Beyond Email
Information Overload
Blogs, Wikis
Always Connected? Why?
Copyright © 2008 by Helene G. Kershner
Beyond Email – Information Overload
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Can you have too much information?
Copyright © 2008 by Helene G. Kershner
Beyond Email – Information Overload
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Can you be “Too Busy to Notice You’re Too
Busy”?
Alex Eben Meyer
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/31/business/31shortcuts.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Copyright © 2008 by Helene G. Kershner
Beyond Email – Information Overload
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Google – type in “Information Overload”
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You get 1,800,000 hits
An entire series of photos and cartoons are available
to browse
Research papers have been published from all over
the world.
There was more information, on information overload
than I could actually manage
Copyright © 2008 by Helene G. Kershner
Beyond Email – Information Overload
Is this the image of an Information Junkie?
http://www.mathewingram.com/work/tag/cool/page/2/
Copyright © 2008 by Helene G. Kershner
Beyond Email – Information Overload
http://www.usg.edu/galileo/skills/unit08/credit08_01.phtml
Copyright © 2008 by Helene G. Kershner
Beyond Email – Information Overload
Copyright © 2008 by Helene G. Kershner
Beyond Email – Information Overload
Know what you know
Are you suffering from information overload?
We develop technologies that enable access to your hidden knowledge
and help you manage your data efficiently.
http://www.kno10.com
Copyright © 2008 by Helene G. Kershner
Beyond Email – Information Overload
http://pro.corbis.com/search/Enlargement.aspx?CID=isg&mediauid=DA083866-353A-4525-B3C29B86BE395F79
Copyright © 2008 by Helene G. Kershner
Beyond Email – Information Overload
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Issue is mainstream when articles appear in
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New York Times
Readers Digest
Books about it available on Amazon
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Surviving Information Overload: The Clear, Practical
Guide to Help You Stay on Top of What You Need to
Know (Paperback) $11.04
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/031025115X/bookrags
Copyright © 2008 by Helene G. Kershner
Beyond Email – Information Overload
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Can there be too much information?
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Can there be too many books in a library
Too many movies
Too many music CDs
Too many papers to read
Too many web sites to visit
Too many videos
Copyright © 2008 by Helene G. Kershner
Beyond Email – Information Overload
Can there be too much information?
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“The Internet, as we know it, removed previous barriers to
publication: the money required to buy a printing press or a
transmitter or…”
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Before the Internet, “information” was limited but an unintended
consequence was that the amount of information was also
manageable.
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“The amount of stuff on the Internet is of a magnitude larger than
any previous collection of any sort.”
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“We’re reaching the point where it’s too large to be effectively,
searched, filed, indexed, briefed, organized, or numbered.
But we still try.”
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Kantor, Andrew, http://www.usatoday.com/tech/columnist/andrewkantor/2007-06-14-internet-organization_N.htm
Copyright © 2008 by Helene G. Kershner
Beyond Email – Information Overload
Can there be too much information?
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“Search tools dispense with categories and let users
define their needs ad hoc.”
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Everything's in a pool
Keywords narrow it down.
Search tools have become less useful over the last few
years
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“too much stuff to search”
Without very, very careful categories a search results in
hundreds of thousands of hits.
New and better ways of searching the Web are needed.
• Lots of ideas to make the searching more manageable
• More specialized searching
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Tools like Wikipedia and it’s sister sites
Copyright © 2008 by Helene G. Kershner
Beyond Email – Information Overload
Can we handle all our information Toys?
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First there was Email
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Then there was Email with SPAM
Then there was Email with filters that filter some SPAM and well..
Then there was the Web
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Can we get through a day without checking key web sites
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Class sites
News sites
Business sites
Political sites
Games sites
Music sites
Wikipedia
Copyright © 2008 by Helene G. Kershner
Beyond Email – Information Overload
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Enter My/Our World!
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Check Email (on multiple accounts)
Check regular web sites
Check Email
Then my Palm (personal digital assistant –Ugh!) reminds me of a
meeting or a class
Attend meeting or class
Then I get a text message, or a phone call or both
Then of course there is my Email
Then someone comes to my office
Then of course there is my Email
And somewhere in between, I try to get some work done.
And the pattern repeats all day long
Copyright © 2008 by Helene G. Kershner
Beyond Email – Information Overload
Can we handle all our information Toys?
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Workers in the “Information Age, need to develop skills
for managing information overload.”
 This overload is caused by the “rapid rate of growth in
the amount of information available”
 While days remain 24 hours long
 And our brains remain roughly the same as they were
in caveman days.
Krill, Pau, http://www.infoworld.com/articles/ca/xml/00/01/10/000110caoverload.html
Copyright © 2008 by Helene G. Kershner
Beyond Email – Information Overload
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Do we really need all these Toys?
Do we need to be connected 24/7?
Has all this information made us better – somehow?
How much information is enough?
You Tube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgW7or1TuFk
Copyright © 2008 by Helene G. Kershner
Beyond Email – Information Overload
Headlines like these should scare us into thinking hard
about Information Overload:
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Reuters Study Reveals Growing Danger Of Information Addiction
Worldwide And A New Generation Of Dataholics (1997)
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Information could become the ‘drug of the nineties’
http://www.netaddiction.com/bio/reuters.htm
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Information Overload: Is There a Cure? (2008)
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Between meetings, mobile phones, e-mail and IM, we're failing victim to
the stresses of daily business. Interruptions are here to stay.
http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/3737601
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Is Information Overload a $650 Billion Drag on the Economy? (2007)
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an estimate of the “cost of unnecessary interruptions”
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/12/20/is-information-overload-a-650-billion-drag-on-the-economy/
Copyright © 2008 by Helene G. Kershner
Beyond Email – Information Overload
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Technology isn’t the solution to everything?
We need to set limits and boundaries.
“Key to information management is focusing on the quality of the
data your receive.”
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Recognizing quality is hard
Who do you believe?
Alan Lightman, an MIT humanities professor and physics lecturer
said,
“ I think that the high-speed information technologies, while very useful
in many ways, have robbed us of our necessary silences of time to
reflect on values on who we are and where we’re going.”
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Krill, Pau, http://www.infoworld.com/articles/ca/xml/00/01/10/000110caoverload.html
Copyright © 2008 by Helene G. Kershner
Beyond Email – Information Overload
Ways to beat back the overload
Do
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Develop an information management plan that works for you.
Filter information.
Recognize that you cannot possible look at all relevant data before you
make a decision.
Attempt to recognize quality data.
Take control.
Create “down” time
Don't
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Let information take control of you by working 60 to 70 hours per week.
Take cell phones or computers on vacations.
Attempt to examine every piece of data available.
Focus on things beyond your control, such as the idea that every minute
there is more and more information out there…..
Krill, Pau, http://www.infoworld.com/articles/ca/xml/00/01/10/000110caoverload.html
Copyright © 2008 by Helene G. Kershner
Beyond Email
Organizing Information might be a way past
Information Overload!
Wikis
Blogs
Copyright © 2008 by Helene G. Kershner
Beyond Email – Collaboration
Wikis
So what’s a Wiki? http://en.wikipedia.org
Great Idea:
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“A wiki is software that allows registered users or anyone to
collaboratively create, edit, link, and organize the content of a
website, usually for reference material. “
Wikis are collaborative websites and are often used as a way to
keep data on community websites up-to-date.
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Wikipedia is the best known wiki.
Wikis are used by businesses on intranets as a way of managing
information (reducing information overload).
Ward Cunningham developed the first wiki originally described it as
“the simplest online database that would possibly work.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki
Copyright © 2008 by Helene G. Kershner
Beyond Email – Collaboration
Wikis
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Wikis are for collaborative writing
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Groups of individuals, anywhere, working together in a written,
web format
Website is hosted making it available to users
Can be a collection of connected sites, and hyperlinked
documents
“A wiki is essentially a database for creating, browsing and
searching through information.” (Leuf, Bo. & Cunningham, Ward, The Wiki Way: Quick
Collaboration on the Web., 2001)
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Easy to create, easy to edit, easy to update
NOT reviewed by anyone other than the users
Kids in High School and Middle School create group projects
using wikis
• It is an easy way to comment on and enhance each others work
Copyright © 2008 by Helene G. Kershner
Beyond Email – Collaboration
Wikis
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Public Wikis
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Private Wikis
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Public group forums for sharing information
Usually require user accounts and special logins so everyone in
the wikis’ community knows who is changing the material
Edits are in real-time and instantly appear on the web making it
possible for unhappy users to abuse the wiki.
Some public wikis (ex: wikipedia) have a site moderator who can
lock down abused sites.
Often require user authentication to edit and change pages
Can be hosted on systems not directly on the Internet but only
on a local Intranet
Check out: http://www.wikispaces.com/
Copyright © 2008 by Helene G. Kershner
Beyond Email -- Blogs
Great Idea:
 A blog (an abridgment of the term web log) is a website,
usually maintained by an individual, with regular entries
of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material
such as graphics or video.
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Entries are commonly displayed in reverse chronological order.
"Blog" can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add
content to a blog
A software environment that runs as a web page
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog
Copyright © 2008 by Helene G. Kershner
Beyond Email -- Blogs
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Blogs are online diaries
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Can provide news and commentary on events
Often include text, pictures and sometimes video
Readers can comment on what the blogger reports
Unlike a wiki, readers cannot change the bloggers
content
Copyright © 2008 by Helene G. Kershner
Beyond Email -- Blogs
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Blogs come in all shapes and sizes and cover all topics
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NY Times, and other media outlets, has blogs where the
newspaper can report and receive comments from readers
• http://www.nytimes.com/ref/topnews/blog-index.html
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Personal Blogs
Corporations have blogs to increase communication and
disseminate information
By “readership”: education blogs, political blogs, travel blogs,
movie blogs, fashion blogs, you name it there’s a blog for it.
• Dilbert Bolg http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/
• The Facebook Blog http://blog.facebook.com/
Copyright © 2008 by Helene G. Kershner
Beyond Email -- Blogs
Copyright © 2008 by Helene G. Kershner
Beyond Email -- Blogs
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There are free blogger sites:
https://www.blogger.com/start
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How do we know our content is secure?
How do we know where to host a blog?
• Review of Blogging sites:
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http://hosting-review.com/?gclid=CLjmx8z34pICFQNEPAod4SWSdw
• Gaggle, Launches Safe Blogging site for Schools and
Students. http://www.cheaphostingdirectory.com/news-blog-website-gagglelaunches-safe-blogging-site-for-schools-and-students-1926.html
Copyright © 2008 by Helene G. Kershner
Beyond Email
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Information Overload is a part of our lives
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Whether we embrace it or not, it is here to stay
There is some value in being disconnected for some period of
time, each day, each week, each….
Wikis and Blogs
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Help us organize our information
But what we say and how we say it can then become who we
are forever, and for every one.
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Data can haunt us or help us or both
 Finding Balance is the critical question
Copyright © 2008 by Helene G. Kershner