Introducing our new Data Explosion channel, hosted by Matt Prigge, InfoWorld’s newest expert blogger When I first asked Matt Prigge to blog for InfoWorld and take the lead in our new Data Explosion channel, he took a while to get back to me. Eventually I got this response: “The reason I didn’t e-mail you back sooner was because I was buried in building a storage proposal for a client that is experiencing exactly this problem. Even our SMB clients are buying 4TB SANs because their data has gotten so unwieldy.”The “problem” he was referring to, of course, is the exponential growth of enterprise data. At InfoWorld we believe this challenge is the elephant in the room for IT, which spends a huge quantity of time and money on storage provisioning, management, and data protection. Matt’s new blog, Information Overload, will provide advice borne of experience across all aspects of the topic, from tuning the performance of primary storage to selecting cloud services for disaster recovery.[ InfoWorld’s new Data Explosion channel is our latest “site within a site”; other popular hangouts include Adventures in IT, Developer Word, Mobilize, and Security Central. ] Matt is clearly the right guy for the job. Like most InfoWorld contributors, he actually works in IT, and in his current capacity as a systems architect for an independent consultancy, he’s seen what the data explosion looks like on the front lines. (Those of you who have attended InfoWorld’s virtualization events may remember his standing-room-only presentations.) As his bio says, “If there’s a technology in use in enterprises today, chances are he’s designed it, built it, fixed it, and supported it — sometimes all in the same day.”But Matt would be the first to say that the managing the data explosion goes beyond technology point solutions. As he advises in his first post, the “failure to think through a plan at a high level is where many go wrong.” The ultimate goal of his Information Overload blog is to help people responsible for enterprise storage and data security to create a long-term strategy that works for their organization.As InfoWorld’s editor in chief, I feel lucky to work with thought leaders like Matt who offer genuine insight — the kind you only get from working in the trenches — that culminates in a strategic vision that, on good days at least, helps our readers excel at their jobs. Please join me in welcoming Matt Prigge to the InfoWorld club. This story, “InfoWorld tackles information overload,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Follow the latest developments in storage at InfoWorld.com.