Interruptions from phone calls, e-mails and instant messages eat up 28 percent of a knowledge worker's work day, resulting in 28 billion hours of lost productivity a year, say analysts at Basex. That might be considered a $588 billion cost, assuming a salary of $21 per hour for knowledge workers. Basex argues that information overload has become a significant problem for companies of all sizes, with some large organizations losing billions of dollars each year in lower productivity and hampered innovation.
That's the sort of argument providers of unified communications and presence solutions will point to as arguments for such solutions. Others, such as Stowe Boyd, disagree with that thesis. Stowe argues people are not drowning in information, but ignoring most of the information, and reacting only when the information flow suggests something actually is important.
It is true that there is a lot more "information" streaming past any person these days. But people are smart. They don't actually pay close attention to most of it. In fact, people just selectively tune out most of it, like they tune out advertising that isn't relevant. Only some information gets a close level of attention. In fact, most of the "overload" is simply ignored.
So how can busy people safely ignore most information, most of the time? The environment, the people one works with and various information sources will signal what is relevant.
Multitasking is an example of this. People in meeting pay partial attention to what is going on while they check email on their mobiles. People remain connected while listening to conference panelists. Mobiles are set on vibrate while in both of those settings. TVs can be on, CDs can be playing while people are responding to instant or text messages and doing their homework.
That isn't to say people are not bombarded by a richness of information. It's just that they adapt by ignoring most of it, pay partial attention to some of it, and focus on just some of it.
Some of the multitasking, such as things people do in cars, is not entirely safe, though!
1 comment:
I have been reading a lot about information overload recently as I struggle to help my team (spread out across three continents) work together. In my organization there are thousands of people in similar straits.
There is no question that there is too much information being pushed in my direction and in the direction of my colleagues.
People like Boyd are dreaming if they think that knowledge workers can filter effectively.
The Basex research really hit home when I read one of their reports (just bought it online) and read details of what their findings were.
I also took their survey on New Workplace Challenges at http://www.basex.com/2008poty with the hope that the information I contribute will further the cause.
Happy New Year and let's tackle this challenge in 2008.
-Franz J.
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