Axioms for 21st Century Media

I found these yesterday while looking through my notes for something else. Lightly edited.-- dc

Feb. 11, 2009:

1. The present is functionally obsolete.
2. For planning purposes, the short-term future IS the present.
3. Planning for the short-term is not a strategy. It's like navigating solely by what you can see.
4. There is no map, and the future is not predictable. Consequently, shoot for standard formats (XML, RDF, etc.) and build products and systems to be adaptable and inter-operable.
5. Don't build your future on a rock. Build your future on a surfboard. We're not on dry land anymore.
6. Proprietary systems are rocks. Open Source systems are surfboards.
7. Own your data.
8. Think databases, not documents.
9. Unstructured data has a value that approaches zero as it ages.
10. Structured data is too formal to describe the messy world around us.
11. Semi-structured data looks like the Goldilocks Zone for news media.
12. The One With The Best Tools Wins.
13. Web 1.0 is to the Web as rotary phones are to telecommunication: Rotary phones still work, but they're irrelevant to what comes next.
14. The challenge is: Build tools that give humans superhuman abilities.
15. Technology is just evolution by non-biological means.

Comments

[Stoo]

That's very impressive; I think these 15 points are going to become my mantra as a developer from now on.

[Viv Lonsdale]

I don't agree with 9. I think that unstructured data has a value of zero regardless of time.

For example. If I stood on the edge of a tall building and tore all the pages out of a book (converting it from structured information, to unstructured information). The individual pages values from moment of release, to hitting the ground would not changed. Time has nothing to do with the devaluing of data. Only the ability to organise/disorganise data can change its value.