Posts Tagged 'information overload'

Join us at the Information Overload Day webinar on Oct 18!

Posted on October 8th, 2022 · Posted in Uncategorized

On October 18, 2022 at 11:00 AM EDT the Information Overload Research Group (IORG) will celebrate Information Overload Day by hosting a webinar dedicated to the theme        “The intersection of Mindfulness and Information Overload” The event will be held by Zoom. No registration needed – just mark your calendar and show up! The Zoom link is https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89522954198 . The 60-minute program will include: Andy Lee will give a talk about the application of mindfulness programs and practices to coping with the overwhelm of today’s workplace. Andy is a thought leader in the drive to introduce mindfulness into the corporate world… Read more

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

What Can We Do About our Teens’ Smartphone Addiction?

Posted on December 30th, 2017 · Posted in Analysis and Opinion, Impact and Symptoms

An interesting audience question I had just finished delivering my lecture on Information Overload at a hi-tech company and was taking comments from the usual group of attendees that approach me after everyone else has left – these are usually the best comments, since they come from people interested enough to stay and wait their turn. And this time I had a surprise. A man asked me whether I give such lectures in schools, targeting kids in their mid to late teens. These are the members of Generation Z (what will we do next, one wonders, now that we’ve run.. 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.

Thoughts on the Pew Report on Information Overload

Posted on January 20th, 2017 · Posted in Analysis and Opinion

The news about a report from the Pew Research Center drew some media attention recently. Pew surveyed the American public and found that Information Overload is not a big deal! Specifically, they found that: Some 20% of the surveyed adults in the U.S. say they feel overloaded by information, a decline from the 27% figure from a decade earlier. 77% of them told Pew that they like having so much information at their fingertips. 67% say that having more information at their fingertips actually helps to simplify their lives! 79% say that having a lot of information makes them feel.. 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

Call to Action: We Need a Benchmark of Email Classifier Performance!

Posted on December 10th, 2014 · Posted in Analysis and Opinion, Individual Solutions, Organizational Solutions

A vibrant menagerie of email classifiers If you look through  my Definitive Guide to Information Overload Solutions you will see an entire chapter dedicated to automation of incoming email classification – that is, software solutions that classify incoming messages by a variety of attributes to achieve two main goals: prioritize messages that are important to the recipient over those who are not, and aggregate messages into groups of a common nature. These solutions form a collection which is a wonder to behold. They define the outcome of message classification from a great many angles, including: Prioritizing messages by the assessed.. Read more