Email and World Wide Web have great
attractions - but the sheer volume of information can become
intimidating. Jan Wyllie offers some solutions.
Once people become connected through email to (multiple) groups of
common interest -- yes, tele-communities of interest -- they find it
irresistible. They want to converse with everybody. A few people
become addicted to tele-conversations which begin to eat up more and
more of their time to the detriment of the 'real life' (known as 'RL'
in cyberspeak). People can become quickly overwhelmed. Then, one of
two things can happen.
They either suffer from having to do an ever more onerous chore, or
they stop replying to anyone but an inner core of associates.
The same logic applies to the availability of information on the
World Wide Web: it either makes people feel overwhelmed, guilty and
inadequate for not being able even to begin to keep up, or they try
to forget that this enormous and ever growing global repository of
knowledge exists.
The key to changing information from being an unwanted overload to
being a valuable resource is good information management practice.
Most expert practitioners believe that classification and ordering
add value to an information base. Simply by clustering information
about similar topics, it is possible to see and reflect on threads of
interpersonal communication from a higher perspective making it
possible when required to rise above the confusion.
Fortunately over the past 15 years, computer software, such as text
databases, computer conferencing, mail filters and search agents (see
below), have appeared which provide information managers with very
powerful tools.
As for the time problem, the good news is that like in many
professional activities, lay people can learn to do the bulk of the
work, very quickly. Most good practice is based on common sense and
uses natural human skills, such as the ability to categorise and
distinguish levels of generality.
A text database will index every word in every one of thousands-to-millions of documents making each one instantly retrievable simply by typing in combinations of words it contains. Suddenly information which was safely out of reach in places like libraries is available directly from the desktop.
The drawback is that searches can either swamp users with much too
much information, or completely miss what the user is looking for. To
avoid this use free text retrieval combined with traditional
classification schemes and controlled description
vocabularies.
Computer conferencing enables geographically dispersed groups of
people to carry on written conversations 'threaded' by topic. People
can contribute to these electronic conversations at any time of their
convenience ('asynchronous' unlike 'synchronous' videoconferencing,
for example, where everyone must be there at the same time) either by
starting topics of their own, or replying to an already existing
conversational thread.
The benefit is that people can communicate with each other in their
own time in a consistent and focused way. Results should be more
useful information exchange, more informed decisions and better
aligned actions.
The danger is that the signal to noise ratio is very low as chat,
confusion and repetition take over from focused collaborative
thinking and discussion. In order to avoid this problem
groups need to agree some structural elements to their
conversations. e.g. major topics and sub-topics. Moderators need to
be appointed to stimulate conversation through effective questioning
and to make sure people stick to agreed topics. Topics must be
periodically summarised in order to give existing members overviews
of what they said and to update new members.
Filters select and screen out items
from email and text databases such as the World Wide Web by comparing
document text with user-defined word combinations.
They can reduce the number of items to look at - however filters can
screen out items for which the user never thought to ask. Agents can
bring simply bring in more unwanted material ironically causing
greater expense in both time and money.
These tools should be used, if possible, in conjunction with
classified information bases, as well as being amended to take into
account new vocabularies and information types -- a process which
takes a lot of expert human work. Also, steps must be taken so that
serendipity is not screened out of the information acquisition
process.
Trend
Monitor International Ltd.,
Portsmouth
www.partnerships.org.uk/articles/over1.html