An argument broke out during one of my lectures, about whether a “No Email Day” could work in the organization I was speaking at. Most attendees felt it couldn’t – not unless the electric power were cut! And then they recalled that this had once happened to them…
Turns out that in a large building power has been lost for a number of hours and all mail was inaccessible. Now, you’d think this would be a negative experience in their memory – but it was not. They all started describing it to me excitedly: how everybody in the building had come out; how they’d all started to talk to each other; and – they reminisced with wonder – how they saw the SUN!
It must’ve been exhilarating. But then, of course, the power had been restored (sigh)…
Hahaha! It’s like that short SF story (feet on Venus) where the sun only comes out once every 7 years, except that in this case, the darkness is self-imposed!
Yep… much of the behavior in organizations around info overload sounds more like fiction – sometimes, horror fiction – than like anything sane people would do… 🙁