On the information overload myth…
October 19, 2007
Okay, I’m going to make a point here, and I’m going to hammer it in relentlessly: There is no such thing as information overload! I repeat: There’s no such thing as information overload! Here’s why:
Information by definition thanks it’s status to the fact that it’s somehow useful or relevant to you. If it’s not, it’s not information anymore… just a pile of data. Data + Added value = Information. If you get overloaded, what you’re experiencing is actually a lack of information, caused by an overload of data.
This may sound like a silly semantic argument, but it’s not: It’s a good illustration of how to solve the issue.. get rid of the data by converting it into useful information. What you can do is set up a “Personal Supply Chain of Knowledge” as Thomas Friedman calls it in “The World is Flat”… which sound very fancy but is very fast becoming a real option with todays technology.
With Web 2.0 sites using RSS, web services, OPML and all kinds of other technologies, we have an unparalleled capacity to pull data in, and convert it to information that is useful to us. For about two years now I’ve been trying to realize this, with mixed success.. but with tools like Netvibes and Yahoo Pipes, it’s getting so much easier!
Quality of information
For now, I’d like to stick to the essentials: What makes good information? What gives it added value? My (admittedly limited) research shows that the following factors are critical:
- The recipient. The data has to get to the right person;
- Time of arrival. It has to get there in a specific timeframe;
- Authority of/Trust in the originating source;
- The effort it takes to absorb the information;
- The ‘resolution’ of the information.
Items 1-3 are fairly easy to determine, or at least have clear opimal values: The right recipient, at the right time, from the right source. Number 4 and 5 are a bit more tricky: You want to get things as detailed as possible (high resolution), but the higher the resolution, the more effort it takes to absorb it… so these two need to balance out.
When you’ve got these bases covered on just about all data that reaches you, you’d have a dream system. Of course, that’s not going to work yet, but we can at least make a start! More about specific tools and methods later…
Kisses,
–
Wafel
Picture attributed to Buglay on Flickr
Embracing constraints
October 18, 2007
“You have to embrace the constraints”, that’s what people keep telling me about a myriad of subjects.
When you write poetry, people tell you to stick to the forms. When you write software, you have to stay within time and budgetary limits. When you dance, your style should better not be too unusual… the list just goes on and on! But why? What does it mean?
I have to admit I never really got it, I mean, I understand the logic of staying within established boundaries, but why should you embrace that like it’s a good thing?
This week, I’m happy to say.. I got it! You see, last Friday I went on a short trip to Lisbon* on an unbelievably low budget, low as in “Do I even have enough money to get back to the airport?”. And it turned out to be amazing!
You see, in Lisbon it turns out that transportation is very cheap, so we decided to check out the region for two days — the cheapest possible option.
On the first day we went hiking through the hills instead of taking the bus (which we were told is a choice you’d only make if you’re mad or masochistic), the walk was tough, but beautiful. On the second we got a free bike on loan in a beach village called Cascais, and went for a mind blowing ride along the coast of the Atlantic. If we’d have more money, I doubt we’d have gone walking and biking, busses were available both times… they’d have saved us hours.. but oh boy what we’d have missed!
I feel so lucky we were broke ;-) Embracing constraints indeed!
* = Hence my short absence here ;-)
Another Day @ Xolo
October 10, 2007
Yes, it’s happening, my fine colleagues here are executing retaliatiory strikes against me and my blog! *gosh I wonder why?* ;-)
Me on a pogo stick… the horror ;-)
Video by Mindcaster Marc [A Room with A view]
Mental hygiene
October 10, 2007
Today, I’d like to talk a little bit about ideas and how to handle, generate and select ideas. But for that, I’d like to start somewhere else: genes and evolution. Most people nowadays believe that evolution by natural selection exists, and genes are completely accepted facts. Evolution simply means that genes replicate, they do that imperfectly (some random abberation occur) and they are mixed because the genes of our parents are mixed. These random abberations are significant, because they can lead to disadvantages or advantages to the bearer of that gene. Over time, the carriers of the advantageous trait are more likely to procreate, and so slowly more and more offspring will have that trait.
But as Richard Dawkins points out, why should this principle only work for genes? Why couldn’t it work for anything else that evolves based on imperfectly self-replicating things? Why wouldn’t work for culture for instance? Culture is based on building blocks like ideas, fashions etc. In “The Selfish Gene” he proposed the term: “meme”, which is now actually empirically studied in “memetics”. A meme is nothing more or less than an idea or concept that can be replicated between us.
The very cool thing about this theory, is that you can apply a whole lot of principles of evolution to explain how ideas (memes) are transmitted. And since there are very few limits on the capacity of ideas to ‘procreate’, we get to see very viral/parasitic patterns. Please think about the implications of this! (Then, click on the More link… :-) )
A Day @ Xolo, Part 7: Good food, bad manners
October 5, 2007
Photos from Flickr. Attributed to Mindcaster
My new lifehack rule: Three times = action
October 3, 2007
How we process the information that comes to us is a curious thing. I mean, we are bombarded with information through all kinds of channels, targeted at all our senses, that we somehow know how to manage. Apparently, we see more images now each day, than people who lived a few hundred years back saw in their entire life!
Most of this information we filter out (a necessary and healthy strategy), but that comes with a risk of ignoring something that could actually be incredibly interesting. I noticed a while back though, that if I’m confronted with a word, concept, product or something like that, repeatedly (without it being advertisements) it leads me to look into it further.
This is a very logical and completely unsurprising conclusion, but if you are conscious of it, you can actually enforce it on purpose. And that’s what I do now.
An example: Let’s say I overheard someone talking about an obscure author on Friday; happened to see an interview with that author on Saturday and saw the book in a bookstore few days later. Normally, I might or might not do something with this, but I now have a new rule:
3 times means action.
So if I get confronted with something three times during a short period, I force myself to look into it (in this case, I bought the book). This way, I force myself not to think about if something fits my interests, and add an element of surprise… which goes perfectly with the whole comfort zone story! An added advantage is that automatically you follow most trends :-)
After a while you start to see the most weirdly interesting things, just because you have a somewhat randomly seeded, objective filter of what to look into, despite your frame of reference.
I know it sounds stupid and futile, but it’s cool! :-)
A Day @ Xolo, Part 6: Hotel California
October 2, 2007
Hear all! A beautiful rendition of Hotel California ;-) Ruben sings most of it, but the bits that sound good are sung by Mr Gabe B himself! Gabe competed in the Dutch version of Pop Idols, where finished in the top 20-something region!
Anyway, just another day @ Xolo ;-)
Do something strange each week!
October 1, 2007
In my last post I talked a bit on stress and how utterly and completely useless I think it is. But fair enough, as some people pointed out there also a thing called healthy tention.
What I try to do in my life (and find really challenging sometimes) is to try and get out of my comfort zone at least once a week. Of course I don’t manage to do that every week, but it feels nice and refreshing anyway.
As you know everyone has a comfort zone, which we are strongly urged to stay in by ourselves because we function best when we do things we actually know very well how to do. When you step out of your comfort zone, you have to think about your every move or response because your not using your normal and strengthened neural connections. This is very energy consuming, and our bodies like to conserve energy.. that’s why it really doesn’t want to go there.
On the other hand, when you do step out of your comfort zone, you feel more alive, you learn a lot and you create new neural connections for later use. You also gain the ability to look at things from different perspectives or see new connections that you didn’t see before… which might be very valuable even in business.
So what qualifies? A lot actually!
- The obvious if of course to go skydiving, paragliding or something like that (I’m planning on taking a paragliding course next year :-) woohoo!).
- But it doesn’t have to be that extreme. Why not try going to a professional conference on some topic that is completely out of your normal field of expertise (For example, I’m in IT but went to a philosophical conference on ‘what makes an educated man?’ a few weeks ago. It was amazing)
- Or even simpler: Talk to people you’d normally never talk to; Ask if you can follow someone during work for a day if they have an interesting job; do some volunteering or simply read an obscure magazine/blog!
I’ll personally take anything to stay away from the TV ;-)
Kisses and my apologies if I sound to pedantic ;-)
Have a great day,
–
Wafel
Picture attributed to Roee C. on flickr.
