Lucky # 7 – avoiding information overload

I feel much more at ease than I did yesterday. The reason is that I just read a whitepaper of the Atos Scientific Community on ‘Information Overload’.

The paper explains that in general we humans can only remember 7 things – what a relief! Trying to remember more creates stress.

Young Girl Talking On Telephone (by David Castillo Dominici at freedigitalphotos.net)

So I decided to stop trying.

Human beings have clear limits on the amount of information they can process, often called bounded rationality. The phenomenon is clearest in the ‘magical number’ that is linked to our short-term memory: at most, we can keep seven (+/- two) items at once in our working memory, (…). Any item beyond seven, causes the added item (…) to be partially ignored, forgotten, distorted, or otherwise lost.

Suffering from Information overload is clearly a choice. If you suffer from it, it is because you fail to recognize your boundaries and/or, in relationship to that, fail to use the proper tools to manage your work.

In many corporations we see that there is a fundamental shift in the way information gets distributed and used for collaborative purposes – moving away from email and ‘the corporate newsletter’ (the push mechanisms) into a more ‘social’ network of information sharing and collaboration.

These Enterprise Social Networks (ESN) are modelled after public social networks as Facebook, Twitter and others and are being explored as alternative ways of working in enterprises.

Within a corporate social network, much of the potential for Information Overload can be avoided if the phenomenon is kept in mind during the design, creation and use of the network.

So the premise of the paper is that a properly designed and implemented ESN can help avoid Information Overload and increase efficiency in the workplace, but if done incorrectly can increase the problem and create a very unhealthy and inefficient working environment.

In order to understand the success-factors, we need to understand human behavior and make sure they get addressed:

  • Noise filtering; the capability to assess and reflect on information and filter the data in a way it makes sense for the work we have to do.
  • Predictability; the fact that standardization and methodologies help us structure the way we work, focusing on the content instead of the process increases motivation and quality of work.

If the ESN allows us to address these elements we have a good chance of success and we can further increase the quality by understanding how an ESN will impact the way we work.

The concept that every message must be seen by everyone, and that everything that is said on a corporate social network is relevant to every user has become outdated in the social media era.

I believe this is a fundamental characteristic of what we will be able to achieve through a successful implementation of an ESN; empowerment of people.

Moving away from the top-down pushing of information, but instead creating cross company collaboration processes in (virtual) communities.

 


This blog post was previously published at http://blog.atos.net/blog/2013/09/03/watch-this-space-lucky-7-avoiding-information-overload/


The consequences of a stolen phone

Your wallet is stolen. You wanted to pay for your tall latte and it is gone. You search all of your pockets and looked around, bewildered.

Maybe somebody found it and will hand it to you. No. It’s gone. The nice lady at the counter understands and gives you your coffee anyhow. That’s nice.

 

Cafe Latte (by amenic181 at freedigitalphotos.net)It doesn’t change the fact that your wallet is stolen. In your mind you create a list of everything that is in it. Some money, the tickets for the theater, your bank card and your credit card, some pictures of your children and a business card you got while you bumped into an old friend on your way to the coffee shop.

So now you reach for your phone, you have to call the bank to block your cards, you do not want some punk to get his dirty hands on your salary.

Oh wait and sh@#$%^&*, your phone is gone too…

In a recent white paper of the Atos Scientific Community the security aspects of mobile devices is addressed , as well as other aspects in the management of devices in the new bring-your-own-device concept that is being allowed by many companies and full heartedly embraced by employees.

The quotes below are from that white paper.

“Enterprise Mobile Management solutions currently available in the market address different aspects of BYO. Balancing those with network & access as well as data and applications usage will pave the way for a successful BYO implementation…”

Ok. It is gone, you do a quick mental inventory of what is on your phone.

Access to your personal and business email, Twitter and Facebook account. Your contact list of about 400 people with their email addresses, home addresses and telephone number included. On top of that access to your DropBox account with all the info on a recent bid and the complete cost break down of all products.

And because you have a new NFC enabled phone, your credit card is also in digital format on your phone. Now what?

“The key area to support BYO in 2016 will be tablets and their descendants (e.g. wearable computers), along with smartphones. We see these as the two key device segments.”

The white paper does not only cover this case of a stolen phone – it goes into all measures you can take if you adopt the bring-your-own-device scenario in your company.

What to do with applications, data and network access; all these aspects are clearly explained and some best practices are listed for any CxO that is looking into this.

“Security in such dynamic environments as BYO must be built on the assumption that anyone or any device may get access to the data, but that only authorized users should be able to use it for the intended and agreed purpose, and under a defined context.”

“Sir? Is this yours?” When you turn around you see a nice person holding up both your phone and wallet – you start breathing again.

At the same time you think about what you could do to avert the disaster that did not happen this time.

 

 


This blog post was previously published at http://blog.atos.net/blog/2013/06/24/watch-this-space-the-consequences-of-a-stolen-phone/