Blog. Insight, issues, opinions and productivity solutions

New Insight Article: How to Make Meetings Effective

Posted on June 27, 2018 · Posted in Analysis and Opinion, Organizational Solutions

The data is clear: meetings are one of the two worst productivity killers in the knowledge workplace (the other, of course, is email overload). If you work in a corporate environment (or in a large organization in the public sector) you know this problem very well. Which is a damned shame, because meetings are supposed to be the place where brains come together to share knowledge, create insight, solve problems… they are supposed to be a focus of exuberant creativity that generates value and bottom line profit. They can be all that… but we’ve subverted them to be the very.. Read more

The Arrival of The Silence

Posted on April 29, 2018 · Posted in Analysis and Opinion, Impact and Symptoms

Dinnertime – 60 years ago The drawing below was made by Giuseppe Novello (1897–1988), a noted Italian cartoonist of times past that you most likely aren’t acquainted with. In his long career he used the medium of the newspaper cartoon to dissect the daily life realities of middle class society, with all its little joys and sorrows, its hypocrisies and hardships. Novello did this with a piercing perception, which one could call ruthless if it weren’t for its deep underlying humanity. I am fortunate to own the set of his works, and you can read about them at http://www.nzeldes.com/Miscellany/Novello.htm. THE SILENCE.. Read more

The Black Hole of Email

Posted on March 15, 2018 · Posted in Analysis and Opinion, Organizational Solutions

I heard the phrase for the first time back in the nineties, when I was an Intel representative in a multi-company exploration of the then-new practice of Knowledge Management: “If only Siemens knew what Siemens knows”, a manager from that company shared a saying that was often used there. And indeed, a major issue with knowledge in large companies is the difficulty of sharing it across the organization. Research shows that employees spend about a fifth of their time trying to track down information they need – that’s one day a week – and they often fail to find it.. Read more

24 Hours: Thoughts on Email, Meetings, and Life Priorities

Posted on February 5, 2018 · Posted in Analysis and Opinion, Individual Solutions

Image: Paolo Uccello’s 15th century 24 hour clock at the Florence cathedral. If you are a knowledge worker, you are most likely used to working fifty, sixty, even seventy hours a week. The higher numbers are standard in hi-tech culture, as seen for example in Silicon Valley. This fact has important ramifications that I explore in this post. The cold equations The basic equation governing our lifetime allocation is the following: Daily hours = Work hours + Life hours + Maintenance hours Where Life = family time, leisure, hobbies, reading, rest, etc. Maintenance = eating, sleeping, personal care, etc. And.. Read more

What Can We Do About our Teens’ Smartphone Addiction?

Posted on December 30, 2017 · Posted in Analysis and Opinion, Impact and Symptoms

An interesting audience question I had just finished delivering my lecture on Information Overload at a hi-tech company and was taking comments from the usual group of attendees that approach me after everyone else has left – these are usually the best comments, since they come from people interested enough to stay and wait their turn. And this time I had a surprise. A man asked me whether I give such lectures in schools, targeting kids in their mid to late teens. These are the members of Generation Z (what will we do next, one wonders, now that we’ve run.. Read more

New Insight Article: Libraries and Knowledge in an Age of Information Overload

Posted on December 13, 2017 · Posted in Analysis and Opinion

In October I gave an invited keynote lecture at the XV International Conference on University Libraries at UNAM, the national university of Mexico. The conference theme was how libraries can face the challenges of the coming years, when infinite knowledge is available to anyone at the swipe of a smartphone screen, and continue to provide value to their users and to society; my keynote was to address the phenomenon of information overload and its repercussions for both libraries and users. This gave me an opportunity to combine two fascinating domains: my core field of Information Overload, and the evolution of.. Read more

One Thing at a Time: Debunking Multitasking

Posted on October 17, 2017 · Posted in Analysis and Opinion, Impact and Symptoms, Individual Solutions

Dinotopia is one of the lovelier literary utopias out there. Introduced as a lavishly illustrated book by James Gurney, and later made into a TV miniseries, it tells of a fictional island where intelligent dinosaurs and humans coexist and collaborate in a peaceful society; the absurdity of the premise is offset by Gurney’s magnificent illustrations. And although this blog seldom deals with dinosaurs, real or fictional, there is a point in the book that is relevant here. The code of Dinotopia The citizens of Dinotopia obey the ancient “Code of Dinotopia”, which consists of 11 short commandments, such as “Give.. Read more

Remembering Deming

Posted on July 28, 2017 · Posted in Analysis and Opinion

Do you remember Deming? Heck, do you even know who Deming was? W. Edwards Deming (1900 – 1993) did not found any Start-ups, head any corporations, or promote visions of a greener Earth. Why should you know of him? And yet he had a profound influence on our world, and his thinking changed the fate of entire industries. What’s more, he was a man of piercing understanding and wisdom, and he created a management philosophy deserving our admiration. He was unknown in his native USA for most of his life, and now is sliding back into oblivion. I, however, remember.. Read more

Banning Email Use After Hours: an Update

Posted on June 29, 2017 · Posted in Analysis and Opinion, Organizational Solutions

Five and a half years ago I blogged about how Volkswagen decided to turn off its Blackberry servers outside of work hours, thereby affording employees some quality time with their families and their lives. It was a pioneering move and a courageous one, and I added my hope that other companies would take note. It took a while, but now companies and legislators are not merely taking note – they’re taking action. In fact some of them are not only enabling, but also enforcing a barrier between Work and Life that email may not penetrate. There is much more to.. Read more

Video: My Lecture on Trends in Innovative Information Overload Solutions

Posted on June 21, 2017 · Posted in Analysis and Opinion, Individual Solutions, Organizational Solutions

I was invited to give a Webinar for an IBM group interested in Information Overload and how to solve it. I shared with the group my take on the evolution of solutions to this problem from the mid-90s to the present – and the likely future. Here is the video, shared with permission.