Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Too much information...



One of my colleagues spoke recently about the long tail of information. How capabilities around self-service and the general ability to tap into data sources and content on-demand, that was hitherto notoriously inaccessible, is driving enterprise and business agility.

Believe me, this is a good thing. I’ve always been a proponent of methodical research and careful examination of the results before decision making. Knowledge, we’ve been told is power. The trouble is we sometimes obsess over information – reducing the clarity of the thought process and in the process considerably degrading the quality of the decision. So in my case what could’ve been a simple act of popping over to Curry’s to buy a new router, turned into a quest around models (router models, that is), adsl vs cable+modem, power consumption, historic price, gigabit connectivity, wireless attenuation, moddability, and of course yet-to-be-released models. The result of all this is that although I may qualify to work at my local Curry’s showroom, my internet connection still drops every few days. I digress.

Uncertainty is a way of life. We are always on that pursuit to reduce ambiguity and uncertainty. Sometime information can help reduce the uncertainty and help guide the decision. All the information I’ve researched for my router, has given me insight – but whether it influences my choice is another.

As everyday decision makers we chase after information to help us resolve uncertainty. What we need to ask ourselves is, just because we now have a long tail of information, does it mean we need to pursue all that information? How do we understand what is relevant, at the same time differentiate what is interesting, but may bear no influence on our decision making?

1 comment:

Unknown said...

The sketch is attractive, your authored material stylish. nonetheless, you command get bought an shakiness over that you would like be turning in the following. sick for sure come further in the past again since precisely the same just about very continuously inside of case you protect this increase.farmer100 wikia