Beyond Email Information Overload Blogs Wikis Always Connected Why Copyright 2008 by Helene G Kershner Beyond Email Information Overload Can you have too much information Copyright 2008 by Helene G Kershner Beyond Email Information Overload Can you be Too Busy to Notice You re Too Busy Alex Eben Meyer http www nytimes com 2007 03 31 business 31shortcuts html r 1 oref slogin Copyright 2008 by Helene G Kershner Beyond Email Information Overload Google type in Information Overload You get 3 630 000 hits Last semester at this point in the semester there were 1 900 000 hits An entire series of photos and cartoons are available to browse Research papers have been published from all over the world There was more information on information overload than I could actually manage Copyright 2008 by Helene G Kershner Beyond Email Information Overload Is this the image of an Information Junkie http www mathewingram com work tag cool page 2 Copyright 2008 by Helene G Kershner Beyond Email Information Overload http www usg edu galileo skills unit08 credit08 01 phtml Copyright 2008 by Helene G Kershner Beyond Email Information Overload Copyright 2008 by Helene G Kershner Beyond Email Information Overload Know what you know Are you suffering from information overload We develop technologies that enable access to your hidden knowledge and help you manage your data efficiently http www kno10 com Copyright 2008 by Helene G Kershner Beyond Email Information Overload http pro corbis com search Enlargement aspx CID isg mediauid DA083866 353A 4525 B3C29B86BE395F79 Copyright 2008 by Helene G Kershner Beyond Email Information Overload Issue is mainstream when articles appear in New York Times Readers Digest Books about it available on Amazon The Overflowing Brain Information Overload and the Limits of Working Memory 2008 Bit Literacy Productivity in the Age of Information and E mail Overload 2007 Surviving Information Overload The Clear Practical Guide to Help You Stay on Top of What You Need to Know 2004 http www amazon com Surviving Information OverloadClearPractical dp 031025115X ref pd bbs sr 2 ie UTF8 s books qid 1237997588 sr 8 2 Copyright 2008 by Helene G Kershner Beyond Email Information Overload Look at this quote Fighting data asphyxiation is difficult but possible Data is like food A good meal is served in reasonablysized portions from several food groups It leaves you satisfied but not stuffed Likewise with information we re best served when we can partake of reasonable useful portions exercising discretion in what data we digest and how often we seek it out Unfortunately we often do the opposite ingesting information constantly to the point of choking on it The risk of information asphyxiation touches all of us managers Web surfers even lazy couch tubers William Van Winkle http www gdrc org icts i overload infoload html Beyond Email Information Overload Look at this quote Of all the tools we use in the modern office few are the double edged sword that e mail has become Once a method for quick and easy communication e mail has evolved into a time consuming but necessary evil in today s workplace In fact the average user spends over 30 of his day creating organizing reading and responding to e mail But it s not just overflowing inboxes that vex today s knowledge worker Blogs and RSS feeds keep you constantly connected to the world at large Social groups such as Facebook and LinkedIn keep you continually networking Then there s the actual work you have to do In fact on average you start doing something new every three minutes This is more than a busy day This is information overload http www ibm com ibm ideasfromibm us email 20081020 index shtml Beyond Email Information Overload Can there be too much information Can there be too many books in a library Too many movies Too many music CDs Too many papers to read Too many web sites to visit Too many videos Copyright 2008 by Helene G Kershner Beyond Email Information Overload Can there be too much information The Internet as we know it removed previous barriers to publication the money required to buy a printing press or a transmitter or Before the Internet information was limited but an unintended consequence was that the amount of information was also manageable The amount of stuf on the Internet is of a magnitude larger than any previous collection of any sort We re reaching the point where it s too large to be effectively searched filed indexed briefed organized or numbered But we still try Kantor Andrew http www usatoday com tech columnist andrewkantor 2007 06 14 internetorganization N htm Copyright 2008 by Helene G Kershner Beyond Email Information Overload Can there be too much information Search tools dispense with categories and let users define their needs ad hoc Everything s in a pool Keywords narrow it down Search tools have become less useful over the last few years too much stuff to search Without very very careful categories a search results in hundreds of thousands of hits New and better ways of searching the Web are needed Lots of ideas to make the searching more manageable More specialized searching Tools like Wikipedia and it s sister sites Copyright 2008 by Helene G Kershner Beyond Email Information Overload Can we handle all our information Toys First there was Email Then there was Email with SPAM Then there was Email with filters that filter some SPAM and well Then there was the Web Can we get through a day without checking key web sites Class sites News sites Business sites Political sites Games sites Music sites Wikipedia Copyright 2008 by Helene G Kershner Beyond Email Information Overload Enter My Our World Check Email on multiple accounts Check regular web sites Check Email Then my Palm personal digital assistant Ugh reminds me of a meeting or a class Attend meeting or class Then I get a text message or a phone call or both Then of course there is my Email Then someone comes to my office Then of course there is my Email And somewhere in between I try to get some work done And the pattern repeats all day long Copyright 2008 by Helene G Kershner Beyond Email Information Overload Can we handle all our information Toys Workers in the Information Age need to develop skills for managing information overload This overload is caused by the rapid rate of growth in the amount of information available While days remain 24 hours long And our brains remain roughly the same as they were in caveman days Krill Pau http www infoworld com