June 13, 2008
Information Overload Research Group
This July members of a new organization composed of some of the biggest technology firms, including Microsoft, Intel, Google and I.B.M., are gathering to plan how to fight information overload. Last week they formed a nonprofit group to study the problem, publicize it and devise ways to help workers, theirs and others, cope with the digital deluge.
According to an article in the New York Times, 'Intel and other companies are already experimenting with solutions. Small units at some companies are encouraging workers to check e-mail messages less frequently, to send group messages more judiciously and to avoid letting the drumbeat of digital missives constantly shake up and reorder to-do lists.'
A Google software engineer last week introduced E-Mail Addict, an experimental feature for the company’s e-mail service (Gmail) that lets people cut themselves off from their in-boxes for 15 minutes.' The extent of the problem is more serious than many realize. For example, 'a typical information worker who sits at a computer all day turns to his e-mail program more than 50 times and uses instant messaging 77 times, according to one measure the average worker also stops at 40 Web sites over the course of the day.' Michael Davidson, the engineer who created the Gmail feature, said the idea for it came after he was talking to friends about the constant temptation to check e-mail messages.
The cost in lost productivity is estimated at over $650 million a year. Companies are also realizing that there is money to be made in helping people reduce their digital gluttony. Major corporations around the world are searching for ways to keep software tools from becoming distractions.
Intel has instituted some novel programs to help with this. One is called 'quiet time' another is called 'zero e-mail Fridays.' The goal is to encourage employees to favor face-to-face communication.
'We’re trying to address the problem that people get so addicted to e-mail that they will send an e-mail across an aisle, across a partition, and that’s not a good thing,' said one of the Intel managers.
Posted by rsk at June 13, 2008 10:47 PM