Solving Information Overload in an enterprise is difficult enough; but before you ever get there, you need to convince management that they want to solve it. This would seem a no-brainer: managers are the worst hit when it comes to excessive email, so you’d think they’d jump at a proposal to solve the problem; and some, indeed, do. Many, however, fail to realize just how high the price is that their organization pays for the flood of messaging; and when I was working for Intel, whose culture asserts  that Data rules supreme, I had to bring data substantiating that price. If you plan to do something about Information Overload in your own company, you may well need to do the same.

To that end, I can recommend a paper that I and two of my coworkers published in First Monday – a peer-reviewed online journal – in August 2007. Titled “Infomania: why we can’t afford to ignore it any longer”, it describes and classifies the manifold impacts of Information Overload in an organization, and provides footnotes and a bibliography that point the reader at the research papers, surveys and other data that prove and quantify the effects. We wrote this for our own use, to have all the information in one convenient document, and you are welcome to use it to prove your point wherever you are.

If you find this paper useful, let me know by leaving a comment!