This note is for the record.
Humans generate a significant amount of data with every action they take. This includes not only transaction data but also data by not making a transaction. For example, not purchasing a vehicle adds to the data about the number of people who own used cars. Data is a function of probabilities. The more probabilities, the higher the uncertainty, the greater the number of possibilities. Each existence of each possibility, chosen or not, is a data point. The chosen possibility, in the context of the ones not chosen, is a piece of information.
Before 1950 this data was, as a rule, not captured. The technology did not exist. So events occurred that were not recorded (i.e., data not captured). After the development of technology (other than punch cards) that would record events the amount of data collected increased geometrically. Added to this foundation was the increased capacity to transmit and/or store data. Finally computing. Computing (with stored programs) provided an automated capability for generating information from the data. Information is the output that results from the organization and/or analysis of data. For example, recording sales creates data. Organizing the sales by date provide information (albeit at a low level of complexity).
An individual today in addition to producing some work output also creates potential value with each action taken because that action (a data point) can be compared to the actions not taken (the other possibilities). Never before (i.e., before 1950) did humans produce data in addition to producing work. It is the production of this data (and its analysis) that is the real foundation for the information age. The digitizing of previously recorded data represents a small percentage of the data/information in the world.
When we discuss the "information age" it is essential to take into consideration the fact that humans are producing data/information at a prodigious rate.
In addition the data related to the possible actions of humans, there is data about the potential actions (and resulting facts) of the physical world.
As a result, we propose that the human world is dividing into two fields: people who generate data by their behavior (action or non-action) and people who in addition to generating data by their behavior also capture, transmit, analyze, etc. that data to generate information.
