Beyond Email Information Overload Blogs Wikis Always Connected

Beyond Email – Information Overload • Can you have too much information? Copyright ©

Beyond Email – Information Overload • Can you be “Too Busy to Notice You’re Too Busy”? Alex Eben Meyer http: //www. nytimes. com/2007/03/31/business/31 shortcuts. html? _r=1&oref= slogin Copyright © 2008 by Helene G. Kershner

Beyond Email – Information Overload • Google – type in “Information Overload” • You get 1, 900, 000 hits • An entire series of photos and cartoons are available to browse • Research papers have been published from all over the world. • There was more information, on information overload than I could actually manage Copyright © 2008 by Helene G. Kershner

Beyond Email – Information Overload Is this the image of an Information Junkie? http:

Beyond Email – Information Overload http: //www. usg. edu/galileo/skills/unit 08/credit 08_01. phtml Copyright ©

Beyond Email – Information Overload Copyright © 2008 by Helene G. Kershner

Beyond Email – Information Overload Know what you know Are you suffering from information overload? We develop technologies that enable access to your hidden knowledge and help you manage your data efficiently. http: //www. kno 10. com Copyright © 2008 by Helene G. Kershner

Beyond Email – Information Overload http: //pro. corbis. com/search/Enlargement. aspx? CID=isg&mediauid=DA 083866 -353 A-4525

Beyond Email – Information Overload • Issue is mainstream when articles appear in • New York Times • Readers Digest • Books about it available on Amazon • Surviving Information Overload: The Clear, Practical Guide to Help You Stay on Top of What You Need to Know (Paperback) $11. 04 http: //www. amazon. com/exec/obidos/ASIN/031025115 X/bookrags Copyright © 2008 by Helene G. Kershner

Beyond Email – Information Overload • Can there be too much information? • • • Can there Too many Too many be too many books in a library? movies? music CDs? papers to read? web sites to visit? videos? Copyright © 2008 by Helene G. Kershner

Beyond Email – Information Overload Can there be too much information? • “The Internet, as we know it, removed previous barriers to publication: the money required to buy a printing press or a transmitter or…” • Before the Internet, “information” was limited but an unintended consequence was that the amount of information was also manageable. • “The amount of stuff on the Internet is of a magnitude larger than any previous collection of any sort. ” • “We’re reaching the point where it’s too large to be effectively, searched, filed, indexed, briefed, organized, or numbered. • But we still try. ” Kantor, Andrew, http: //www. usatoday. com/tech/columnist/andrewkantor/2007 -06 -14 internet-organization_N. htm Copyright © 2008 by Helene G. Kershner

Beyond Email – Information Overload Can there be too much information? • “Search tools dispense with categories and let users define their needs ad hoc. ” • Everything's in a pool • Keywords narrow it down. • Search tools have become less useful over the last few years • “too much stuff to search” • Without very, very careful categories a search results in hundreds of thousands of hits. • New and better ways of searching the Web are needed. − Lots of ideas to make the searching more manageable − More specialized searching – Tools like Wikipedia and it’s sister sites Copyright © 2008 by Helene G. Kershner

Beyond Email – Information Overload Can we handle all our information Toys? • First there was Email • Then there was Email with SPAM • Then there was Email with filters that filter some SPAM and well. . • Then there was the Web • Can we get through a day without checking key web sites • • Class sites News sites Business sites Political sites Games sites Music sites Wikipedia Copyright © 2008 by Helene G. Kershner

Beyond Email – Information Overload • Enter My/Our World! • • • Check Email (on multiple accounts) Check regular web sites Check Email Then my Palm (personal digital assistant –Ugh!) reminds me of a meeting or a class Attend meeting or class Then I get a text message, or a phone call or both Then of course there is my Email Then someone comes to my office Then of course there is my Email And somewhere in between, I try to get some work done. • And the pattern repeats all day long Copyright © 2008 by Helene G. Kershner

Beyond Email – Information Overload Can we handle all our information Toys? • Workers in the “Information Age, need to develop skills for managing information overload. ” • This overload is caused by the “rapid rate of growth in the amount of information available” • While days remain 24 hours long • And our brains remain roughly the same as they were in caveman days. Krill, Pau, http: //www. infoworld. com/articles/ca/xml/00/01/10/000110 caoverload. html Copyright © 2008 by Helene G. Kershner

Beyond Email – Information Overload • • Do we really need all these Toys? Do we need to be connected 24/7? Has all this information made us better – somehow? How much information is enough? You Tube: http: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=ia 5 Fxoe. FJWI http: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=Yg. W 7 or 1 Tu. Fk (i. Phone) http: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=_yh. Za. Jnqd. RY (information overload) http: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=Bv 99 WA 0 xy. Nk (Ted Koppel on Info. Overload) http: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=INFe-Yk. Hjbw (Info. Overload Ex. ) Copyright © 2008 by Helene G. Kershner

Beyond Email – Information Overload Headlines like these should scare us into thinking hard about Information Overload: • Reuters Study Reveals Growing Danger Of Information Addiction Worldwide And A New Generation Of Dataholics (1997) • Information could become the ‘drug of the nineties’ http: //www. netaddiction. com/bio/reuters. htm • Information Overload: Is There a Cure? (2008) • Between meetings, mobile phones, e-mail and IM, we're failing victim to the stresses of daily business. Interruptions are here to stay. http: //www. internetnews. com/bus-news/article. php/3737601 • Is Information Overload a $650 Billion Drag on the Economy? (2007) • an estimate of the “cost of unnecessary interruptions” http: //bits. blogs. nytimes. com/2007/12/20/is-information-overload-a-650 -billion-drag-on-theeconomy/ Copyright © 2008 by Helene G. Kershner

Beyond Email – Information Overload • Technology isn’t the solution to everything? • We need to set limits and boundaries. • “Key to information management is focusing on the quality of the data your receive. ” • Recognizing quality is hard • Who do you believe? • Alan Lightman, an MIT humanities professor and physics lecturer said, “ I think that the high-speed information technologies, while very useful in many ways, have robbed us of our necessary silences of time to reflect on values on who we are and where we’re going. ” Krill, Pau, http: //www. infoworld. com/articles/ca/xml/00/01/10/000110 caoverload. html Copyright © 2008 by Helene G. Kershner

Beyond Email – Information Overload Ways to beat back the overload Do • Develop an information management plan that works for you. • Filter information. • Recognize that you cannot possible look at all relevant data before you make a decision. • Attempt to recognize quality data. • Take control. • Create “down” time Don't • Let information take control of you by working 60 to 70 hours per week. • Take cell phones or computers on vacations. • Attempt to examine every piece of data available. • Focus on things beyond your control, such as the idea that every minute there is more and more information out there…. . Copyright © 2008 by Helene G. Kershner Krill, Pau, http: //www. infoworld. com/articles/ca/xml/00/01/10/000110 caoverload. html

Beyond Email Organizing Information might be a way past Information Overload! Wikis Blogs Copyright

Beyond Email – Collaboration Wikis So what’s a Wiki? Great Idea: http: //en. wikipedia. org • “A wiki is software that allows registered users or anyone to collaboratively create, edit, link, and organize the content of a website, usually for reference material. “ • Wikis are collaborative websites and are often used as a way to keep data on community websites up-to-date. • Wikipedia is the best known wiki. • Wikis are used by businesses on intranets as a way of managing information (reducing information overload). • Ward Cunningham developed the first wiki originally described it as “the simplest online database that would possibly work. ” http: //en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Wiki Copyright © 2008 by Helene G. Kershner

Beyond Email – Collaboration Wikis • Wikis are for collaborative writing • Groups of individuals, anywhere, working together in a written, web format • Website is hosted making it available to users • Can be a collection of connected sites, and hyperlinked documents • “A wiki is essentially a database for creating, browsing and searching through information. ” (Leuf, Bo. & Cunningham, Ward, The Wiki Way: Quick Collaboration on the Web. , 2001) • Easy to create, easy to edit, easy to update • NOT reviewed by anyone other than the users • Kids in High School and Middle School create group projects using wikis • It is an easy way to comment on and enhance each Copyright © 2008 by Helene G. Kershner others work

Beyond Email – Collaboration Wikis • Public Wikis • Public group forums for sharing information • Usually require user accounts and special logins so everyone in the wikis’ community knows who is changing the material • Edits are in real-time and instantly appear on the web making it possible for unhappy users to abuse the wiki. • Some public wikis (ex: wikipedia) have a site moderator who can lock down abused sites. • Private Wikis • Often require user authentication to edit and change pages • Can be hosted on systems not directly on the Internet but only on a local Intranet • Check out: http: //www. wikispaces. com/ Copyright © 2008 by Helene G. Kershner

Beyond Email -Blogs Great Idea: • A blog (an abridgment of the term web log) is a website, usually maintained by an individual, with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. • Entries are commonly displayed in reverse chronological order. • "Blog" can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog • A software environment that runs as a web page http: //en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Blog Copyright © 2008 by Helene G. Kershner

Beyond Email -Blogs • Blogs are online diaries • • Can provide news and commentary on events Often include text, pictures and sometimes video Readers can comment on what the blogger reports Unlike a wiki, readers cannot change the bloggers content Copyright © 2008 by Helene G. Kershner

Beyond Email -Blogs • Blogs come in all shapes and sizes and cover all topics • NY Times, and other media outlets, has blogs where the newspaper can report and receive comments from readers • http: //www. nytimes. com/ref/topnews/blog-index. html • Personal Blogs • Corporations have blogs to increase communication and disseminate information • By “readership”: education blogs, political blogs, travel blogs, movie blogs, fashion blogs, you name it there’s a blog for it. • Dilbert Bolg http: //dilbertblog. typepad. com/ • The Facebook Blog http: //blog. facebook. com/ Copyright © 2008 by Helene G. Kershner

Beyond Email -Blogs Copyright © 2008 by Helene G. Kershner

Beyond Email -Blogs • There are free blogger sites: https: //www. blogger. com/start • How do we know our content is secure? • How do we know where to host a blog? • Review of Blogging sites: − http: //hostingreview. com/? gclid=CLjmx 8 z 34 p. ICFQNEPAod 4 SWSdw • Gaggle, Launches Safe Blogging site for Schools and Students. http: //www. cheaphostingdirectory. com/news-blog-website-gagglelaunches-safe-blogging-site-for-schools-and-students-1926. html Copyright © 2008 by Helene G. Kershner

Beyond Email • Information Overload is a part of our lives • Whether we embrace it or not, it is here to stay • There is some value in being disconnected for some period of time, each day, each week, each…. • Wikis and Blogs • Help us organize our information • But what we say and how we say it can then become who we are forever, and for every one. • Data can haunt us or help us or both • Finding Balance is the critical question Copyright © 2008 by Helene G. Kershner