Blog. Insight, issues, opinions and productivity solutions

Bye bye, E!

Posted on October 12, 2011 · Posted in Analysis and Opinion

The letter “e” has become a central symbol of the internet age, along with the once obscure “@” glyph. We have it prefixed to all sorts of old words, from Commerce to Bay, from Business to Book… and of course, to Mail, giving us what remains possibly the most  useful online tool yet devised: email. But things change, and the venerable “e” is beginning to slip. I notice that more and more young people drop the “e” and just say “mail”  without even realizing the ambiguity this introduces – their generation’s experience with paper-in-envelope mail is so scanty that they.. Read more

They’re taking over! (In a good way)

Posted on October 3, 2011 · Posted in Off-topic

So we’ve made the switch back from Daylight Saving Time yesterday at 2AM, and like every year I got up in the morning and made the round of the house to set all clocks, watches, computers and other devices one hour back. This is always a bore – there are so many time-aware contraptions in a typical home… But this time I noticed one new thing – about half of these contraptions did not need resetting. The computers changed their time on their own (seems trivial to you folks elsewhere, but in Israel the changeover date follows the Jewish calendar.. Read more

Tribute to a favorite bookseller

Posted on September 29, 2011 · Posted in Off-topic

My recent trip to the US was a pleasure, except for one shock: I went to the nearest Borders bookstore, and discovered the bookseller chain had closed forever the preceding week. I do favor small independent bookstores, and have been worried about their tendency to disappear under pressure of the larger chains; still, I had to admit that Borders had a pleasant aspect that provided a bookworm with a delightful experience. Seeing it go under – one can surmise, due to the pressure of Internet-based alternatives and other shifts in information consumption habits of the 21st century – was profoundly.. Read more

Cues for useless email?

Posted on September 28, 2011 · Posted in Organizational Solutions

One of the slides in my Information Overload lecture analyzes the root causes of sending useless email, and goes into the very human motivators stemming from mistrust in many corporate cultures. One of these is CYA – sending mail, or copying too many people on it, to cover one’s backside. So in a recent lecture one of my audience, not being a native English speaker, raised her hand and asked what CYA meant. I translated it for her and explained how people might send mail to people who had no need for it merely to cover themselves from any objection… Read more

A sorely needed cellphone feature

Posted on September 21, 2011 · Posted in Individual Solutions

A lecture attendee reacted to my data about the scary extent of disruption caused by endlessly ringing cellphones by saying: “I keep my cellphone turned on only in case my child calls – I wish it would only ring for him!” Now, here is a feature that is painfully needed, and obviously useful: Allow the user to specify which callers the phone will ring for, and which it will not, when you put it into a “Silent” mode. Or use “vibrate” as part of the equation: Ring for calls from an emergency-prone dependent, vibrate for close family and coworkers, let.. Read more

How ignorance can lead to Information Overload

Posted on September 13, 2011 · Posted in Analysis and Opinion

I was discussing Email Overload with a friend of mine who is a veteran manager at an international hi-tech company, and he made an interesting observation. His company, he said, is large enough that many email senders have no idea who should be copied on their messages; they can’t be sure who “needs to know”, so they just CC everyone who is remotely likely to be involved. Basically, they are replacing “Need to Know” with “Might possibly need to know”. Of course, although these folks think “better safe than sorry”, they should be very sorry – the recipients that don’t.. Read more

The innocence of youth

Posted on September 4, 2011 · Posted in Analysis and Opinion

I was having coffee with a colleague I go back a long way with, and he told me of his first encounter with email. He had just joined Intel (in Israel) in 1988, and his boss showed him his new cubicle, his desk, and his computer, on which he demonstrated the email application. My friend came from a workplace where there was no such thing, and the following conversation ensued, more or less: My friend: What is this for? His boss: well, if you want to write something to someone, you write it in this window, add the person’s name.. Read more

Some powerful role modeling

Posted on August 25, 2011 · Posted in Organizational Solutions

Here is a wonderful example of how a manager can drive the battle on Information Overload in person. A manager of a large tech company told me that he is personally very intent on making his company “quiet” in the direct sense of doing away with the endless ringing and loud conversations that the ubiquitous use of cellphones has brought into the open office spaces in his plant. This is of course wise, because the constant distraction by the phones of one’s coworkers is known to be a major disruptive factor in creative thinking, productivity and quality of work. So.. Read more

Now, Facebook has its medals!

Posted on August 15, 2011 · Posted in Analysis and Opinion, Off-topic

One common response to mention of Facebook among the Gen X and Baby Boomer (in other words, over 30) crowd is the disdainful “Why would I want people to know what I had for breakfast?!”  Use of Facebook, these people declare, is shallow and silly. Now, it is true that many people – and not just youngsters – post to their Facebook stream rather unimportant  snippets from their daily routine; and their Friends on the service can ignore it or react to it with equally inane comments. But that’s hardly unique to Facebook; people getting together in a bar or.. Read more

The unsung heroes of Information Overload

Posted on August 3, 2011 · Posted in Analysis and Opinion, Organizational Solutions

By now there are many people out there helping others to cope with, and mitigate, information overload. Some, like me in my  previous career as an Intel Principal Engineer, do it because it’s their job and helps their employer. Others, like me in my current consulting career, do it to help our clients. Either way, it’s always been my passion, but you could argue that it’s also a living, and that’s true: we get paid to apply our knowledge and skills on behalf of the companies we help out. But there is a third type of people who act against.. Read more