Our protected information is represented by the core, our normal business information by the mantle and our publicly broadcast information by the crust. The core is relatively small, the mantle very thick and the crust quite thin. Information Flow . With that image of a big ball of information in your mind, imagine that it's made up not of solid matter, but of countless threads carrying streams of information. These threads are our phone calls, letters, messages, electronic mail, records and all the other myriad means by which we store and exchange information.
Some threads touch thousands or millions of other points, some reach only between two people.
All shift constantly as we continually redefine our information exchanges. This is a visionary perspective of our information environment or infosphere. There are nodes where information streams are transformed in some way, and traffic cops along the threads that help route and direct things. Over the past few years, our infosphere has grown, fueled by the proliferation of new delivery systems like electronic mail. We may be sending less paper through the mail, but our reduction in paper has been more than balanced by increased use of e-mail.