This past Wednesday I drove to Las Vegas from LA to attend pubcon 2008 and to celebrate my birthday. Driving to Las Vegas, I had some time to decompose, do some deep thinking and watch the moon rise in front of me and the sun setting in my rear view mirror.

ReZ was asking what “IT” means. We both came to the conclusion after much analysis that IT = Information Technology. Now most of us think of ITT Tech logo when we think about IT, so most people never put it together. That Information Technology “IT”… is what it is. I think if you take a step back, you can call IT… it.

Well IT is it and if you would like to read on, I will tell you why.

Everything that is us is information and the technology that manages that information will is it.

You’ve read the mission “to organize all the world’s information”. That is today’s mission. What about tomorrow? Compare today’s technology capabilities versus 10 years ago. What happens when all the information leaves our computers? Leaves 8GB mini flash cards, 160GB iPods and all of sudden you have unlimited space in the “cloud”, available to you anywhere, everywhere without limitations?

We all crave the newest and the coolest technology. People wait in lines, sleep in the rain and endure embarrassment to be the first with the newest technology that does what? Technology that stores information.

Now let’s fast forward and take a snapshot of the evolutionary timeframe and really think about information technology and see how “IT is what it is”, because what IT is right now, is only relative to what IT will be in the future.

In the near future, we will begin to collect all of our individual information in one place. The massive collective computing power of the world “the cloud” will unite through uniform definitions and precise data locations of the information (i.e. Semantic Web). No more will we hop 13 servers and send our request around the world to get to the real location of the information.

Furthermore, information will be stored where it is accessed. Instead of information being cached and duplicated on many servers, the information will be readily accessible through the cloud and thus be available to everyone within 1 hop from your location. Instant access without wait from any device. Wow!

Information you see in your inbox and in the senders sent box will be one location. Media, files and documents will have one central location in which it is readily accessed by anyone with the correct credentials.

We will all be omni-connected utilizing and accessing the worlds computing power and storage capabilities to access media, education and people instantly with the power of a keyword search.

Let’s dive deeper down the rabbit hole shall we?

What happens when we are all connected, our GPS is enabled at all times and satellites can pinpoint and watch our every move, and every information technology session transaction using any device (i.e. credit card transaction, text message, internet access, gps signal, ipod play) is stored in one location online?

We will begin the creation of a breadcrumb “footprint” of all based on information in which one can replay your life with a power of a click.

Do you remember 10 years ago? 1% of the world knew how to click a mouse. Now everyone is connected to information al la cell phones. Now imagine within our lifetime, you can replay your life with a power of a click?

Now I personally know a few neurologists and mad scientists out there that are staying up late nights, drinking redbull’s, and devising ways to connect the brain to the computer and send and receive data transparently? Don’t believe me, watch this video before proceeding.

What if this “information technology “IT” was able to record the inputs from your eyes, ears and mouth? Obviously that information will be instantly saved to the cloud and readily accessible at a moment’s request.

But what alarms me is who is going to store this information. It can’t be one government, state, country. The world is too segregated by inefficiencies and the fear of the loss of power to any physical country.

But what if there was a new country, not bound to physicality, but its presence was in the air stored with no country boundaries. It will be corporate, an entity with a name synonymous with “one world” a.k.a Google <- Click the link for confirmation. This company will control and store all the world’s information per its mission statement.

As we evolve, as information evolves, storage limitations will cease to exist because the need to duplicate content coupled with the extreme compression of information multiplied by the ability to store pepabtyes of data in a device as small as a cell phone. (1 pepabyte = 1,000 Terabytes, or 1 pepabyte = 1,000,000 GB).

Zoom out, let’s come full circle here. Information is what we are, it’s the driving force of our current evolutionary track and soon someday we will be timeless not bound to any physical storage device or embodiment. We as a human race will be available through the cloud with all of our past (“conversations, thoughts, sensory memories and data”) readily accessible at a keyword search combined with your brains AI and emotional settings and triggers ready to compute new data it receives. Furthermore, we will be connected to others combining all of our information powering the central computer with new data to make available to others and thus your thoughts will be connected to your friends thoughts and understood correctly though the human operating system.

It makes you think that Information technology is what it is for us as a human race. Thus validating “it is what it is”. Most importantly, defining what “it” is. It = Information Technology.

Accept it, live it, want it because it is what it is, and nothing will change that.