The Evernden Eight - the 8 key factors for architecting information							Introduction
Categories	Understanding	Presentation	Evolution	Knowledge	Responsibility	Process	Meta Levels

Factor 4 - Evolution is all about changes that might happen to the information over time.

Some information naturally falls out of date with the passage of time. This week's lottery results are more interesting when I am checking my lottery ticket; more lottery players check their results in the week following the draw than in subsequent weeks, so the draw numbers become less useful.

Questions associated with levels of evolution include:

• Is the information undergoing any form of transition?
• Is it likely to change in the future?
• Has it changed in the past?
• Will it be redesigned or restructured in any way?
• If so, what is the impact on us? Does this create any new opportunities?

It is sometimes difficult to identify whether any evolution is likely to take place, for example there may be changes that are totally outside our control - the local council may be planning to rename the road, post office may allocate a new postcode, or the county boundary might change.

If we know that the address is the home of a customer and that they are planning to buy a new house, then we could expect to update this information when they move. We could consider the possible use of barcodes or other formalisation of the postcode to make distribution of post more efficient through automated sorting.

A good example where level of evolution is important is in keeping track of information about product sales and marketing - where hopefully there is a steady increase in commercial success.

Our address is relatively unchanging. Many corporations make the mistake of treating all of their information as if it is unchanging - which explains the high proportion of data that is regarded as inaccurate and out-of-date.