The next big information industry

The wash of information has risen so near to flood stage that Jeong Kim, the most recent president of Bell Labs, has suggested that the future of communications will be defined by an industry yet to be created—not the kind of business that simply delivers or searches out information, but one that manages the tide of information so that it doesn't drown us. At least in the communications industry, the greatest innovative challenge on the horizon Kim says, is "to organize information in a way that allows you to live the way you want to live, to take time off with your kids without fear you're going to miss out on something."

Jon Gertner, The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation (New York: Penguin, 2012), p. 343