Tech Firms Fighting Information Overload

The onslaught of cellphone calls and e-mail and instant messages is fracturing attention spans and hurting productivity. It is a common complaint. But now the very companies that helped create the flood are trying to mop it up.

Some of the biggest technology firms, including Microsoft, Intel, Google and I.B.M., are banding together to fight information overload. Last week they formed a nonprofit group to study the problem, publicize it and devise ways to help workers -- theirs and others -- cope with the digital deluge.

Read the whole story here.

Comments

[jerrypenguin]

Not having, on your person, cell phone, laptop, blackberry, ipod, etc. implies that your are disconnected within the context of cultural and business norms. With respect to career this means "not a team player." Therefore, You're fired!!

[Gary47]

These suggestions are nothing more than good work habits I practiced my entire career. This is silliness.

[NWReader]

The author defines the tech mantra "eat your own dog food" to mean "use your own innovations."
That's not what it means.
Dog food is bad, not good.
If you are a GOOD tech, you won't have a lot of dog food. You'll be using your innovations. If you're a BAD tech, your product will suck and you will suffer with your customers, and thereby be motivated to improve your product so that it's no longer dog food.
That's what "eat your own dog food" means.

[hypnotoad72]

The trouble is, it's not about how good a person is... but how cheap they are. Experience means nothing and is expendable. :(

[TakeSake]

In both research and experience if one is really working efficiently and there is an interruption, it takes about 20 minutes to get back to speed.

Interruptions can be anything - phone call, email, a colleague asking questions, the worker in the next cube talking about golf, radio - whatever takes attention away.

If an interruption happens every 15 minutes, then high productivity is never achieved, and being at work becomes a game of "Look busy - the boss is coming".

Most companies organize the office in a way that is guaranteed to work poorly. Here are some of the problems I see:
1) Cube farms that are too large. This forces too many different departments together, leading to disruptions outside of one's project.
2) Placing printers close to people.
3) "Status" meetings that cover the same things every week. Keep it to a couple items per person covered by a couple paragraphs at most. A status meeting shouldn't last more than 1/2 hour. Other subjects can be held in meetings that require only those who need to be there.
4) More than two meetings per day.

Here are some solutions:
5) Schedule projects as if everyone works 32 hours per week. The rest gets filled in automatically by delays and other things.
6) Limit corporate broadcast emails to once per day when possible.
7) Invest in people. Get them larger LCD screens. More desk space. Better computers.
8) Don't make buying something for $100 cost $200 in people time.

[monty]

Does anyone believe that the companies who helped create the info overload problem are really going to help clean it up? NOT!

[hypnotoad72]

That's why we have psychiatrists and drugs! Chewable, grape flavored Concerta. Yum-yum, gimme some! :9 That pesky ADHD will be gone in no time...

[hypnotoad72]

Just put some adderall into the water and that A.D.D. problem should be resolved.

Or is it ritalin?

[KillTheMessenger]

Adderall has a drug abuse problem.It's essentially a mixture of amphetamines. Why a mixture? The idea is to make the onset and the effect longer than with e.g. methampthetamine but that is more theory than reality. If you were to give people unlimited access to adderall in water, you would see them become very happy, very chatty and social first, and probably even somewhat more focused. Many would lose weight and feel better than ever before in their lives. Six months later everyone would be "hanging out" at the water cooler dispensing that stuff ALL THE TIME and do whatever they can to get more of it. A year later your office would be populated by psychotics. Sounds cool.

[TakeSake]

Somehow that sounds like television...