Ton has written an extremely clear, thoughtful and original piece on blogs, information overload and signal to noise ratios. It’s really well worth a look.
Briefly, his argument seems to be this:
- We have always had a lot of stuff coming at us.
- The problem has always been picking out signals from that noise, choosing the diamonds from the rough.
- “Information overload” suggests that this is a new problem, but in fact it is nothing new. Only the media have changed.
- A great way for companies to hone in on useful signals is to use blogs.
If this seems to simplistic, do read the full version. I am a simple soul, but that at least is how I understood it! Anyway, there are a few questions and misgivings I have, and these are to do with direction, cromagnon man, quality and trust, and to do with learning.
Direction
Perhaps the first thing that struck me about Ton’s piece – apart from “This is interesting”! – was the fact the information seemed to be mono-directional, everything was pretty much inward and passive. You get a lot of signals and noise coming in and then you do something. But doesn’t information overload, or rather this abundance of signals and noise affect the action as well? Even on a simple level, once I’ve decided that I need to do something, if there’s too much noise (or I haven’t filed things well enough) how do I get the , e.g. email address I need? How do I remember where it is? Or worse, how do I make sure my signal (which I obviously think is critical) is heard in a network of noise?
Cromagnon Man
I hope he doesn’t mind me lifting the picture, but one of Ton’s bylines was “Cro Magnon man, as information overloaded as we are, only the media have changed”. One the one hand, I completely agree. But the real issue for me is that word ‘only’. The media changing, from paper to phone to PC, may arguably not have increased the information overload, but it has hugely increased the cognitive overload. Cognitive overload is not something that just happens in your computer – phone calls, letters to sign, meeting arrangements all contribute. The current “always on” environment is qualitatively different to that of Cro Magnon man. Imagine this: you’re hunting a mammoth, your cave leader texts you to say that news just in that actually there are several different types of mammoth – which you didn’t know and you should only kill the woolly ones, and then you get a call from your wife asking to pick up some berries while you’re out.
Quality and Trust
Face to face still seems to be our benchmark for quality communication. We want to be able to believe that the signals we get coming out of the noise aren’t boys crying wolf. Again, while prehistoric communities were limited to face to face, we now are not. Ton (rightly I think) comments on the value of blogs for this.
All signals start out as noise, basically until someone decides it ‘s a signal. To disseminate blogging in an organisation some simple social network mapping might help establish who are the essential trusted people and hubs that could get blogging started. These maybe also are the people most likely to enjoy blogging, as they are already above average exposed to inputs from their surroundings. It’s what makes them hubs in the first place.
But isn’t it the problems tof trust and quality that accompany information overload that drive the need for tools like blogs?
Creativity
In lots of ways I think Ton makes good sense. Certainly in terms of picking out those diamond signals from the noise. Ton suggests that
“Knowledge workers … need to be exposed to as much background noise as possible, to open up as much opportunities to respond as possible.”
… and it rings true. It certainly seems to be true in the creative sphere. Amateurs, for example, can and do make great leaps of intuition. (Perhaps because their filters are less restrictive, they get more signals?). Equally artists have a long and fruitful history of opening their doors of perception.
One thing I’m curious about is how to optimising this noise being presented, or improve the signal to noise ratio. Here I’m theorising, but there is evidence that people’s brains actually fire better when challenges are optimised. It’s about reducing finding the right pitch between boredom and stress – that’s when flow happens.
The challenge that noise presents is one of finding useful signals. But isn’t it a different challenge for amateurs and artists than it is for corporate employees? Amateurs and artists are embracing the noise because they want to. Any stress is self-imposed, they’re more likely to get absorbed in the task at hand, and neurotransmitters’ performance peaks. Employee stress, if not always, is often imposed on them. They have to make a decision on what signals to pay attention to, not just for them, but for a group of people. The success of the choice affects your status. This added stress may well mean that for employees to get the most bang for their buck out of their neuro-transmitters, they have different requirements, be that less noise, more focused signals, more ability to be heard through the noise. I don’t know.
Anyway, if this is sounding heavy handed – sorry – it’s not meant to be, just me being curious. So thanks Ton for such an interesting signal!