CEOs and C-Level Executives understand the importance of Email on today’s businesses, as well as on their own productivity. Here are some tips from CEO’s and marketing executives on Email Management.

Whenever there’s a holiday, no matter where it falls during the year and the work week, you know one thing’s for sure: Productivity is going to drop.

IORG Webinar August 2018

Information Overload is a common topic of discussions in the press and literature. It is also the subject of research, tools, and techniques. But there is also an important but related problem: Decision Overload.
Information Overload occurs when the information available exceeds the processing abilities of the individual or can be processed in the time available.

By contrast, Decision Overload occurs when the vast amount of available information makes it difficult to decide upon the correct course of action(s).

I don’t think having or not having a Facebook (or any other social media) account has anything to do with how productive someone is. You can shut down one source of distractions, but if the fundamental aversion to your work that is driving you to distraction is still in place, you’ll find something else.

“A weekday issue of the New York Times contains more information than the average person was likely to come across in an entire lifetime in the seventeenth century.”

Variants of this statement (give or take a couple of centuries) are commonly seen when reading about Information Overload. Of course I agree that there’s more information available today than back in centuries past, but this particular statement always seemed suspicious to me. Is it true? And what if it is?

Very noteworthy article from Andrew McDermott regarding ways to overcome overload. Great suggestions and guidance that can really make a difference.

Rob Cross offers a good description of collaborative overload (ref link included) and a diagnostic test.

During the 1990’s, organizations shifted from a functional-centric structure to a business process-centric structure. After completing difficult change management actions, benefits were harvested, e.g., reduced cycle time, decreased rework and improved customer satisfaction. Information overload can occur from individual actions during and outside of work as well as team activities. The cited references describe some root causes of collaboration overload and suggests remedies. The benefits from a business process-centric structure can be reduced by collaboration overload. It’s worth reading these materials to achieve your expectations from collaboration benefits. Marty B #IORGforum

Embedded algorithms processing big data are proposed to reduce human information processing demands.

Edward Tenner in his book The Efficiency Paradox: What Big Data Can’t Do [Alfred a Knopf, 2018] proposes that the efficiency from embedded Big Data Analytics can be counterproductive, e.g., missed opportunities, adopting new approaches, less intuitive thinking.

He provides a persuasive rationale for his position including many valuable examples. Tenner recommends that a selective combination of embedded algorithms and human intuition will improve judgments, learning and decision-making.

Our mental effort or workload is reduced when a set of information items or chunks are delivered as a story. Indeed our ability to recall the content also is improved. A new book Storynomics: Story-Driven Marketing in the Post-Advertising World by respected storyteller Robert McKee & Thomas Gerace (Twelvebooks.com; Hatchett Book Group; March 2018) provides a field-tested approach to creating effective stories.

Decades ago, I (others also?) proposed that Information was defined as more than “data relevant to the task,” but also an effective representation or format to understand and communicate the information effectively. Stories provide an extremely effective frame for delivering information content. A number of software modeling applications, e.g., Tableau and IBM WATSON Analytics have built-in capability for creating storyboards. These are elements that are more than a PPT deck–a set of slides integrated by a common storyline having a captivating beginning, followed by valuable content, and often concluded with some “call to action.” If you have not tried storyboarding to reduce the mental processing effort by your audience, jump onto the storytelling bandwagon.