I read this article on the BBC website. It’s all about a problem that we might be facing sooner rather than later: the “data ticking time bomb”.

The changes that are happening with such a brisk pace in technology seem to be making it harder rather than easier for us to access data that was created and saved 10 years ago. File formats and storage systems are changing rapidly (who still uses floppy disks???), and there is growing concern that archiving digital information might become trickier as time and technology progress. After all, we still need to be able to access digital information that we are creating now in 10 years time, and we also need to be able to alter that information if needed.

I had a discussion with web designer Matthew Kerr. He agreed that one solution is to use open file formats, which means anyone can make a program which can read them. A database of files still won’t help if it is in a proprietary format, no matter how open the access to the files are, if the format of the files is not open, it will cause this archiving problem.
I think that online archives are another good step in the right direction. If you as an organization work collaboratively on documents (in form of Wikis for example) you can leave the documents online in an html format, which should be readable by a number of browsers and new release browsers in years to come. It is also easily accessible.

These online archives are very useful tools, not only for archiving itself, but also for communicating. More and more organizations are switching from email to Wikis, because it just makes much more sense – time-wise and data-wise. And most of all: it promotes open conversations! Matthew had another good point though: it is possible to be socially open while using closed software and formats, as is the converse.

What do you think?