Archive for the 'Analysis and Opinion' Category

What’s in a Name? Name Diversity as a Factor in Global Collaboration

Posted on September 14th, 2012 · Posted in Analysis and Opinion

Countless studies have been made of factors affecting Global Collaboration… but one factor seems absent from them. This is the cultural diversity of personal names. It’s as if this factor is a non-issue; which has always surprised me, because in my long career in a global corporation I’ve concluded that it definitely matters. Read on… Strange names leave you clueless in so many ways! If you work in a global corporation you are likely to be communicating routinely with remote team mates named, say, Ayelet Gilboa, Szendrey Erzsébet, John McDonald, SK Wong, Dögg Jónsdóttir, Phan Tấn Dũng and Pavel Andreyevich.. Read more

Will Gen Z Employees be Pre-wired for Collaboration in the Workplace?

Posted on September 10th, 2012 · Posted in Analysis and Opinion, Uncategorized

Improving Collaboration in global teams is on most managers’ hot issues list. It has just occurred to me that for once, time may be on our side in solving this issue… The rise of the new multi-generational workplace  has brought much attention to the behaviors, expectations and perceptions of Gen Y employees, and HR people who have the bandwidth to look farther out are busy deciphering Gen Z, which will hit the workplace in a few years. Now, we all know that these young people communicate with their peers through social media and mobile devices, a fact that puts them.. Read more

Who Should Teach Future Employees Information Overload Coping Skills?

Posted on September 6th, 2012 · Posted in Analysis and Opinion, Organizational Solutions

Houston, we have a problem Have you ever stopped to think how our information overload looks to a new college graduate? We all know that Information Overload is a problem; the staggering impact on the enterprise and the economy – about a Trillion dollars a year in the US alone – has been well documented. We know that knowledge workers in our corporations are in a state of constant distraction and stress; and some of us – myself included – are doing what we can to help them cope. But what of the inflow of new employees, those bright young.. Read more

The Dark Side of Information Overload

Posted on September 2nd, 2012 · Posted in Analysis and Opinion

What I find fascinating about Information Overload in organizations is that there’s so much more to it than meets the eye. There is a distinct layer of causes to this problem that I’ve been referring to collectively as “The Dark Side of Information Overload”, and they have a real presence in the murky undercurrents below the surface of the corporate culture. The formal culture, with its mission statements and values emphasizing fairness and cooperation, never acknowledges this Dark Side; but the employees can unerringly identify it and respond with defensive measures that can result in anything but cooperation. I’ve been.. Read more

Trends in Information Overload: is it Getting Better or Worse?

Posted on August 27th, 2012 · Posted in Analysis and Opinion

I was a panelist in a webinar about email overload and was asked by the moderator whether I can describe some trends of the Information Overload problem over the years. Well – I’ve been leading the battle on information overload in the workplace for 18 years now, so at least I have a long span of years to seek trends in… and it was a good question. How has the Email Overload problem evolved since 1995? My answer: I can give some bad news, and some – though not dramatic – good news. The bad news is that Information Overload.. Read more

Do What I Mean: Is DWIM a Blessing or a Curse?

Posted on August 19th, 2012 · Posted in Analysis and Opinion

Remember Alta Vista? I do; I’ve been a search engine junkie from day one, back in the mid-nineties when the explosion of web servers made these miraculous tools indispensable. At the time I was driving Intel’s adoption of the Web, and was teaching a “Searching the Internet” course I’d developed; I believed that proper searching know-how will become a critical skill in the years ahead. I was right with that prediction, of course, but I hadn’t foreseen one development: my course had put emphasis on Boolean search syntax and the related mindset; and these have slowly been driven out by.. Read more

Ubiquity

Posted on August 2nd, 2012 · Posted in Analysis and Opinion

I was at an event where graduating college students were presenting their projects. One student was showing a software system that allows you to use a Smartphone – with its motion sensors – as a 3D controller for a video game. On one slide he compared his tool to a Wii setup, and under “Cost” he pointed out that a Wii system costs a couple hundred bucks and the software he was presenting would cost under $5. I couldn’t resist pointing out that for his system you needed to also have a smartphone, which would cost more than the Wii;.. Read more

An early observation on multitasking

Posted on May 25th, 2012 · Posted in Analysis and Opinion

While browsing a forgotten bookshelf I found myself leafing through an old volume called “The scientist in action – a scientific study of his methods”, by one William H. George, a Physics professor from Sheffield. This book had been published in 1938 by Emerson Books, NY. And as I flipped the pages I happened to notice the following statement: It is one of the properties of man that if he tries to give attention to many things at once he becomes confused. Confusion of thought is a hindrance to scientific research… I have no idea who Mr. George was, but.. Read more

Is email going away?

Posted on April 23rd, 2012 · Posted in Analysis and Opinion

Every now and then someone proclaims that email has outlived its usefulness (some, groaning under their Inboxes, might say outstayed its welcome), and is on the way out. How about it? It might seem that these pronouncements of doom for the world’s most widely used messaging channel have some basis. After all, the young generation – Generation Y – really prefer to conduct much of their communication via Facebook; it is said that some universities don’t bother to assign email accounts to their students because they don’t need them anymore. And even in the enterprise, we have that startling declaration.. Read more

Wrong solution?!

Posted on April 4th, 2012 · Posted in Analysis and Opinion

I was talking to a young manager in a hi-tech company and she shared an interesting insight. She had recently been equipped by her company with a Smartphone, and it had decreased her stress level at home significantly, she happily stated. Why so? Because, she explained, she was no longer afraid to miss out on anything – she could check her email during the evening as often as she wanted in order to see if anything urgent had come up. This is very interesting: before the arrival of the always-connected device, she couldn’t be connected – nor be on call.. Read more