Awaiting the era of living data.

It may be a decade in the offing, but management consultant and futurist Thornton A. May predicts an era of living data that grows exponentially, that will dramatically reshape business and industry.

"We are a mere 10 years away from the day when every molecule on this planet could be assigned an Internet protocol address," observes May in a recent Boston Globe article. "Such a possibility underscores our need to intellectually grasp the massive changes afoot in the evolution of information and its management."

Sports and the military are two fields where living data are gaining a foothold, according to the Boston Globe. "Statisticians use sabermetric [systematic or scientific] analysis to plot baseball strategy ... and advanced command-and-control technology and an accelerated OODA (observe, orient, decide, and act) loop give U.S. forces a war-fighting advantage."

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The coming flood of data will require new core skills. May envisions a "three-step process--data to information, information to knowledge, and knowledge to actionable behavior--that will determine the winners and losers in business competition."