Electronic Information Systems

Surprisingly, despite the millions of pages on the web, there are few of them that rank high on the subject of "Electronic Information Systems."  In other words, there is no commercial resources offering to "modernize, migrate, integrate, maintain and standardize" the electronic information systems for a single firm.

Another common phrase, besides "electronic information system" is "digital information system."  This phrase may imply but does not specifically include the concept of information in an "electronic" form, since "digit" has the usual meaning of a "number" as opposed to a letter or symbol.

However, numbers translate very directly into computer entry and experience whereas "letters" have had to be converted into digital form in order to allow computers to manipulate letters and words. Thus, the word "digital" has now come to mean "electronic" since the most use of "digital" is in relation to the use of "digits" which also include a code set of the digital equivalent of letters and various symbols.  The modern "electronic world" required, first, a way of converting non-numeric information (such as words) into digits.  That has been done and is generally universally accepted.  (Different languages, particularly with different forms of letters have required, but have now attained, different conversion tables into digital information.

There are literally thousands of commercial resources for "web design," and many other services for "server based databases" or even "integration of eCommerce server services with your accounting program."  However, the grand subject of "electronic information" does not seem to be represented.

You can enter various phrases into your popular search engine and see what you find.  Using the phrase "electronic information system" and variations of those words, we have selected a few of the suggested pages -- none of which exactly fit the bill of what we think is missing in the market place, and which we offer to our clients.

When you compare "old" methods of creating, distributing and storing "data" you would expect to see old "paper" systems compared with modern electronic systems.

Here is a basic truth about "data."  There are two components to data.  One is the significance involved and the other is the physical form or "storage medium" in which that data exists.  The concept of "two apples" gives us the significance that there is a "count" of some item called "apples."  This data can reside as typewritten impressions on a piece of paper, or the same "impression" in a "form" made of paper.  Yet, if you want to handle data rapidly, and store it conveniently, the basic truth is that you remove from the "storage medium" as much "MASS" as you can.  Paper has mass.  The "significance of "two apples" can be stored on one large piece of paper, or on a "form" made of paper -- where certain data is "located" in a constant location on more such forms.  The more "paper" there is to hold the significance, the slower it will be to move it and the harder it will be to use it.  It will also, obviously, take more storage space.

If the "significance" of "two apples" can be located in a field of an electronic data base, the amount of "MASS" being occupied is far less, the mass of this data can be moved through electric wires rather than through mail pouches.  A "machine" can "read" the significance of "two apples" in the electronic data base in contrast to the need for a human eye-ball to understand the significance when it is an impression on a piece of paper.

So, as you remove the MASS from a piece of data, you can retain the significance and yet send, store or use this data in ways that can be millions of times faster and more efficient than for the same "data significance" as an impression on paper.

Electronic communications are far more than a revolution in our society -- compared to the old system, in existence only a few decades ago, electronic communications allows such speed of flow and ease of use and storage that every business or group should be transforming itself to take advantage of this technology.

In the September 2003-current news, the President of the NYSE had to resign his post because, supposedly, his pay package was TOO large -- at $140,000,000.  That is a lot.  But, behind that story is the larger one:

But then these revenues themselves have been suspect in the public mind lately. Shares of stock can in theory be traded everywhere and nowhere (in cyberspace), but the NYSE still captures a dominant chunk of the business thanks to a mixture of regulatory advantage and historical luck. Mr. Grasso did wonders bringing technology to bear and building the exchange's brand equity, but some believe the future of trading is all-electronic and that the NYSE has been dragging its feet mainly because the current system benefits insiders at the expense of the public. (source)

The "insiders" make literally billions of dollars in profits from antiquated and rigid rules that lock the investor away from electronic trading.   The Stock Exchange will soon bow to the inevitability of the electronic revolution that is sweeping the planet.  Take parts of the "physical universe" out of the stock trading system, replace those parts with an electronic information system, and billions of dollars will suddenly disappear from the pockets of people who couldn't see this trend coming!

That is the area of interest of Lucid Minds -- the "modernization" of data within any group to take full advantage of the electronic information system that has engulfed our society so quickly and so thoroughly that even many far-seeing thinkers do not yet see the changes coming along.

Some hundred years ago, when the "pony express" was our method of moving (paper) mail, it could take many weeks for a message to travel from the sender to the recipient.  For sake of example, say that the Pony Express rider carried 1000 pages of data on paper from Missouri to California -- a distance of some 2,000 miles.  (see further data)

About 140 years ago this route was developed in a Pony Express system that ultimately involved 400 horses and 165 stations for the weekly (both directions) service.  On a good run a piece of mail could travel this distance in about two weeks, at a cost that got down as low as $1 for 1/2 ounce, or about $32 per pound.  Men and horses were cheap in those days, but the MASS involved was something like 500,000 pounds for horses, riders and equipment.  If an average "pouch" held 10 pounds of mail, you could estimate that less than 100 pounds of mail per month was traveling, or about 1,200 pounds per year.  It looks like this system yielded about $40,000 per year in revenue.

Today an small cargo airplane could travel that 2000 mile distance in about 8 hours, carry 7,500 pounds of mail:

Airplanes, other than turbojet powered airplanes, having a maximum passenger-seat configuration of 9 seats or less, excluding each crewmember seat, and a maximum payload capacity of 7,500 pounds or less; or (source)

Such a plane might weigh as much as 25,000 pounds make the 2000 mile trip 15 times per week, and carry about 500,000 pounds of mail per year. 

There would be a lot of variables to figure, taking into account inflation, cost of operation of the airplane, postage charges, etc., but it is not hard to see that mail moves far more efficiently and cheaply by airplane than by pony express.

The comparable picture for the cost of sending this same data by eMail staggers the mind in terms of efficiency and cost.

The progression from Pony Express to eMail involves a dramatic reduction in the amount of mass involved in the transportation, almost an infinite increase in speed, and virtually a cost of zero.

The movement of data has entered into a range almost unbelievable to us today, yet it is common that the speed of that same data between the "connection points" is not much faster than it ever was.

When that data is originated in an electronic form and at the very instant of creation travels to a distant location where is is used in some program that calculates further and useful data, the electronic data system begins to exceed the wonders even of eMail delivery results.

Many firms and groups have adopted eMail, for instance, or other high speed, low cost data "transmission" systems, but not yet integrated that data handling into the "next" system which might be a computer-based sales analysis, for instance.  Obviously, many have done this, but still many others have not.

Lucid Minds offers, within its services, the rapid creation, transmission, use and storage of data within a total system -- an integrated system of electronic data handling.