Information Overload Predicted Problem of the Year for 2008

Wired is reporting that information overload is being predicted by some analysts as the problem of the year for 2008. "'It's too much information. It's too many interruptions. It's too much lost time,' Basex chief analyst Jonathan Spira declared. 'It's always too much of a good thing.' Information overload isn't exactly new, but Spira said the problem has grown as technology increases societal expectations for instantaneous response. And more information available, he said, also means more time wasted looking for the right information, whether in an old e-mail or through a search engine."

Comments

you should welcome it.

[User 956]

Information Overload Predicted Problem of the Year for 2008

Correction: Information Overlord Predicted Problem of the Year for 2008.

Re:you should welcome it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Correction: Information Overlord Predicted Problem of the Year for 2008.

Correction to the correction: Information Overlord Overload Predicted Problem of the Year for 2008.

I've been saying for years that we need to stop spawning more overlords, but would you people listen? Of course not.

Re:you should welcome it.

[BlueParrot]

Kekekekekeke Orwell rush.

Re:you should welcome it.

[ArikTheRed]

I've told you all this like 5 times already! Don't you pay any attention?

Re:you should welcome it.

[Tsagadai]

Correction to the correction: Information Overlord Overload Predicted Problem of the Year for 2008. I've been saying for years that we need to stop spawning more overlords, but would you people listen? Of course not.

But you require more overlords!! Otherwise we won't have enough for the zerglings.

Using a search engine is too hard?

[gurps_npc]

I mean really. My email is overflowing, but a search finds stuff right away.

Re:Using a search engine is too hard?

[ILuvRamen]

I think they're talking about how we're not gonna be able to handle sitting on our butts eating ramen and reading 6 e-mails instead of 3. I know I get pretty frazzled when that happens cuz then it's just anohter 3 minutes between me and Oblivion (the game) Seriously, if we're not infomation overloaded already with the insane amount of advertising everywhere plus the level of technology currently available then we're not going to be. If you don't want stock updates stalking you on your mobile phone, don't sign up for it. If you don't want to look up something on wikipedia, don't. Is it that hard?

Re:Using a search engine is too hard?

[vertinox]

Yes it is instant but does it find the right one. Now I've noticed (IMO) Google has gotten better lately, but often if you are searching certain topics it is very painful to find one that is really what you were looking for.

And back to the original topic of email... If you had hundreds or even thousands of emails back and forth between the same people over again with the same subject or similar subjects over the course of a year, it makes it hard to search for one in particular since searching by subject or person doesn't help you.

Re:Using a search engine is too hard?

[dbIII]

Some people just don't know how to filter information. One of them wrote the article.

Re:Using a search engine is too hard?

[ResidntGeek]

Man, I hate to be this cynical, but yes. For many people, it is that hard. People spend almost all their time doing things they don't want to do, for no reason at all. If someone tells them to look something up on wikipedia or read 6 e-mails or get stock updates on their mobile phones, they'll do it, then complain about their information overload.

Re:Using a search engine is too hard?

[40ohms]

After cleaning out 10K emails today... Yes, using a search engine is to hard :-) We need to stop spam.

This is a really old story

[smittyoneeach]

But the answer was revealed recently over on
Why the Coming Data Flood Won't Drown the Internet:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=392492&cid=21737872

Re:This is a really old story

[cowscows]

While they're both kinda dupes of many stories we've seen over the years, I think this story isn't quite the same as the one you linked. The data flood drowning the internet piece was more about the amount of bandwidth being more than the fiber/routers/switches/etc. could handle, basically the physical parts of the internet not being able to keep up. Today's article is more about the human element, how even if all the information makes it to its destination safely, there's going to be so much of it that an individual won't be able to cope with it all. Basically they're saying that since the internet makes it so easy for people to bug you, we'll all be way too distracted to get any real work done. And if we manage to focus and try and get work done, we'll spend all of our time trying to find old files because dammit there's just so many of them and google can't keep up and god why didn't I file my email better and and *bang* just shoot yourself in the head.

While the previous thread answered some of the concerns about the resilience of the physical internet, I'll address this personal information overload issue. Most people are plenty good at completely ignoring things that they don't feel like dealing with, whether it's important or not. Those who do not possess that skill have likely already had at least a few nervous breakdowns already. So basically, all the email in the world isn't going to change anything.

Re:This is a really old story

[smittyoneeach]

But you still need NOAA with the data ark to handle the things that you blew off, because they seemed unimportant, but then realized that you did in fact need.

not necessarily information overload

[yagu]

This problem isn't necessarily an overload of information. It's just a transformation. From the article:

Workers get disoriented every time they stop what they are doing to reply to an e-mail or answer a follow-up phone call because they didn't reply within minutes. Spira said workers can spend 10 to 20 times the length of the original interruption trying to get back on track.

These disoriented workers just found their new diversion. Workers are mostly effective, or not effective. Effective workers long ago folded the explosion of information into their daily work flow and are mostly more efficient because of it. Ineffective workers can now use and point to e-mail as their nemesis preventing them from being efficient and getting work done.

But, before the (alleged) explosion, ineffective workers had minesweeper and solitaire. Before that they had a water cooler and last night's shows to talk about. Before that it was real solitaire with real cards.

Yes, the information is overwhelming, but it's mostly easy to filter. I have found anecdotally that even with the exploding amount of information, that not only is it not overwhelming, it's more topical and current than ever possible in the past, and it's actually more easily searched than in the past. If any of you out there remember the old days of writing research papers, it was far more difficult to gather all the necessary research and organize when the only option was the local library, or if you were lucky and in college with a computing center, the other option was the time-share terminals in the computing building.

As for interruptions and avoiding them, it's easy enough to minimize e-mail interruptions -- establish and stick to an e-mail policy. If you don't want to be interrupted, don't allow people to interrupt you.

Re:not necessarily information overload

[UncleTogie]

Workers get disoriented every time they stop what they are doing to reply to an e-mail or answer a follow-up phone call because they didn't reply within minutes. Spira said workers can spend 10 to 20 times the length of the original interruption trying to get back on track.

Which is why I'd recommend against hiring employees that can't focus. Really, at any moment I may have to stop in the middle of PC repair {5 PCs on bench at current}, answer questions from anyone that calls/comes in, keep documentation current on our projects, handle any urgent incoming email/faxes/requests, and even a bit of sales if our sales force is out of the shop. It can get intense at times, but is FAR from anything I'd come even close to calling "disorienting".

If you've not a mind for the business you're in, then you're out of your mind for working in a field not suited to your abilities.

Re:not necessarily information overload

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference between receiving e-mails and playing solitare or chatting at the watercooler should be obvious. The latter two are forms of slacking off, which is easy for an earnest employee to avoid. The former is a distraction which is work-related and seems urgent. An earnest employee can be distracted much more easily.

This is not to say that a few easily learned skills wouldn't mitigate the problem, just that its different from the problems you mentioned. Probably more akin to things like beepers, cell phones and voice mail.

Re:not necessarily information overload

[ThreeGigs]

Looks like they thought TMI meant 'too many interuptions'.

And yet another 'costs our economy' number. I wonder how they come up with those numbers.

Re:not necessarily information overload

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I think one major problem is that people over commit themselves or allow themselves to get overcommited to too much crap.

Re:not necessarily information overload

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly.. this is just another way for ineffective people to bury themselves.

Personally I've spent the last few years conciously minimizing a lot of stuff in my life: less surfing, less email checking, less "stuff". More focused, more organized. I've started using the GTD (Getting Things Done) methodology and general mindset to help me focus on tasks and rapidly switch focus when necessary without losing my place. I check my email when I feel like, I don't have it alert me. I rarely carry a cell phone, etc., etc., etc.

I have a simple rule for news, TV, websites, RSS feeds, etc: "Is this potentially actionable?" If not, I ignore it, unsubscribe, whatever. Because if it's not actionable, it's just ENTERTAINMENT and can be purged. With that mindset, think about how much of what's on CNN is just useless entertainment!

Honestly, the more the other people get "overloaded" and out of control, the more of an EDGE it gives ME in both my personal and work life. People think I'm strange because I have free time. They think it's strange that I don't watch much TV, and I don't pay much attention to news or politics. They don't realize that one follows from the other...

Re:not necessarily information overload

[Red Flayer]

Hmm. You make a valid point about effective employees, but I think you're missing something quite important.

As a business owner or manager, one of the things you need to improve is employee effectiveness. I've managed individuals that are off-the-charts effective when uninterrupted, but easily get lost in the crush of emails. These are usually the people-pleasers. If I send them an email requesting A, B, and C, they'll deliver promptly and thoroughly. But if in the meantime they have received an email requesting D, E, and F from someone else, they run into problems because they can't deliver A through F promptly AND complete their normal workflow.

There are a couple ways of dealing with this. One is to establish priority controls on workflow. Another is to route all requests through their manager. A third is to establish an SLA that gives the employee a better guideline for when a response is expected.

In no way does this mean that the employee is an ineffective employee -- it just means that they are ineffective given their nature and the nature of the work presented to them.

My point, really, is that some good employees handle the "information overload" well, and some don't. The trick is to work with your staff's strengths and weaknesses to maximize their effectiveness. Yes, there are people who truly are generally ineffective -- but that's a hiring issue. Usually ineffective employees can be made effective through competent management.

Re:not necessarily information overload

[mc moss]

Not necessarily true. Some professions will require a focus with no interruptions at all (such as someone else asking for help with an unrelated task or answering a phone). If you had a surgeon operating on you, the last thing you would want is the surgeon getting an interruption of some sort. Some people just happen to have such focus and can get a job done really well that you should keep interruptions at a minimum such as demanding a reply to an email that can be answered to later.

Re:not necessarily information overload

[Venik]

I think you lost track of the subject somewhere along the way. You started out talking about information overload and ended up talking about workers who play solitaire on their computers. Having too much work and being lazy are not always the same thing (unless you are looking from a manager's perspective).

Re:not necessarily information overload

[geekoid]

You mean like losing focus and post on some forum while work sits on their deask?(I believes 5 PCs at the moment)

Of course, it doesn't take a whole lot of focus to build a PC.

Re:not necessarily information overload

[UncleTogie]

You mean like losing focus and post on some forum while work sits on their deask?(I believes 5 PCs at the moment)

You mean the PCs in varying states of diagnosis? The ones running diagnostics that won't run any faster if I watch the progress bar intently?

...and I can give a status for any of 'em while on the phone or otherwise engaged... My boss is well aware I read and post on Slashdot, but looks it as I do: learning opportunities galore.

Of course, it doesn't take a whole lot of focus to build a PC.

Guess you lost your focus; my OP said nothing about builds, which are presently so n00b-friendly a spastic monkey could slap one together. It said repair, which infers diagnosis, a task requiring some degree of focus and mental acuity.

Re:not necessarily information overload

[UncleTogie]

Not necessarily true. Some professions will require a focus with no interruptions at all (such as someone else asking for help with an unrelated task or answering a phone). If you had a surgeon operating on you, the last thing you would want is the surgeon getting an interruption of some.

Let's look at the quote I indicated earlier:

Workers get disoriented every time they stop what they are doing to reply to an e-mail or answer a follow-up phone call because they didn't reply within minutes. Spira said workers can spend 10 to 20 times the length of the original interruption trying to get back on track.

Now, at NO point during surgery would hospital management expect a doctor to answer email or the phone. Au contraire, the hospitals ban cellular use in surgical areas as to avoid equipment interference. Likewise, it's hard to expect a doctor to have their office PC {the one receiving the email} in the surgical suite itself.

Might I be so bold as to encourage you to post another example that's more in-line with office work?

Re:not necessarily information overload

[vertinox]

Which is why I'd recommend against hiring employees that can't focus.

Wouldn't it be cheaper to just hire 5 incompetent employees from geek squad on contract, outsource the technical question to India, and fire you? ;)

In all seriousness, contract and outsourced labor would trump full time employees because they only get paid when there is work to be done. Of course they'll probaly won't be able to focus, but when someone wants a profit for the quarterly report at upper echelon of management, its easier for them to justify it.

However, if a company cared about quality (and could afford it) they would have devoted your job into separate positions in which there was a full time sales person and a full time repair person. About 10 years ago, I worked for a small time PC repair shop with maybe 4 employees but I still didn't do sales and only did two computers at a time.

When you force people to focus on multiple things at once, even if they can do it right it will lead to burnout fairly quickly. Interruptions do cause unexpected stress to a work environment and can really hamper things over long term.

Secondly, if you suggested this to the someone who codes in software development world they would start warming up a barrel of tar and start ripping up feather pillows.

Personally in my current job (neither PC repair nor Coding), I ignore interruptions and do not respond to IMs or emails due to the fact it would be rude to the client. In between conversations, I'll respond but otherwise I just have to shut it out due to the nature of the job.

Re:not necessarily information overload

[turing_m]

This is why Don Knuth stopped using email in 1990. Before this he had 15 years of email interruptions, which were presumably disorientating:

"It's impossible to shut email off! You send a message to somebody, and they send it back saying "Thank you", and you say "OK, thanks for thanking me..."

Email is wonderful for some people, absolutely necessary for their job, and they can do their work better. I like to say that for people whose role is to be on top of things, electronic mail is great. But my role is to be on the bottom of things. I look at ideas and think about them carefully and try to write them up... I move slowly through things that people have done and try to organize the material. But I don't know what is happening this month."

http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/email.html
http://tex.loria.fr/historique/interviews/knuth-clb1993.html

So now some organization has deemed that this is the year the phenomenon has gone mainstream. It's kind of strange that they mention the problem as information overload when inbound communication overload is a more accurate description of that particular problem. Information overload is a problem too. It's easy to just keep researching, because the signal to noise ratio is so good that research becomes addictive and the amount of material is virtually endless.

Some people handle these things well, some people don't. The sort of people who didn't weren't all playing solitaire 20 years ago, a lot of them were workaholics. A workaholic is almost always a star employee, simply because he is addicted to the work. But the thing was, eventually researching something used to get boring because eventually the info that they were researching dried up and they moved on to actually solving their problems (if in an imperfect but still very good way).

Unfortunately now, in the process of doing your research the most efficient way, a workaholic is very tempted to develop web addiction, which turns an excellent worker into a poor worker.

Re:not necessarily information overload

[UncleTogie]

However, if a company cared about quality (and could afford it) they would have devoted your job into separate positions in which there was a full time sales person and a full time repair person. About 10 years ago, I worked for a small time PC repair shop with maybe 4 employees but I still didn't do sales and only did two computers at a time.

As indicated in my OP, we DO have a sales force... who many times are asked questions of a technical nature. I'm one of three people here that can answer those.

I'm full-time repair, yes, but enjoy helping with the weird stuff that comes up in our day. I *want* the business to grow!

When you force people to focus on multiple things at once, even if they can do it right it will lead to burnout fairly quickly.

15 years of doing this every day, at multiple locations, and no sign of burnout here! I'd suggest that the ones with burnout aren't the ones that LOVE working in this field. I'm glad I'm not one of 'em!

Interruptions do cause unexpected stress to a work environment and can really hamper things over long term.

Let me rephrase that: Interruptions are part of a work environment and can be expected in darn near every work environment.

Secondly, if you suggested this to the someone who codes in software development world they would start warming up a barrel of tar and start ripping up feather pillows.

Do you have any idea how weird it might sound to many folks that the people working on their mission-critical software don't care enough to pay attention? Try using THAT as a selling point.

Personally in my current job (neither PC repair nor Coding), I ignore interruptions and do not respond to IMs or emails due to the fact it would be rude to the client.

If your job is face-time customer-oriented, then you're jus' doing your job. If you're NOT required to have that face-time, then why NOT answer an email while waiting for a client to gather paperwork?

Don't get me wrong; I don't know your job, and am not trying to tell you how to do it. I'm just not sure why "multitasking" is a job requirement at most places when according to some on here, it's impossible. ;)

Re:not necessarily information overload

[Original Replica]

I've managed individuals that are off-the-charts effective when uninterrupted, but easily get lost in the crush of emails.

What you have indirectly acknowledged and TFA did not, is that different people have different inherent skills. Of course different skills will place and/or limit people within the business hierarchy. If someone is only very effective when dealing with three or less requests at a time, then they will forever have to be under close management. They cannot ever be project heads or work independently on anything but the most basic projects. That isn't a problem for most businesses but the career limits might be a problem for the individual. Especially if the individual has to take a step or two down the management ladder because they cannot multi-task. I think this isn't a case of overload, but of changing requirements of what it takes to get ahead in the modern business world. The problem is that this change relocates many older employees who have already maxed out under the Peter Principle. Someone who was good enough in a position ten years ago might not be able to cut it under the new rules, so you have to demote them or insert new layers of management.

Re:not necessarily information overload

[Anonymous Coward]

Writing software.

Re:not necessarily information overload

[Anonymous Coward]

Before that it was real solitaire with real cards.

And real minesweper as well

Re:not necessarily information overload

[Anonymous Coward]

Usually ineffective employees can be made effective through competent management.

Competent...management? Fish...unicycle? I recognize both of these words, but in combination they puzzle me.

Re:not necessarily information overload

[S.O.B.]

Now, at NO point during surgery would hospital management expect a doctor to answer email or the phone. Au contraire, the hospitals ban cellular use in surgical areas as to avoid equipment interference. Likewise, it's hard to expect a doctor to have their office PC {the one receiving the email} in the surgical suite itself.

Might I be so bold as to encourage you to post another example that's more in-line with office work?

I thought the example was perfectly reasonable and relevant. The point that was being made was that every job has certain tasks that require uninterrupted concentration. That's why when a surgeon is operating there is not email, cell phone, pager, etc. to be found. IT is no different, there are certain times in our jobs where we need to be left alone so we can concentrate on the work at hand.

If you absolutely have to have an office example then how about my situation. I work for one of the largest insurance companies in North America as an application architect. Between email, voice mail, phone calls (cell and desk varieties), IM and people just "stopping by to ask a question" my day is one long interruption, and I don't even have a CrackBerry(tm) yet. Is my problem that I can not focus? No. It's that with the never ending interruptions in the modern office it is virtually impossible to make any headway on the design for that 500 day project when you're only able to squeeze a few minutes of the day here and there.

To deal with the problem I am forced to come in to work a few hours early or stay a few hours late in order to get some uninterrupted time to do some quality work. In other words, the only time I can get any work done in the office is when the office is not working.

Some might say I should just learn to filter it out. Those people have never worked in a large (> 1000 people) IT shop. And the problem only gets worse the higher up the food chain you go.

Re:not necessarily information overload

[Anonymous Coward]

Coming back to repairing a PC is small fry and easily done. It takes about as much focus as scratching your arse. I know, I've done both.

Conversely, working in R&D testing software takes a lot of focus. When we don't have enough support staff and the calls get fed through to me, I have to change my mindset to deal with very different legacy equipment, some dating back to the early 90s. I have to troubleshoot these systems over the phone with idiots that can't even read an error message straight, with them acting like it's my fault somehow, and once it's done I've got to get back to testing software again. I wish - nay, dream - my main job took as much focus as repairing PCs or updating documentation. That's child's play.

Re:not necessarily information overload

[gr8scot]

True in many cases, no doubt.

Still, putting procmail's sorting ability into more of the apps favored by casual end-users might be the next easy Internet fortune.

Re:not necessarily information overload

[Kjella]

As for interruptions and avoiding them, it's easy enough to minimize e-mail interruptions -- establish and stick to an e-mail policy. If you don't want to be interrupted, don't allow people to interrupt you. I find the combo attacks the worst, the kind that either send me an email and tell me "Could you look at the case I just sent over?" or just try to steal me away "Can you come over for five minutes and look at this?" and usually if you're already in the "interrupted" state everyone else see it as their chance to jump at you too. While it wouldn't really work with support hours, I've found that you need some sort of pacing - work concentrated one hour, solve various tidbits one hour, work concentrated one hour again. If I handle every interruption, even just to say I'm too busy now and take notes on what to do later, I hardly get any of my long-term work done, and it's not because I'm inefficient in the least.

Re:not necessarily information overload

[UncleTogie]

If you absolutely have to have an office example then how about my situation. I work for one of the largest insurance companies in North America as an application architect.

If you're talking USAA, I work with one of their lead web designers...

Between email, voice mail, phone calls (cell and desk varieties), IM and people just "stopping by to ask a question" my day is one long interruption, and I don't even have a CrackBerry(tm) yet.

The designer I know DOES have one of those Smackberries, and STILL gets her job done. Want to know her secret? Let's look at what you said next to set up my next point:

Is my problem that I can not focus? No. It's that with the never ending interruptions in the modern office it is virtually impossible to make any headway on the design for that 500 day project when you're only able to squeeze a few minutes of the day here and there.

Whoa. As neither you, she, nor I are at the top of our respective food chains, that means we have supervisors. Folks whose job is to {in theory} make sure that OURS is getting done.

Have you gone to them to make SURE you have the space you need for a project? Our front desk intercepts initial calls. I'm pretty sure you have that working for you. Your supervisor needs to know that with everyone and their dog trying to monopolize your time, the project will have to be pushed back. Tell 'em as much. Give it a shot, 'cause it's their rear if that project doesn't break on time...

If you have an honest/decent boss, you should have enough space at this point to get enough work done.

...and if you have a PHB? Pull a Scotty and pad the hell out of your project time... They're not usually not bright enough to know the difference.

Some might say I should just learn to filter it out. Those people have never worked in a large (> 1000 people) IT shop. And the problem only gets worse the higher up the food chain you go.

Nope. I'm saying ya should enlist aid to get the workspace ya need... and the higher up the chain you go, the more likely that you can shut your office door and put the DnD sign out....

Re:not necessarily information overload

[Sczi]

Writing software.

This. There's nothing quite like being really in the zone, 8 loops deep in a complex routine, when the phone rings, and some boob says "hey bro, not to interrupt, cuz I know you're busy today, but can I ask you a quick question?" Maybe it's important, maybe it's not, but it sure is frustrating.

Re:not necessarily information overload

[gillbates]

Email is a valid distraction. Some of the places I've worked had a real problem with email - their corporate, CYA, political buck-passing culture meant that they exchanged far more email than was really necessary. In some of my other firms, people talked face to face. Now, it seems, everyone wants a "paper trail" so they can blame someone else when things go wrong. Hence the flood of irrelevant, distracting, work-stopping email.

Typical problems:

• I don't care about your stupid cat or its 3rd birthday party.
• I'm happy that you've been promoted, but I don't even know who you are or even the department for which you work. Don't bother me with such things.
• I could care less that someone in the six layers of management above me has a new plan to realign our mission critical assets for increased cost savings... - again, in a department I've never heard of.
• So another department in the company is introducing a new pricing structure for their dying product line. Why don't you just spam everyone in the entire company, because, you know, I might just sell a 5 million dollar communications infrastructure upgrade on my morning train ride.
• Bug discovery emails. You know, the kind where everyone on the CC list, including your boss, and the 6 other departments in the header, feel the need to offer their opinion on what it could be. And of course, the originator didn't include log files and doesn't know how to reproduce it.
• The inevitable political email trail, where each of the recipients does their best to deflect the blame for a particular problem to someone else, or another department.

I estimate that I spend a few hours a day dealing with email. Granted, some of it is my job - I do have to support the product. But a large portion of it is spent reading - no, skimming; if I read them, it would take too long - things which do not increase my productivity at all.

The problem isn't email. It's a corporate culture where everyone refuses to take responsibility for anything, including their own job. It's a culture where people spend a greater effort avoiding work than they would if they had just done what they were supposed to do. It's a culture where people are more concerned about the appearance of professionalism than the actual practice thereof.

And my employer is willing to pay me for such inefficient use of my time (theirs, actually). In fact, my boss wants me to maintain an email trail for everything, just for the CYA value. But I can't help but wonder how efficient things would be, if we just got together and worked together, instead of all this email pedantry.

Re:not necessarily information overload

[dodobh]

When doing pure thought work (think programming/design activity) which needs to be done purely within your head, any interruption sucks. It takes at least 15 minutes to return to the previous state from any interruption (Tom De Marco, in Peopleware, IIRC).

Couple things..

[Slashdot Suxxors]

We could probably weed out a lot of the excess if everyone linked back to the _original_ source. I shouldn't have to follow a dozen links to get back to where it originated. And /. could make it easier by posting less dupes. :P

I for one...

[Daltin]

welcome our new information overlord. Wait, I read that wrong.

Re:I for one...

[Verteiron]

At least i instinctively avoid the ebay links that have whatever i searched for...even when they don't :/

Gotta love those.

"Click HERE for your NUMBER 1 source for blue screen 0x800ccc0e!"
"Click HERE for your NUMBER 1 source for exchange 2003 pop3 retrieval!"
"Click HERE for your NUMBER 1 source for fetchmail!"

Who knew you could find all that stuff in one place?

Mercifully those sorts of results seem to be on the decline...

False link!

[N3TW4LK3R]

Parent is another Minicity-link !

Re:False link!

[N3TW4LK3R]

I got modded off-topic. Which is funny because I was the one who modded this comment off-topic yesterday and got flamed for it!
After the flaming replies, the poster got a +5 Informative for doing EXACLY what I'm doing here.
I was actually sorry that I'd moderated the comment badly. Heh.

God damn it!

[i_liek_turtles]

The year Linux finally is ready for the desktop, the internet goes and overloads!

Re:God damn it!

[gr8scot]

Linux has been ready for years; a plethora of SPAM beyond the FTC's ability to even reduce, may finally convince the desktop user to get ready for Linux.

Re:Whatever you do..

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously that won't be a problem as you failed quite miserably to achieve first post. In addition, you were beat out by a MyMiniCity spammer. I hope you take some time to think about the direction in which your life is headed and work on a plan to get back on the right track. Or you could just jump off a cliff; I really don't give a fuck.

Action Item #1

[ch-chuck]

Cancel subscription to Wired, that'll take care of a large part of it.

Re:Action Item #1

[vnaughtdeltat]

Stop reading Slashdot, that'll take care of the rest.

Obligatory welcome

[davidwr]

I for one welcome or new information over-whatevers.

Re:Obligatory welcome

[morgan_greywolf]

In Soviet Russia, Information problems overload YOU!!!

Re:Obligatory welcome

[XHIIHIIHX]

In Soviet Russia, You overload information problem. Duh.

Re:Obligatory welcome

[Tablizer]

You evenhandedly lorded over the overloading of the overlord overload jokes.

(2 mod-points if you can say that fast 3 times in a row.)

Re:Obligatory welcome

[eat here_get gas]

You evenhandedly lorded over the overloading of the overlord overload jokes.You evenhandedly lorded over the overloading of the overlord overload jokes.You evenhandedly lorded over the overloading of the overlord overload jokes. i can use the mod points....

Re:Obligatory welcome

[Tablizer]

um, it like says, "say", not "type".

I have information underload

[JeanBaptiste]

At my job I quit checking voice mail and only read emails once or twice a day. Sure does piss off management but it makes my life easier.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Evolution...

[fahrbot-bot]

But, before the (alleged) explosion, ineffective workers had minesweeper and solitaire. Before that they had a water cooler and last night's shows to talk about. Before that it was real solitaire with real cards.

Now it's /.

Unintentionally, ...

[foobsr]

... the article gives an answer:
TFA: "also means more time wasted looking for the right information"

If looking for the 'right information' is considered 'waste of time', how do you think 'deciding which information is appropriate', i.e. actually thinking (no outside activity to be observed, mind that) is valued?

Much better to quickly produce a dupe of some blurb to add up to overload.

CC.

Re:Unintentionally, ...

[Cal Paterson]

Probably the intended meaning: "more time wasted while looking for the right information". The point being, presumably, that the "right information" is harder to find than before.

Re:Unintentionally, ...

[Breakfast Pants]

Hey screw off Darfur! Problem of the year? Information overload!

Re:Overload? Hardly....

[Anonymous Coward]

fohootville retired.

New Headline

[hardburn]

Wired Editor Attempts to Fill Whitespace

Fixed it for you.

Re:New Headline

[Caste11an]

I know Jonathan Spira personally. I couldn't have nailed it better. Jonathan's a well-meaning attention whore who loves talking about himself as much as about his own interests.

The only thing he's better at is misunderstanding technology.

Re:Overload? Hardly....

[Anonymous Coward]

Redirect services are a bit of a loophole. I could set one up to point to

http://spamslashdot.myminicity.com/ ...for example. Get modded insightful for my ramblings, then change the redirect. OMG scarey!

How self-absorbed

[Anonymous Coward]

No, I'd say the real problems of the year for 2008 will be the same as the problems of the year for 2007: war, disease, famine. It's a fucking travesty that anybody, anywhere would consider "information overload" to be a significant problem facing the world.

Re:Whatever you do..

[Anonymous Coward]

Offtopic - exactly the point - too much useless information!

Not Really A Problem

[Roxton]

Modern messaging is an incredibly effective. If too many people are requesting your time, that doesn't necessarily mean it's time to change your communications medium. You may have taken on too many responsibilities.

I find that people have a tendency to overestimate the volume of work they can handle. That said, there's definitely something to the notion that you shouldn't bother someone unless you have to. If you find yourself frequently disrupting someone's work (or find yourself frequently disrupted) out of necessity, however, then you need to reassign responsibilities, put those responsibilities on the chopping block, and/or get help.

WAIT!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Not another problem! 2007 is almost over and I'm not done solving the predicted problem for this year!

What was the predicted problem for 2007 again?

Oh man! See? We're doomed! Shit! Shit! Shit!

Information overload, man!

[BitwizeGHC]

Johnny Mnemonic: Yeah, the Black Shakes. What causes it?
Spider: What causes it?
[points to various pieces of equipment throughout the room]
Spider: This causes it! This causes it! This causes it! Information overload! All the electronics around you poisoning the airwaves. Technological fucking civilization. But we still have all this shit, because we can't live without it. Let me do my work.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Overload for the nonefficients..

[Bananatree3]

I am not that efficient when it comes to managing influx of information. For me, I'm high with information bong day in, day out. I surf and surf, and at some point in the day I "burn out" from the influx of information. There's simply too much swirling in my head to really contemplate anything else. Internal filtering of the information is done that cuts out most of the fluff, but there's always a dozen really interesting things I'm keeping track of at once. I experience a "information hangover", simply drained of energy and my mind is tired from endless processing of information fluff. I'm slowly weening myself off of my drug. But, in 3 weeks I may come barreling back as I am hooked in.

The internet is a merciless master

Re:Overload for the nonefficients..

[rucs_hack]

That's a very long way of saying you spend too much time on b3ta

Minicity ??

[Anonymous Coward]

What exactly does this person/people gain by this ? Is it a personal site or commercial one that wants your click ?

Re:Minicity ??

[2.7182]

I think that clicking the link makes the city grow. So it is some geekster trying to make the equivalent of his minicity karma higher.

Re:Minicity ??

[ideonode]

That's interesting - almost like a way of scoring trolls - the bigger your minicity, the bigger the jerk you happen to be. All they need now is a way to incorporate a Rickroll in there to demonstrate their douchebaggery further.

Re:Minicity ??

[mmalove]

Lol, that whole site needs javascript in order to work. And you can bet your ass if a troll is spamming it anonymously, it's not a website I'm interested in allowing to run any sort of javascript/activex/etc.

Re:Minicity ??

[Mike610544]

I think we should stop modding up these "mod down myminicity" posts. It creates a situation where the people reading at +x are exposed to the word myminicity repeatedly, which is presumably their goal.

I guess this "dont mod up the "mod down minicity" posts" post should also be not modded up (If I'm missing the point I'll take +5 insightful :).)

Re:Minicity ??

[kayditty]

No, it doesn't. It doesn't even use JavaScript except to make sure a robot isn't loading the page. Just set the referer [sic] to the page itself (in Firefox, load the page and refresh) , and it'll load.

Duh

[Anonymous Coward]

2008: The Year of the Linux Desktop AND the Duke Nukem Forever being released? This isn't just going to be information overload; this is going to be the end of the world.

The Singularity is nigh!

[Anonymous Coward]

Repent!

Quick! Fix that!

[krunchyfrog]

OK everyone, let's all stop the madness!

[NO CARRIER]

Not to worry folks...

[Actually, I do RTFA]

Wired is reporting that information overload is being predicted by some analysts as the problem of the year for 2008.

This will be more than offset by the time-saving switch to Linux (2008, year of Linux on the Desktop!). A much bigger issue will be the distraction of playing Duke Nukem Forever. And all this is assuming the tubes of the internets don't burst from the exaflood. Lastly, all this will only be a problem until June when the Roombas take over the earth and sweep us all into neat little piles. I'm hoping to get swept next to Natalie Portman covered in grits.

I for one...

[hurfy]

i only have one problem lately since my email is down to about nothing.

Search engine results that are another frickin search engine or consolidation site that may or may not even have what i was looking for. Here we go round in circles...

At least i instinctively avoid the ebay links that have whatever i searched for...even when they don't :/

Well that and news sites that link to a blog....hint hint

This is nothing new under the sun

[dpbsmith]

"And further, by these, my son, be admonished: of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh."--Ecclesiastes 12:12

Re:This is nothing new under the sun

[geekoid]

in short:
"Don't learn to think for yourself or God will get you." Gee, people using a fictitious character in a way to prevent people from actually thinking about what they are saying.

It had NOTHING to do with organizing or storing data in an accurate way.

"
9 Besides being wise, the Preacher also taught the people knowledge, weighing and studying and arranging many proverbs with great care.
10 The Preacher sought to find words of delight, and uprightly he wrote words of truth.

11 The words of the wise are like goads, and like nails firmly fixed are the collected sayings; they are given by one Shepherd.

12 My son, beware of anything beyond these. Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh.

13 The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. [2] 14 For God will bring every deed into judgment, with [3] every secret thing, whether good or evil.
"

Octopussy

[Colin Smith]

No... Wait...

Popfile
http://popfile.sourceforge.net/

Tools like this will help get rid of corporate spam[1] as well as the normal stuff. They'll eventually evolve into general purpose artificially intelligent personal assistants which will act as a filter on almost all communication.

[1] Crap from various management who spam the world with trivia about how they are feeling.

This problem is already solved.

[davburns]

The cure for information overload, if you can get past the ponies, it's a very interesting idea. (Just be sure to RTFA.)

Slashvertisement?

[Futurepower(R)]

Quote from the Slashdot story: "... Basex chief analyst Jonathan Spira declared."

Quote from the Basex web site:

"Basex reaches the key decision makers in the Collaborative Business Knowledge space."

I know that many people don't speak Corporate Robot Language, so I will translate: "We are really, really bored with our jobs. We don't like technical things, or have any respect for technically knowledgeable people. However, to make ourselves seem more important, we adopt technical-sounding expressions, and pretend that they are meaningful."

I'm guessing that the New York Times got paid for that article, and so did someone at Slashdot.

I would love to see the "Collaborative Business Knowledge Space". I'm guessing it is about one centimeter square and is guarded by one old cockroach.

Re:Slashvertisement?

[heinousjay]

I guess everything you don't like must be paid for, huh?

Re:Slashvertisement?

[museumpeace]

Yeah, I was kinda thinking that too...and the story is 7 days old already anyway.

But, since we have already spilled so many pixels over how much of the problem is the tools and how much is the resistance of the workers to interruptions, does anyone have recommendations for better tools? or at least tools that give you options for working smarter?
    Not using the "alert" feature on gmail, for instance, leaves a chunk of my bandwidth in tact.

How to deal with information overload

[Malevolent Tester]

A guide to ensure an information overload free 2008:

1) Don't give your manager more information than you have to. "Good morning" should be sufficient for the day. He's got a lot on his plate, and doesn't need to know that you've had no work to do for the past month.
2) Don't tell anyone where you're going when you go for a meeting, or whom it's with. That information could be just one bit too much. In fact, don't force the admin staff to check if there's a room available. Go down the pub for the meeting to stop them from having to schedule anything.
3) 90% of the office emails are going to be a waste of time - however, if you check them to find out, you'll get sucked into dealing with them. Instead, create a rule that randomly deletes all but 1 in 10 of the emails you receive. Statistically, this will be the important one.
4) Timesheets. Surely the classic example of information overload. Just pick a random job code and fill in all your hours with that. You're in (well, provided you aren't following #3 too closely) and that's what counts, right? The beancounters will thank you one day.

I hope this guide gives you all a productive and useful 2008.

Infoglut is not new

[Alain Williams]

I remember byte magasine discussing this 15 years ago ... this is the reference that I can find quickly .

Only one sane solution...

[Rassleholic]

BLOW IT ALL UP!!

RSS

[Fuzzums]

I already dropped 10% of my rss-feeds this week. THAT will teach them!

Scott Adams Had Few Things to Say...

[Chabil Ha']

in his 'thought experiment' book, God's Debris (WARNING, PDF).

"Humanity is developing a sort of global eyesight as millions of video cameras on satellites, desktops, and street corners are connected to the Internet. In your lifetime it will be possible to see almost anything on the planet from any computer. And society's intelligence is merging over the Internet, creating, in effect, a global mind that can do vastly more than any individual mind. Eventually everything that is known by one person will be available to all." I don't think that information overload will be our biggest problem, it will be the springboard to something greater. Not necessarily to the same conclusion that that Scott does, but the ability to process it all. We can create information successfully, we just haven't mastered the ability to search through it all. A problem such as too much information is the impetuous behind making sense of it all.

Not going to happen ...

[lorg]

... about 18 months ago Senator Stevens thought us all that the Internet was like a serious of tubes and that they can not contain endless amounts of information before the system becomes clogged. So you'll never have to deal with information overload since the information will never reach you. Hench no information overload. This surplus information will instead be pipes down the digital brigde to nowhere, aka /dev/null.

Problem solved. Thanks Senator Stevens.

Listen to wise men, and don't read?

[Futurepower(R)]

The previous words in that quote show that the ancient book is advising us not to read:

"The words of the wise are like goads, and like nails firmly fixed are the collected sayings; they are given by one Shepherd. My son, beware of anything beyond these. Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh." -- Ecclesiastes 11 and 12.

I doubt that anyone who reads Slashdot wants to read only "collected sayings", and be poor because he or she has lost his job.

Grok ./ modding

[Anonymous Coward]

That's right, I'm new here. So... if a post is noted "funny", that means it's insightful. Am I "getting it?"

So basically

[moogied]

More IT jobs will be created in 2008? Wow.. what a suprise. Oh. My. God. Christ almighty, does every year need to have some HUGE problem?

A famous quote is in order.

[jma05]

"What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention, and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it."

Herbert Simon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Simon

Messed up priorities

[Flavio]

What about runaway government spending, and the annual 1 trillion dollars spent with the American military overseas? And the fact that the US dollar doesn't stop slipping, and the US keeps borrowing money non-stop to cover its massive, quadratically increasing deficit?

I know this is Wired and one can't expect them to focus on the real problems, but I find it completely absurd to predict "Information Overload" as 2008's biggest problem.

Data Overload Not Information Overload

[Jekler]

Maybe it's just a semantic difference, but there can never be too much information. Information is useful, it can be easily sorted and digested both mentally and algorithmically. The problem I foresee (and I think it's been here for quite some time) is that there's just far too much data on the internet with almost no value as information.

Duplication, an age old engineering problem, rears its ugly head once again. The massive amount of duplication caused by sites like digg and youtube dramatically decreases the signal-to-noise ratio. For every topic there are 100+ pages added to Digg (and consequently to the page count of the internet) without really adding anything of value to the internet, the same goes for youtube, every video is duplicated and posted by 100 users. It's like having an elevator with a 1000 button panel to service a 5 floor building. Everyone using the elevator gets to add their own button. Operation of the system becomes a more complex task than doing things manually.

The social networking sites seem like a good idea at first, but even if the information you want happens to be there, it's obscured in a vast sea of uncorrelated data.

Jef Raskin dove into this problem in his book The Humane Interface. The idea that there should essentially only be one avenue to each piece of information. The interface on a phone is a good model of what the internet as a whole should look like. On a conceptual level, there's only one way to dial each person, enter their number in the correct sequence. It produces a very quick feedback, either you dialed correctly and got the person you intended to get, or you dialed wrong and don't get them. You don't need to critically evaluate your result.

On the internet, results are very fuzzy. Even with advanced searches, the results often need to be critically examined without even being given the data you need to do so. Crucial data is often missing such as date of publication, author, or any citations. These problems have relegated the majority of the internet to the domain of entertainment. It can only be used for serious work under strict conditions. Things will stay that way until something is done to change the internet from a giant data storage facility into an information catalog.

Re:Data Overload Not Information Overload

[Grampaw Willie]

Things will stay that way until something is done to change the internet from a giant data storage facility into an information catalog.

yup

cuz generally folks spend their time asking questions instead of trying to answer them

if you spend any time trying to answer questions you will get an interesting lesson: when you come into possession of some valuable information you need to file that information and index it in such a manner as you and others are highly likely to be able to find it again.

this isn't easy to do

but if you stop for a moment and pretend you are on the help desk and then write down how the user will sound when they make their call that will help you

let me give you an example:

RING!

Mike: IT, Help Desk, this is Mike

Rosa: Hi, This is Rosa. I didn't get my file.

Mike: what is the name of the file you are looking for, Rosa?

Rosa: the one Bruce used to send me.

Mike: what's your phone number, Rosa?

Rosa: 555-5650

{ at this point if you have a First Level Support Index you can look up what Rosa is hunting for by using her phone number as a search argument, maybe with her name and that Bruce thing could be a clue too }

but if you don't have such an index, or if Bruce didn't make an index entry when he put whatever it is Rosa wants IN SERVICE, all I can say is: Good Luck

but the point is: indexing and searching ( which computers are good at ) can really tame that Information Tiger

poop deluge

[screeble]

PEBCAC

Learn how to set up categories and context filters to make your e-mail work for you instead of against you.

Have "robots" triage the messages.

Once the robots filter out all the static it is easy to concentrate on the fifteen or so messages that actually make sense.

This was news?

... if you know the exact wording

[Moraelin]

Search finds the right stuff, if you remember the exact wording. Now look through 1 year old emails, looking for one where you only vaguely remember even the topic. Like, "I think the boss told me to do it that way."

Let's see, a search for the program name... nope. He must have thought it's obvious what project I'm on. Let's detour through Bugzilla and look up the bug number. Some time later, ah-ha, I have the bug number. Search for that, nope. Repeat ad nauseam.

The problem is that even remembering something by a synonym, still throws simple search off. Completely. Now let's see, in how many ways can you say "bug". Well, there's "bug", but then there's "flaw", or "defect", or even "problem", etc. So did the boss say it's ok to ship with known "bug", "flaws", "defects", "problems", or what? Now have fun finding out which of the tens of hits for "bug" is really the one you're looking for. But maybe even that wasn't phrased like that at all. Maybe what he said is something like, "it's ok if the web service interface isn't ready in the pilot phase." Or a gazillion other wordings to the same effect.

Or maybe it was my favourite, some idiot took a screenshot of the log viewer and pasted it into Word as an image. Then you get an email with the actual info as a picture, and some text like "but I think that's low priority right now". Now search that.

Really, the problem is that we still index and search by words, but your memory is rarely text-file quality. You remember ideas, and (if needed) your brain interpolates the gaps.

E.g., you may think you photographically remember your wife in her blue dress on the balcony in your honeymoon, but really you don't store a pixel array like that. The actual pixel array never even leaves the eyes, there's edge detection and contrast enhancement that's built right into the retina itself, to save bandwidth on the optic nerve. Then before it even makes it past the short term buffer, that scene is pruned, tokenized, etc, and you only really got an internal representation of the scene instead of the actual image. That's already missing a lot of information, like, for a start, everything that's outside the focus of attention. (While focusing on the blonde with great tits at the wheel, you completely lose such information as the license plate or even the pink gorilla doing cartwheels across the road.) You have a SEP field built-in, so to speak.

Then over time details or links get lost, and your brain just does a best-guess filling in the gaps. So over time you might remember that the wife's dress was blue, although it was green. Or maybe she wasn't wearing a dress at all on that day, and was in a t-shirt and jeans. Etc.

That goes double for remembering text. You rarely remember the actual text, unless you do rote memorization. But I'd rather not do that with all emails. If you had to actually remember the exact text describing the scene above, even if you remember the general scene, how many ways are there to say that she was wearing jeans? "Pants" works too, for a start. The shirt gets even funnier, because you might just remember it as a "shirt" instead of "t-shirt", and from there there are even more synonyms. "Blouse" and "top" come to mind, for example.

And that's when word-based search will fail you.

What we'd need is some search that's indexed by ideas. But until computers start to really understand natural language, we're kinda screwed. And I mean, understand what it _means_, not just parse English.

Re:... if you know the exact wording

[mstahl]

Now let's see, in how many ways can you say "bug". Well, there's "bug", but then there's "flaw", or "defect", or even "problem", etc.

You forgot "feature"

Re:... if you know the exact wording

[chudnall]

After reading through all that, all I remember is:

blonde with great tits

Re:... if you know the exact wording

[Hognoxious]

Where I work, new development and bug are pretty much synonyms.

It doesn't matter if the program was written in 2005, if it didn't predict that the law would change in 2008 (and exactly how) and failed to telepathically pick up 23 stupid requirements (at least half of which contradict other ones) that were never even verbally communicated (let alone in writing) then the program's shit and whoever wrote it is an idiot.

Re:... if you know the exact wording

[Hognoxious]

I agree 100% with what you're saying. But until we can produce software that can work like a human does, the only solution is to accutrately structure the data at the time of capture. What this means is that email is pretty much the wrong tool for this.

Sadly, trying to structure the data doesn't work either. For example, every screen on our system has a unique identifier. With this, you can navigate to pretty close to where the problem is. It takes two clicks to find it, and the field is active for ctrl-c so you don't need to rekey it into the bug tracker system. Everyone has been told, several times, in writing and pictures, about how to do this. What do we find in there? Sometimes something a bit like the identifier, but with hyphens converted to tildes or underscores opr just omitted. Sometimes the customer number. Sometimes the contract number. Sometimes almost the phone number for the person who raised the issue.

Or try structuring it by which area of the business it is. Good luck with that - in one of our offices the manager of accounts payable doesn't understand the difference between an invoice and a delivery note. To her they're both called an "inbound voucher", a phrase that doesn't actyually occur anywhere in the system.

Re:... if you know the exact wording

[srussia]

Meh...semantics.

Re:... if you know the exact wording

[mstahl]

I was mostly just making a joke at Microsoft's expense there, but I completely agree with you. This is why after one really bad client I always make mine give me a complete spec in writing. It actually deters a lot of clients who I guess were counting on the ability to pull a fast one with me but the ones who are willing to sit down with me and work out exactly what they want before I start working are really the only ones I want. If their wishes change later on in the project, they can write addenda and we'll both sign off on them. It seems like a lot of trouble to go through when I'm basically a one-man shop over here, but in exchange for the effort I get to keep my sanity.

And before you ask, when I was working for an agency I had clients like that too, but they just had to pay a lot more money.

Re:... if you know the exact wording

[inline_four]

Me too...

Life Immitates Art

[Anonymous Coward]

The Adeptus Terra

The Adeptus Terra is the enormous priesthood and bureaucracy of Earth, whose scriptoria, continent-sized archives and pilgrimage sites occupy nearly all of the holy hiveworld of Terra...The Adeptus Terra is so immense, and operates so slowly, that whole departments of it still service agencies which no longer exist and worlds dead for thousands of years.

Google search result overload

[PingXao]

It's getting harder and harder to get meaningful results from even Google (which has been my home page on the internet since 1997). I'd like a way to set global preferences for Google searching where I could specify sites and filters from which I do not want any result hits under any circumstances whatsoever. about.com is a big time waster IMO and that's just the first one that comes to mind. Another is the site(s) that support spyware detectors. Search for anything computer related and you're bound to get multiple useless hits from their forums via Google. Google itself is a culprit in the form of Google Books. A great resource to be sure, but most of the time not relevant to information I am seeking. Just today I discovered that if I do a Google search for something and put either -"google books" or -inurl:books.google.com (or both) it has no effect whatsoever. It seems to be impossible to do a Google search and exclude Google Books from the results. At least -safari works as far as filtering out books from other sites. In general I would like to exclude anything at all that has to do with books from most of my searches. I've got nothing against books, but when I search the internet for information that is online I find hits that refer to books are of no use to me 99% of the time.

Google will probably never make it possible to selectively filter search results on a global basis. One of my near-term projects is going to be a Greasemonkey script for Firefox that approximates the ability to do it.

Re:Google search result overload

[base3]

You want the Customize Google Firefox extension. First thing I do is blacklist *.info, Experts Exchange, and other sites that return useless "results".

Re:Overload? Hardly....

[leamanc]

Also, if slashdot would follow redirects on links and display the final destination domain after the link, that would be great.

Agreed, that would be neat, but my personal policy is that if the link goes to tinyurl or snipurl, then I'm just going to pass. No need to get goatse'd.

Welcome to Time Management for Sysadmins

[edunbar93]

Here's the short version:

Turn it off. There is an appropriate time to be reading your e-mail, responding to instant messages, and texting your boss on your blackberry. And there is an appropriate time for work. Set those times in your schedule quite strictly. During that your work time, your e-mail is not open. Your blackberry is off. MSN is closed. You can probably expect to get three to four hours of this kind of time per day. Unless something is on fire, nothing is to interrupt you, and you can focus on what you're doing and be astoundingly effective and productive.

Once you're done, it's back to e-mail and MSN and constant interruptions. Or "team building" at the water cooler. Whatever.

Re:Welcome to Time Management for Sysadmins

[Anonymous Coward]

You could do that, I suppose, but I just dip my balls in my boss's coffee when he's not looking. It's amazingly gratifying.

chicken nuggets in 30s or less

[epine]

What a bunch of pussies. We all know that a quick answer isn't necessarily a good answer, but maybe only 10% of us have the balls to stick to our guns, and half of us are at risk of winding up on the unemployment line, because a defective "fast food" culture has gained ascendancy in office politics, much like McDonald's in the 1970s. Only later did the masses decide that burger stamped from 1000 different bulls (to paraphrase "Supersize Me") is not good for the constitution (either personal or corporate). I was only twelve when I first tasted a green Shamrock shake, and even then my palate was sophisticated enough to conclude that petrochemicals (to give those flavour additives the benefit of the doubt) were unfit for human consumption.

That's the present state of corporate email and IM culture: fast is good. Fast is actually crap, unless you are careful where you eat, but it will take another decade or so for backlash to recruit the unwashed. The average email response received in under 15 minutes is deep fried in hydrogenated soybean oil to a crispy golden colour. Yum, yum. Eat up and regurg, if you wish to see Santa arrive with your xmas bonus arrive in your neck of the cubical farm.

"The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who haven't got it."

-- George Bernard Shaw

Re:chicken nuggets in 30s or less

[Jippy T Flounder]

100%: this is more of a case of managers managing badly. the worst system is an inflexible one, and the coordination required between design, production and marketing is implemented in the real world as marketing - everything else is drastically time-limited to meet up with the demand created by the people who least understand what's going on.

if you want a good solution, you might have to give it time. or take your time...
and things take a lot longer if you're being constantly interrupted by your boss. why do we have so much unemployment if every engineer and developer needs a secretary?

This is the problem

[zymurgy_cat]

but Spira said the problem has grown as technology increases societal expectations for instantaneous response.

This is the major reason for the problem. People who send these emails, text messages, and so forth, expect instantaneous response. It's gotten very bad.

I recently had to deal with an issue at a customer's site. I was asked numerous times when the expert at my company would have an answer. Hell, I was asked every 30 minutes. This was a problem that was beyond my expertise and required an expert at my company to contact the vendor, collect data, run calculations, and engineer a solution that included having prints made up by the supplier (that themselves needed review and approval). In short, it was a problem that would easily take 2 to 3 days to properly design a solution.

I spent 2 days answering questions about why it wasn't ready yet. It got to the point that people were suggesting I run down to Canadian Tire (sort of like Wal-Mart for those unfamiliar) for parts because they wanted an instant answer. And this is a major petrochemical facility!

All this, I'm sure, is a result of those fuckin' Blackberries they all wear that give them instant "answers" and communications.

These are a few of my favorite things...

[careysb]

These are some of my pet peeves:
* Emails tagged as 'important' from corporate - that are not.
* Emails from corporate that contain a Word file that I have to open only to find a single sentence that could have been cut and pasted into the email instead.
* Corporate managers that think instant messages are a great idea.
* Having to fill out multiple time sheets, one for my paycheck and at least one for project management.
* Corp websites that have too much info and are very poorly organized.
* Microsoft Project (nuff said).
* Corp wiki sites with lots of critical info that have useless search engines.
-- Carey

Regarding e-mail only

[Anonymous Coward]

I assume you're not using Lotus Notes.

It is a bitch to work with, indexed search is marginally passable and e-mail threading doesn't work properly. Much time is wasted looking for information because the search facilities Lotus Notes provides are, indeed, crap.

I'm just waiting for the day I'll use Gmail's interface in a business setting to prove, once and for all, that Google's approach to e-mail is better (if not the best possible in this world).

Its really simple!

[socz]

Most people are dumb asses! No really, check it out! It's like pedestrians. Sure, you think that they would stay on the sidewalk when there is a sidewalk available, but noooo they just HAVE to walk on the street, right?

Then you have people who drive fast and zig zag in and out of traffic. For what? To get wherever they are going faster? Like that ever works!

And this sort of behavior happens all the time in many ways, because people just don't think "oh, maybe if i did this a little different and i was a little more considerate, things would be better."

So that is what happening with this information overload. I personally think it's good to have so many sources of information. One of the cons is that not all of the information is going to be correct.

But having information too organized means that nothing would be overlapping and unless you know exactly what you are looking for, you wouldn't be able to find it.

I think wikipedia has a good model for organizing things. Although i don't think there is any one central group who produces most of the material, it might be good to say base it off of a group. Say the encyclopedia brittanica. And then the open community could edit the heck out of it and vote on "what is really correct." That way we have two sources.

Of course this is only talking about the inet and not other sources of distraction, but really that is the major source in my opinion because i don't know anyone who uses anything else to do so much in such a short amount of time except while watching tv and 'surfing' the channels to see whats on. Then it seems their ADD kicks in.

But then again, what do i know?

Help, I'm suffering from MineSweeper overload!

[jknapka]

'''
But, before the (alleged) explosion, ineffective workers had minesweeper and solitaire. Before that they had a water cooler and last night's shows to talk about. Before that it was real solitaire with real cards.
'''

I think these "ineffective" workers are just "normal" ones. I'm a very focussed person, most of the time, while I'm designing a product or writing code, but I don't feel that I'm typical -- I can be positively antisocial when building the first couple revs of a new product. Many people IME don't get genuine satisfaction out of their work. Those that do may be more effective, but it seems unrealistic to expect that level of performance from everyone. (Not that you're expecting that; I just find it odd to use the word "ineffective" for the "Lost"-watchin'-water-cooler-talkin'-minesweepin'-websurfin' folks as if they're some kind of obscure outliers on the work-productivity curve. I think they're bang in the center of the bell.)

And gob knows I've surfed my share of Slashdot articles while stuff was "compiling"...

Information Overload. Wrong direction.

[Jack9]

The information overload is coming to the managers who can now see how much time is wasted, more effectively than ever. Turns out, humans aren't 100% focused all the time. This is not news. The challenge is not crushing the inefficiency with picking the most attentive, focused, dedicated workers (since most companies rather not afford, TRAINED and SKILLED, workers) but how to best reduce inefficiency with management techniques, including realistically managing workflow.

02fKZwhva-YbRoRObWZNZyPaN3yJeR

[Anonymous Coward]

Gosh, not information overload.

n(n 1) / 2

[ericcantona]

This has been explored in depth in The Mythical Man-Month:

As the number of information sources N increases total work output M decreases and can even become negative (i.e. the total work remaining at the end of a day is greater than the total work that had been remaining at the beginning of that day):

Group Intercommunication Formula: n(n 1) / 2

Example: 50 developers -> 50(50 1) / 2 = 1225 channels of communication

Re:Overload? Hardly....

[eat here_get gas]

Shades of Alvin Toffler!!!

too late...

[Anonymous Coward]

I predict that information overload was the problem of 2007

Good filtering there ;)

[Moraelin]

Yes, who doesn't love Great Tits?

Articles Translated to Geek

[flyneye]

Wired is reporting that ineffective information retreival is being predicted by some analysts as the problem of the year for 2008. "'It's too much information. It's too many interruptions. It's too much lost time,' Basex chief analyst Jonathan Spira declared. 'It's always too hard to pose a proper query.' Information overload isn't exactly new, but Spira said the problem has grown as technology increases societal expectations for instantaneous response. And more information available, he said, also means more time wasted looking for the right information, whether in an old e-mail or through a search engine."Education of the masses toward proper search techniques seems dismal,when Wired doesn't even "get it".

Anger problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

"You insist on taking me seriously, so I insist on being even more offensive."
"Yay, someone wastes their points on me"

Anger problem.

Nope, InfoOverload (IO) not problem ....

[OldHawk777]

Stupid IO is the problem.

I am +55yo. I need each work/friend/family email I get. I need my email-list and S&T/R&D/.EDU/. news ... I was able to buy two OLPC, tell a friend about recent medical R&D, do my work with the correct latest BizBuz concepts and words for management and understand TEKchat within local H/S... hacker crews .... The email, blogs, wikis, miro ... are tools that when used intelligently provide an edge to an older/slower person like me. I am frequently the translator between management (perfect image) and savant (perfect product) personnel and need the information I get.

Stupid IO (SIO) is all the crap-info I DO NOT NEED! Most SIO comes from management/spam IO. They forget or do not consider all content has an Audience of Interest (AoI) that is far less-than the presented "PRIORITY" of the general/unrelated content. I never know what to ignore/read/participate..., more do I worry about it anymore. The most recent was getting an email (5 versions) about a relocation presentation by such&such company for folks relocating to a new city. I looked up the such&such company, they had a contact page (only) website (new company a/o no experience) and local address (nothing else found); I figured, well nepotism contracting again, but I ain't moving/relocating. A couple months ago it was a couple local yokels from the community out yonder that had relationships with local realtors and politics giving a presentation (sales pitch) about the new office/community. Anyway the SIO at work (corporate spam) is about 50/50 and a waste of my time.

The *real* problem is ...

[muddyblooz]

Excessive marketing, commercials, advertisements, all around huckstering.

It's damn near impossible to tolerate television and radio these days.

Information-Overload Overhype

[Citizen of Earth]

information overload is being predicted by some analysts as the problem of the year for 2008.

Sure, why not? I have been hearing how people were going to be overloaded by information every year for the past 25 years. Seems a lot like predictions of the imminent demise of the Internet. Or how if you watched a puppy growing for the first month of its life, you would conclude that it will be 400 feet tall in six years. Funny how these things never seem to come to fruition. Perhaps there is some kind of compensating force at work.