Managing Information Overload: News and Views

News Media @ CBC

• CBC Sparks transparency Eye Weekly, Canada - 18 Feb 2008,

Today on the Scroll: CBC Radio tries covering technology in a style that fails to shock and appall its existing listenership while doing double duty in earbuds everywhere... But it’s a constant battle against information overload. I’ve got Facebook fatigue now — at some point it becomes, 'No, I don’t want to download another ... continue reading

• Information Overload, Submitted by Jesse Hirsh on Mon, 02/04/2008. [He frequently appears on CBC radio]

Information overload is a growing problem that most of us face each and every day. Email, phone calls, voice mail, facebook notifications, and that doesn't include the endless flow of spam. However there's no reason all this constant communication can't be tamed and organized so that we don't feel the stress and anxiety associated with being under a waterfall of information... continue reading

• CBC Radio show adds a wiki, Mathew Ingram, January 23, 2008 at 1:22 PM EST


• Information overload? Digital data could exceed storage space by 2010 posted Last Updated: Tuesday, March 6, 2007, The Associated Press at CBC radio: CBC.ca

...The report, assembled by the technology research firm IDC, sought to account for all the ones and zeros that make up photos, videos, e-mails, web pages, instant messages, phone calls and other digital content zipping around. The researchers also assumed that on average, each digital file gets replicated three times. continue reading

• IDEAS-Schedule... The Greek philosopher Socrates said the unexamined life is not worth living; butwhat does that mean in an age of media saturation and information overload. ... continue reading from cbc.ca

Miscellany:

• Little apostrophe confounds Information Age SEAN ODRISCOLL , Toronto Star, Feb. 22, 2008. It can stop you from voting, destroy your dental appointments, make it difficult to rent a car or book a flight - it's the little apostrophe.


• HOW MUCH INFORMATION 2003? This study was produced by faculty and students at the School of Information Management and Systems at the University of California at Berkeley.
  
• Managing Information Overload Blog
  
• Much more @ google's Directory: Knowledge Management > Information Overload

Wikipedia and Wikiscanner in the Newsroom

• WikiScanner: List anonymous wikipedia edits from interesting ...
  The much discussed list of anonymous edits on Wikipedia from well known organizations. wikiscanner.virgil.gr/
  
• Spin Doctor: Matt Withers, ic Wales, United Kingdom - 10 Feb 2008 [But somebody in the Wales Office has been busy on the site, as a quick search on the website Wikiscanner, which reveals who has been editing what, shows. ...]
  
• Anonymous Wikipedia editors caught red handed Step forward Diebold, Sony, Fox News... By Andrew Thomas: Wednesday, 15 August 2007
  
• Team 4: Govt. Employees Wasting Time Editing Wikipedia PittsburghChannel.com, PA - 1 Feb 2008, Wikiscanner, the Web site that allows you to see who's editing Wikipedia, will tell you the Internet provider responsible for the change but not the ...
  
• 'Full Frontal Scrutiny' Web Site Exposes the Work of Front GroupsPR Newswire (press release), NY - 29 Jan 2008For another way to look under the hood of a Wikipedia entry, try using the Wikiscanner, to see who has been editing the encyclopedia. ...
  
• Think You're Successfully Flying Under Google's Radar? Think Again. Search Engine Land, CT - 24 Jan 2008The Wikiscanner should serve as a lesson in how clever manipulations done in the past can eventually bite you in the backside. ...

Wiki's Other News stories:

• Chinese Professor Sues Google, Yahoo Over Search ExclusionSlashdot - 8 Feb 2008The leading alternative to Google in China is Baidu.com (Wikipedia article) [wikipedia.org], which really acts as little more than a state-sanctioned ..
  
• Citing Wikipedia American Journalism Review, MD - 29 Jan 2008 [see also on the same shelf and aisle: Copyrights and Copywrongs - Responsibility of Media and Academia, Wikipedia and Academia Hit News Headlines Again & Citing Sources - Electronic, Print, etc. ]
  
• Wikipedia in the NewsroomAmerican Journalism Review, MD - 29 Jan 2008
  
• Wikipedia editors discussing PR firms participation - Rules of Engagement in Social Media Commons, August 29, 2006 Filed under Wikis, PR, Ethics

Third undersea Internet cable cut in Mideast -- Resource Shelf Blog Re-visited

Are you reading this the News Headlines?

Internet: a wake-up call:
'Dawn' stresses the importance of devoting resources to protect and maintain functional Internet service, @ AsiaMedia

Do you have an idea of tools that are for free and help you support the Business intelligence / competitive intelligence. These tools are mostly in the invisble Web & / or hidden Web & / or deep Web. And, some of these are:

• The Internet Traffic Report: monitors the flow of data around the world. It then displays a value between zero and 100. Higher values indicate faster and more reliable connections.


• Internet service providers' performance


• Telephone Directories / Whitepages


• Newspapers, esp online versions that are free---that do not stay up indefinitely (don't forget the fact: Newspapers Are Dead Scrolls)


• Databases containing laws, government regulations, forms, and fact sheets; plus: OurOntario.ca Government Documents Collection

Bottomline: Don't forget the basics of using this free ride (Internet resources need to be used with the sensitivity and care: look for evidence of bias; look for the source of the material--original or verifiable; material is current; etc.)

Choose Databases-- courtesy Ebsco Host: Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts (LISTA) / Teacher Reference Center

Much more of this hidden ... Web is indexed at Gary's Resource Shelf

See also:

Steal This Book? Don't Bother: By Candace Lombardi Staff Writer, CNET News.com July 23, 2007, PDTCNET News



When it comes to outsmarting the content establishment, your library may be your best accomplice. Libraries are offering more free search services, database access,articles, photos, eBooks, audiobooks, music and museum passes than ever. Chances are you are buying, subscribing to, or stealing something you can get for free with a library card. The hardest part of using the wealth of free sources out there may be finding them.

There are easy ways to locate these sources, but few people use them, according to Gary Price, founder and editor of the Resource Shelf and director of online resources at Ask.com. While there are no hard numbers on usage of such free services, several resource specialists and librarians echo Price's comments.

"People who gather national statistics about libraries have started adding that, but it will take awhile for the libraries to aggregate the data and respond," said Leslie Burger, director of the Princeton Public Library in Princeton, N.J., and past president of the American Library Association.

But there is some evidence that people are beginning to access their local library home page more frequently. For instance, Massachusetts public libraries, which recently began tracking electronic access, report (PDF) that they received more than 248 million hits on their home pages in 2006.

The ComputerWorld Canada View: Search no more

By: ComputerWorld Canada staff (25 Jan 2008)

Out of nowhere, it seems, the news has been full of enterprise search-related stories, including the acquisition of long-time player Fast by Microsoft and the release of user- and human-powered search engines like Wikia Search and Mahalo.

This stealth ninja of applications could blindside a lot of IT managers. It has a lot of trendy aspects — from user-driven content to proper information management to business input — and also requires both tact and cunning. Enterprise search involves the three players — the IT manager, the brass and the users — in a deadly game with a lot of pitfalls, but there are a few ways to get out alive.. continue reading

HBS Cases: How Wikipedia Works (or Doesn't)

For HBS professor Andrew McAfee, Wikipedia is a surprisingly high-quality product. But when his concept of "Enterprise 2.0" turned up on the online encyclopedia one day—and was recommended for deletion—McAfee and colleague Karim R. Lakhani knew they had the makings of an insightful case study on collaboration and governance in the digital world.

HBS professor Andy McAfee had his doubts about Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia created and maintained by volunteers. "I just didn't think it could yield a good outcome or a good encyclopedia. But I started consulting it and reading the entries, and I said, 'This is amazing.' "
So when the concept of "Enterprise 2.0"—a term coined by McAfee on the general idea of how Web 2.0 technologies can be used in business—popped up on Wikipedia, McAfee beamed. "I was bizarrely proud when my work rose to the level of inclusion in Wikipedia." Then, however, a turn of fortune took place. A "Wikipedian" nominated the article for deletion as unworthy of the encyclopedia's standards. McAfee thought, "It's not even good enough to get on Wikipedia?" continue reading

info courtesy: Wikipedia Enterprise 2.0 Story by Aa..ha! [Thinking Inside The Blog!]

The Tacit Knowledge of Team Leadership

Posted by Sam Marshall @ Intellectual Capital Punishment

Don't let the title of
Towards an Ecological Theory of Sustainable Knowledge Networks by Jeff Conklin, et al put you off. Its full of insight about project teams (rather than knowledge networks in general). One thing caught my eye:

"The process of team formation is complex. Leaders have tacit knowledge about how to move a team through a process, and they access that knowledge in face to face meetings. When in virtual collaborations, they don't have that, e.g. they may not recognize that they don't have alignment about team goals"

Note that the barrier isn’t lack of knowledge, but the absence of the stimulus needed to retrieve it. The dynamic of the face-to-face interaction is what triggers the intuitive manager to take the right course. He may only sense subliminally the lack of alignment, but he'll intuitively do what it takes to correct that. Few managers would explicitly have a process with a "check alignment" gate, but they all know it must be done. Even bumping into a team member and subsequent chit chat can lead to an explicit awareness that they need information you hadn't thought to pass on. continue reading