hourglassSean Connery, in The Untouchables, provided that warning.  It is just as true for policemen, like Connery played in that movie, as it is for information professionals.  History is ripe with examples of conflict where the outcome was determined completely by the state of technology and not at all by the people, intentions, well wishes, or morality involved.  If your goal is to provide cyber security, you had better be properly armed for the fight.

Our world is either well into the Information Age or on its cusp depending on who you ask.  Just as civilizations moved from the stone age to the bronze, iron, steel, and eventually the Industrial Age, we are all going to eventually end up next in the Information Age.  As an alternative, this period is sometimes referred to as the computer age, network age, or even digital age.

So how far into the Information Age might we be?  Well that depends on your source for its beginning.  What invention kicked it off?  A search results in these suggestions:

  1. Telegraph. The Smithsonian - Information Age: People, Information & Technology, An Exhibition at the National Museum of American History suggests that Samuel Morse’s original telegraph transmitter and receiver invented in 1837.
  2. World Wide Web. Wikipedia thinks that it is within 10 years of 1990 due to the launch of the World Wide Web.
  3. Printing Press. There are lots of votes for 1450 – the year of Guttenburg’s Printing Press.
  4. Transistor. Many votes for Bell Lab’s 1948 invention of the transistor.
  5. Google Launch. September 7, 1998.

Personally, I think that our move from the Industrial Age to the Information Age is well underway regardless of the actual start date.  Some civilizations, nations, companies, organizations, and people have clearly embraced this change and moved on to finding ways to thrive according to the new rules.  Unfortunately others have either been left behind or are just now coming to the realization that their entrenched methods are ill suited for new realities.

Does it matter if you don’t keep up?  You bet!  Some examples of where it had deadly serious consequences:

  1. The Battle of Hastings (1066). Costly, one-of-a kind, aristocratic English knights come onto the field of battle wearing the most advanced models of  personal armor riding on the greatest steeds that genetics can deliver.  They represent the absolute pinnacle of warfare to date.  They are slaughtered by hundreds of Norman gentry infantry in light, maneuverable leather and mail wielding the bow and crossbow.  The age of personal combat was brought to a rapid end by the beginning of the age of range weapons.  This first use of the crossbow in England was special because it ended one-on-one combat and began the age of composite warfare.  Wikipedia.
  2. World War II (1939). The German Blitzkrieg uses the radio and machine guns to coordinate air power and tanks to sweep across fields manned by Polish soldiers on horseback wielding spears.  They take over countries in a twentieth of the time usually required to even cross the same distance.  The age of maneuver warfare ends the age of the trench in a single blow.  Wikipedia.
  3. The Atom Bomb (1945). The American military deliver decisive blows in a two month period that produce more casualties than entire years of siege without any loss of life to their own country. Two large powers do not meet on the field of battle for the next 50 years.  The age of conventional warfare ended just like that.  Wikipedia.

While these examples happen to be of revolutions in military affairs, just as many examples of economic, scientific, and medical transformations exist to make the argument.  Organizations must constantly change to stay competitive.  This is the Information Age.  Have you and your team made the needed changes?  Do you act like protecting and maximizing the competitive advantage of your information is your primary focus?  Are your procurements, resources, people, training, planning, and research all aligned for this age?  If not, do not be surprised with the eventual outcome.

So take a look in your hand right now… are you holding a knife or a gun?  I don’t have to look at your competitors… They probably have little guns today with much bigger ones on the way.  Never bring a knife to a gun fight!