Archive for the 'Individual Solutions' Category

Beyond Millennials: Information Overload and the Alpha Generation

Posted on December 22nd, 2021 · Posted in Analysis and Opinion, Impact and Symptoms, Individual Solutions

Image credit: Peter Merholz on Flickr. Are we running out of alphabet? We have Generation X (born 1965–1980), we have generation Y (a.k.a. Millennials, born 1981–1996), we have Generation Z (1997–2012)… so what shall we call today’s children, born (mostly) to millennial parents after 2012? Actually, no worry about running out of letters: not all letters are in the Latin alphabet. The Chinese script has enough ideograms to last us for millennia… but before we go there, there is the Greek alphabet, now gaining fame for naming Coronavirus variants, and indeed the post-millennial cohort are now officially “Generation Alpha”. So.. Read more

Information Overload Day webinar recording is available for viewing

Posted on November 2nd, 2020 · Posted in Impact and Symptoms, Individual Solutions

The Information Overload Research Group (IORG), which I chair, held its annual Information Overload Day Webinar on October 20th. This year it was dedicated to the theme “Information Overload in the Post-COVID Workplace”. It was a great session with many interesting presentations and some good discussions, and it is now available for your viewing pleasure here. The program included: Welcome to Information Overload Day 2020 – Nathan Zeldes, President, IORG, and Founder, Nathan Zeldes Consulting. Information Overload 101 – Jonathan Spira, Vice President, Research, IORG, and Senior Managing Director, Accura Media. Amusing & Informing Ourselves to Death during COVID Crisis.. Read more

24 Hours: Thoughts on Email, Meetings, and Life Priorities

Posted on February 5th, 2018 · Posted in Analysis and Opinion, Individual Solutions

Image: Paolo Uccello’s 15th century 24 hour clock at the Florence cathedral. If you are a knowledge worker, you are most likely used to working fifty, sixty, even seventy hours a week. The higher numbers are standard in hi-tech culture, as seen for example in Silicon Valley. This fact has important ramifications that I explore in this post. The cold equations The basic equation governing our lifetime allocation is the following: Daily hours = Work hours + Life hours + Maintenance hours Where Life = family time, leisure, hobbies, reading, rest, etc. Maintenance = eating, sleeping, personal care, etc. And.. Read more

One Thing at a Time: Debunking Multitasking

Posted on October 17th, 2017 · Posted in Analysis and Opinion, Impact and Symptoms, Individual Solutions

Dinotopia is one of the lovelier literary utopias out there. Introduced as a lavishly illustrated book by James Gurney, and later made into a TV miniseries, it tells of a fictional island where intelligent dinosaurs and humans coexist and collaborate in a peaceful society; the absurdity of the premise is offset by Gurney’s magnificent illustrations. And although this blog seldom deals with dinosaurs, real or fictional, there is a point in the book that is relevant here. The code of Dinotopia The citizens of Dinotopia obey the ancient “Code of Dinotopia”, which consists of 11 short commandments, such as “Give.. Read more

Video: My Lecture on Trends in Innovative Information Overload Solutions

Posted on June 21st, 2017 · Posted in Analysis and Opinion, Individual Solutions, Organizational Solutions

I was invited to give a Webinar for an IBM group interested in Information Overload and how to solve it. I shared with the group my take on the evolution of solutions to this problem from the mid-90s to the present – and the likely future. Here is the video, shared with permission.

BLUF! A Great Method to Get Your Message Across

Posted on March 30th, 2017 · Posted in Individual Solutions, Organizational Solutions

BLUF: Put the main takeaway – the bottom line – of your message at its very beginning.   BLUF? What on Earth is that? BLUF stands for “Bottom Line Up Front”. It is a term coined, apparently, in the US Army, and it denotes a model for effective message writing. The idea is to reverse the usual method, where you first present your case, your arguments and justifications, and then – at the end – draw the conclusions or decisions. Instead you put the conclusion, the main thing you need the reader to understand, at the very beginning of the.. Read more

How Can You Deal With Social Media Overload?

Posted on December 30th, 2016 · Posted in Analysis and Opinion, Individual Solutions

The Info Overload guru is taken by surprise I was talking to a college student, and she threw me a question:  how can she deal with the overwhelming  information overload afflicting her life? She then elaborated, and to my surprise it turned out the overload was not the familiar push-mode problem typical of email; she was talking about pull-mode, specifically, Facebook and RSS. This was a surprise for two reasons: first, because here was a Gen Y person complaining about Facebook, the social network that her cohort is so famously in love with; and second, because I’d always advocated RSS.. Read more

Tips to Reduce Information Overload on Information Overload Day

Posted on October 18th, 2016 · Posted in Individual Solutions

October 18 is Information Overload Day, an awareness day promoted by the Information Overload Research Group since 2010 to raise awareness of Information Overload. This is a good opportunity to take a hard look at your email and communication practices, and make some decisions that will improve your state for the better in the coming year. There are two kinds of steps you can take: improving how you process your own email, and reducing the burden on your coworkers by making the email you send out more effective. To help you with this, here are some useful resources to consider:.. Read more

Should We Reintroduce Computer-free Activity into the Workplace?

Posted on February 19th, 2016 · Posted in Analysis and Opinion, Impact and Symptoms, Individual Solutions, Organizational Solutions

Here is a strange idea: reduce the use of computers in the workplace. Huhh?!?… Bear with me and read on… Computers and Stress Back in the nineties management at my Intel campus realized that non-stop computer use was causing health damage in the form of RSI (repetitive stress injuries – remember all those weird wrist bandages?). To address it, we implemented structured “stretching sessions” where everyone stopped typing and came together to do directed exercises with music and fun. Today we see that non-stop computer use is causing health damage in other forms – and it may be time to.. Read more

What would Ada Lovelace think of Knowmail?

Posted on November 3rd, 2015 · Posted in Analysis and Opinion, Individual Solutions

This post was first published on the Knowmail blog. Cross-posted with permission.   The computer will never be creative or intelligent by itself; it can only do what we tell it to do. I like to call this statement “The Frankenstein clause”: it plays down the primal fear we humans have of our machines getting better than us, then taking over the world. Basically it says, “Move along, folks… Nothing to worry about, we’re the real brains here… These dumb computers will always obey us…” This statement was made by many during the 20th century, but the first to articulate.. Read more