Just couple of days ago, one of my twins asked: ‘Mummy what is your New Year Resolution’? I said: ‘Oh! I don’t know except I need to get rid of my old TV and cancel my TV licence’.
When I said ‘old’ it’s over 20+ years aged Sony TV. Still working fine except the remote sensor is not working. Anyhow I cancelled my TV licence yesterday via e-mail and wasn’t too sure what I need to do to ‘disconnect’ my set. Phew! I am glad it’s a simple disconnect of cables from my set (to ‘show’ that I won’t be using my TV for recording or receiving programmes). Amazing…it’s not something I imagine doing i.e. disconnecting my TV…sounds rather weird in this age of gadgets and the likes.
Maybe soon the ‘TV’ set (like my ‘old’ TV) will be revamped or re-classified to be something else to cater for the ‘digital TV’. Will TV still be ‘TV’ and not ‘HD TV or digital TV or something TV’?
Classification sounds easy but is it?
In ediscovery/edisclosure, searching for ESI assumes that the data has a hook or a ‘name’ or being indexed or classified to denote the nature of the ‘data’. As the nature of ‘data’ changes and also the storage of it or the gadgets that hold it changes, classification requires far more imagination than simply throwing out the ‘old’ ( like me cancelling my TV licence via e-mail. Oh! the physical cancellation paper to follow 
).
Beyond my TV room, apparently there’s an ongoing trade dispute due to ‘old’ or outdated Informational Technology Agreement (ITA) whereby the ITA is obsolete due to problems with classification of new multifunctional digital devices (like the new digital TV). For old and still relevant news, do check out the report at egov. A pretty long winded article to report on a problem with classification of digital devices, not easy eh?
Will classification of data or ESI become a matter of dispute in the ediscovery space? So far, from the list supplied by Kroll Ontrack Inc. in their ‘Year In Review’ report (the US ediscovery landscape), classification issue is not on their top charts (yet).
I suspect the majority of blog readers/subscribers are aware that the platforms in the clouds such as facebook (e.g. the landmark case in Australia) and twitter (big companies using this to connect and tweet with their customers) are sources of ESI. As mobile technology gets more integrated with these clouds of information the ‘Future Year in Review’ list (like the list compiled by Kroll Ontrack Inc.) will not just be ‘process-oriented’ but also ‘platform-oriented’ or rather infrastructure related. No doubt the question of classification will emerge with the discoverable or reasonably accessible issues like the disputes around the obsolete ITA. It will be tweets against search criteria or algorithm. Now the 140 characters tweets or twitters are surely more accessible than the zillion of e-mails, right? Well…like I say classification sounds easy…
I will invade the twitter dome this year for some fun.