| All knowledge workers of today can attest to the | | | | comparison to the flood of information rushing at you |
| overwhelming amount of information they need to deal | | | | from all directions. Not only has the speed of delivery |
| with on a daily basis. This constant state of information | | | | increased over time, but it continues to accelerate, |
| overload is caused by several conspiring factors: #1 - | | | | creating an exponential effect. #4 - Value of |
| More Information Than We Can Process Search the | | | | Information Plummets The information age was based |
| web for almost any topic and you will get millions of | | | | on the principle that information was scarce and |
| web pages as a result. To this you can add hundreds | | | | valuable. In the Attention Age with a glut of information |
| of ebooks on the topic and most likely a dozen | | | | available, the perceived value quickly approaches zero. |
| traditionally published books available on There is no | | | | This applies indiscriminately to all information since we |
| way you can possibly process all this information in | | | | have no effective mechanisms to evaluate what is |
| your lifetime. And this is just for one topic you're | | | | truly important, what is simply redundant and what is |
| working on this week. How do you know which of all | | | | plain junk. All marketers of information products should |
| this information is remotely important, or even factually | | | | be gravely concerned about this trend. How can you |
| correct? Google tries to rank their search results by | | | | sell products at a profit in the future when the |
| relevance according to their own secret algorithms. | | | | perceived value of all information is $0? Furthermore, it |
| Traditional book publishers filter out most book | | | | will probably not take long before people realize that |
| proposals and only publish a very small fraction of the | | | | some information is worth less than $0. Given that our |
| books they are offered. Presumably only the "best" | | | | attention is the most scarce and valuable resource in |
| books get published with this process. But according to | | | | the Attention Age, processing and evaluating |
| what criteria? Just to discover who is an authority on | | | | information comes at a severe cost. This cost should |
| the topic that your are trying to research, adds another | | | | be deducted from the previously perceived value of |
| dimension to your research. Which in turn results in | | | | the information, to arrive at its true value. #5 - Amount |
| more information that you need to process. #2 - | | | | of Contradiction Increase With a thousand voices |
| Bombardment of Unsolicited Information How many | | | | screaming at you, who do you trust? The one with the |
| unsolicited emails do you receive each day? And that's | | | | loudest voice? The one with the largest group of |
| after your SPAM filter has done its best to spare you | | | | supporters? How do you evaluate contradictory |
| from the majority of the onslaught. But do you really | | | | information in a subject that you are just beginning to |
| trust your SPAM filter? Don't you occasionally check | | | | research? In previous ages the number of information |
| the SPAM folder to see if something important didn't | | | | sources was significantly smaller, even orders of |
| slip through? How many email lists or ezines have you | | | | magnitudes smaller. Back then, these information |
| subscribed to that were once relevant to your work, | | | | sources assumed the role of an authority since they |
| but are now just sending your irrelevant commercial | | | | practically had a monopoly on information distribution. |
| offers? But since they once contained valuable | | | | Think about your old hometown newspaper. What |
| information you stay on the subscription list because | | | | they printed was universally accepted as "the truth". |
| there may be something useful yet to come. When | | | | #6 - Our Information Needs Increase "The one with |
| you search or browse the web you are constantly | | | | the most money wins" has been replaced by "the one |
| bombarded with ads that are tailored to appear to be | | | | with the most information wins". If you know something |
| relevant to what you are looking for. Since there might | | | | about the market that your competitor doesn't, then |
| be something useful in these offers, you click on the | | | | you have an advantage. This information arms race |
| ads. Leading to even more unsolicited information that | | | | leads to an ever increasing appetite for more |
| you need to evaluate and process. All this adds up to | | | | information. Which of course feeds into the previous |
| increasing amounts of unsolicited information that you | | | | bullets in a vicious circle. These bullets were inspired by |
| need to deal with, just to get to the information that | | | | Rich Schefren's recent report: The Attention Age |
| you have requested and really need. #3 - Speed of | | | | Doctrine. A following article will deal with strategies for |
| New Information Accelerates Back when the majority | | | | surviving information overload. |
| of your information was delivered by the postman and | | | | Nick Dalton is a compulsive serial entrepreneur. He has |
| the newspaper boy once a day, keeping up with the | | | | recently turned his attention to the problem of attention, |
| information flow was not a big problem. Today, the | | | | and the lack thereof. |
| analogy of drinking from a fire hose pales in | | | | |