Like sand through an hourglass: how to stop information from flowing out of control.

• Author: Gatewood, Brent
• Position: Cover story

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From paper to smart phones, the simplicity of managing information is long gone. Today's technologies, the electronic information explosion, and a mobile workforce present unprecedented challenges. Here are solutions to some of the most common risks organizations are facing today.

Remember when ...

* Mobile data meant that someone had taken the folder to another room or desk.

* Information access was controlled by the file room staff and index cards listing who had access to which folders.

* The information age was ushered in through the use of barcodes and computer systems that tracked the location of file folders--if people remembered to scan them ...

Today, it is not so simple. Think about the information an employee touches in one day. How much of it is paper? Of that paper, how much was not created electronically?

The rate of electronic information growth is beyond staggering. Not long ago a terabyte (about 1,000 gigabytes) of information was considered to be a large number. Now, talk surrounds petabytes (about 1 million gigabytes)--and Cisco' recently wrote of the zettabyte era (about 1 trillion gigabytes).

With the volume of today's information and the information that is still coming, how can an organization remain compliant with its information governance policies and procedures? After all, many of these policies and procedures are based on standards and principles born m the "paper age," and they may not even be relevant to today's information sets.

This challenge is complicated by the need to do more with less, which pushes people to be more efficient with their time, more collaborative in teams, and often, more "free" with information and the tools they use to access it. Today, typical users are more computer literate than ever and interested in having the information they need to do their job at their fingertips.

Initially, giving users that quick and easy access sounded like a fantastic idea. Organizations could equip their teams with laptops and PDAs so they could be efficient, anywhere, at any time. Increasing employees' productivity with relatively small investments in technology tools should have been a win-win for both the individual and the organization, but it has created several information risks for organizations.

Defining the Issues

Following are the most prevalent consequences of enabling a mobile workforce that organizations now must address.

Data Growth and Storage Escalate

Often...