronic documents get stored.
Joseph Menchaca, CPA and president of EmeraldKey Technologies, Inc also observed: "Document management has become a critical challenge for CPA and accounting firms due to the tremendous amount of paperwork generated by their tax, audit and financial services operations. [...] today’s firms are quickly moving toward electronic or paperless document management processes." He discusses how you may manage your documents using software tools you already have. He also suggests "The best place to begin is to appoint someone on your staff as the designated “Chief Documents Officer,” (CDO) whose sole responsibility is to meet all present and future document management requirements." While this may seem like overkill for a small business, it does make sense to designate someone to pursue the document management initiative. Give them some ownership, some reward and follow through. Start with a pilot project which can potentially show benefits before you put all your interns to feeding the scanner machine. This will help launch, and more importantly, sustain a larger initiative.
Sources:
1. http://www.discoveryresources.org/pdfFiles/Proactive_Solutions.pdf
2. http://www.accountingsoftware411.com/AcctSoftware.nsf/00/TIS1220058AB
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