Back from my trip to the US, where I attended the
How Much Information? summit organized by UCSD and the
Global Information Industry Center. This was a very interesting event, where the mindboggling
amount of digital information produced and consumed was sliced, diced and analyzed from a variety of
angles. My contribution was to dissect the Zettabytes from the user’s perspective – what makes the
info good or bad, useful or harmful.
Of course, I used the opportunity to meet IORG members
and other colleagues, and to do some sightseeing, notably of the techie kind. The
demonstration
of Babbage’s Difference Engine replica in action was unforgettable!
Cheers,
In this issue News:Overlord of Overload! Reflection: A lost Liberal Art. From the Toolbox:
Seriosity. What's New Overlord of Overload!
My article on
How to Beat Information Overload was the cover story of the Spectrum, the flagship publication
of the IEEE. With a circulation of over 380,000 engineers worldwide, this got some useful attention,
and I’m getting interesting responses.
Almost embarrassing (but still nice) is the fact that
the editors decided to throw in
a piece on yours truly, and christened it (and myself)
“Overlord of Overload”!
Observations, reflections and opinions A lost Liberal Art In the olden days people of culture were taught the basic
“Liberal Arts” in college... including the arts of writing and public speaking. They were taught how
to write a proper letter or essay; how to make it easy to read and understand, through the use of
proper language, grammar, and structure.
These days, alas, nobody learns that anymore... and
it shows; nowhere more so than in the business world, where people write documents, presentations
and messages that are complex, obfuscated and counter-productive. In the case of email, this adds to
email overload, since many messages need to be read through before you understand what they’re
about, what the action is that you need to take about them. The advantage of a short, well-crafted
message in terms of processing time and potential errors is obvious, yet few people know how to
write these.
Which brings me to my main point here: it is incredible that employers don’t
train their employees in good writing skills. Sure, this is more of a “literature” than a
”technology” thing, but the stakes are high; training all employees, and all new hires, in how to
write a legible message could save millions. Come to think of it, so would training them in
touch-typing (ten fingers with a blindfold)...
From the toolbox
Seriosity There are many software tools that aim to improve messaging in a
company, but none, perhaps, as unusual as Attent, made by Palo Alto startup Seriosity.
Attent
derives many concepts from the world of online multiplayer video games like World of Warcraft; that
should already raise our curiosity... It creates an “economy of attention”, by introducing to the
organization play money called “serios”, which is intentionally kept scarce. People can use their
valuable serios to signal to recipients of the emails they send how important it is – to the sender
– that the message be read soon. The recipient can see in their Inbox how many serios are attached
to each incoming mail; and those with more serios tend to draw their attention.
Evaluation of
this idea showed it to work – senders do use their serios differentially and recipients do respond
accordingly. And unlike straight “quota” systems where you can send only X messages a day, this
system can lead to interesting emergent behaviors. This solution is not everyone’s cup of tea, but
is well worth keeping an eye on!
Snapshots of Ingenuity The
Curta calculator is a device in the shape, size and weight of a pepper mill. It is also a
four-function calculator that is entirely mechanical, all gears and stuff. And it was developed by Curt Herzstark while he was an inmate in Buchenwald.
There is no stopping a determined inventor!
The Monthly Factoid It’s easy to forget it after decades of Star Trek, but
a hundred years ago humanity had no idea that Galaxies were, well... Galaxies.
It was only in
the 1920’s that astronomers determined that the “Nebulae” they were seeing were in fact island
universes outside the milky way. And it took a good deal of ingenuity to get the empirical proof for
this fact.
all gears and stuff. And it was developed by Curt Herzstark while he was an inmate in Buchenwald.
There is no stopping a determined inventor!
