Stu Downes

We all live in a world where managing information is key.  If I look back 20 years I got most information from books and libraries, research involved paper and general announcements and news came through in trade magazines.  Its an area that has been completely turned on its head, and continues to change.  I thought I’d spend a few minutes jotting down how most information arrives at my door and what I do with it.

• Email: is generally where colleagues suggest information, partners email me and general update newsletters arrive with links.  These either generate a file or a URL.  Files if I class as personal knowledge are off into Evernote and corporate knowledge off to the appropriate repository.
• Web pages: either arrived in an email, via twitter, within RSS feeds or from direct searches.  Most web pages get read and ignored.  Some get read and instantly stored to Evernote or Instapaper (Evernote when I know its needed for good and Instapaper when I need to read later or take time to digest).
• RSS: is still a great source, and like twitter tends to be where I keep up with industry news and announcements.  What I love about Google Reader and Instapaper is there is a clever tool that takes all starred items and automatically posts them to Instapaper.
• Instapaper: is absolutely excellent.  It allows me to read on a number of platforms at a time that suits me.  The new features to have friends and share favourites is excellent.  It means I get wisdom from people much cleverer than I.  The other feature I love is all my favourites flow automatically into Evernote.
• Evernote: is ultimately my resting place for content and knowledge.  I know when its there its indexed and searchable, its available on numerous devices and from the internet.  I know wherever I am I‘ll be able to find information when needed.

It’s a far cry from the first job when I graduated where very little information was available online and most was available at the laboratory’s library.  Now I have better knowledge management and retrieval tools available to me than I could ever dream of from any enterprise.  I capture knowledge from new alerts, friends, industry experts and use the wisdom of others selecting the best information for me to consume.  I wonder how my children will laugh at these primitive tools in another 20 years time!

 

Are we getting to the point that we can’t read anything now?  I have this problem at work and at home.  Like most knowledge workers the workplace can be a cacophony of distractions.  Reading means locking myself away somewhere quiet.  Home is a cacophony of distractions too.

To support us all in the quest to make reading articles from online sources easier, I’ve turned, about 12 months ago, to scanning then batching items together using  Instapaper.  So everything goes there from web pages I’ve landed on from searches to articles I want to read from my RSS feeds.  Instapaper is superb, especially the iPad app which makes the reading experience great (but it works on paper too and lets you group things together to print – great for when electronic items are still banned on the plane).

But I see it “do it later” more and more.  It seems its like the free credit we get on sofas “buy now pay in 400 years time” – even YouTube now has a watch later feature.  We seem to be drifting that way with consuming information.  I doubt I’m alone in saying I wish I had more time to consume information and add value to it, after all that’s what I’m paid to do – yet the hardest thing to find time to do is consume information and then even harder (if you can get harder than hardest) is make the thinking time to add value to it.  I think tomorrow might see a scythe being taken to some repeating meeting (be warned folks!)

 

In the UK we are getting older as a population, information overload is common, and we need to transfer knowledge.  Over the past few weeks I’ve read a few articles which discuss the shortfalls in both professional education and identify needs in workplace professional development.

Craig Roth discussed MBA courses and the use of simulations to help candidates understand the need to filter data with dashboards and KPI’s and extended the thought processes to take a view on information management:

I’m not just joking about how screwed up the average corporation is.  These difficulties exist in even the best of organizations, making attention management an essential discipline if one desires to be an effective information worker and good managerial decision maker.

I’d extend Craig’s concerns into schooling at secondary level and above.  My first point is we just don’t train our young people to filter and focus on priorities – I’m not saying its easy as I struggle with this every day.  However we aren’t even arming them with the mental skills to prioritise their schoolwork, study, research or plan effectively. 

When our young folk enter the enterprise and become knowledge workers we have excellent graduate schemes which offer training, but these may not be enough.  Dave Snowden recently blogged about the apprenticeship and the lack of a similar model for management:

Maybe its time we stopped treating management as something that can be taught and then practiced, and instead focus on creating a professional model of management education which is based on praxis. Of course that would mean HR giving up their cult like toys; competence models, assessment centers, psychometric tests and the like. It would mean KM people starting to create long term projects rather than information management with a candy coating of communities of practice. Physical presence can be augmented by virtual connectivity but it can never be fully replaced. Above all we should be authentic to humans as humans, and to the social ecology of their interaction. We are not cogs in machine, we cannot be engineered, but out evolution can be stifled by inauthentic attempts to make it so.

We can see that we have a problem over the horizon in many countries, including the UK.  We aren’t getting younger, we’re all getting older.  This will put increased pressure on organizations to transfer knowledge to fewer people.  Information overload will get worse, especially for the younger worker.  Prioritising will become more important.

The statistics from the UK Office of National Statistics show that as soon as 2018 we could see more people over 40 working than under 40, that assumes 300,000 people of pensionable age continue to work.  The column label is missing but that’s millions of people.

The beauty of demographics is they aren’t the same in all areas of the world, but the headlines for the UK are:

• population rising
• we are living longer
• there will be less workers under 40 compared to those over 40
• if people work beyond the pensionable age then everything changes (and they will, I probably will!)
• older knowledge workers are more likely to want to work part time – that then makes knowledge transfer and priority setting for those that remain more important

One thing I’ve not dealt with well here is whether globalization will solve the problem.  Will we truly get to the point that global teams drawing on skills from areas with younger populations will fill the demographic gap in the UK ….. that’s a bit heavy for an already long post so I’ll mull over that one with you over a virtual pint.

 

It’s been anything but a quiet year, except here on the blog which has been too quiet. I’ve had lots I’d like to write and the time factor and means twitter is still my easiest update tool. So twitter is in (@sdownes1972).

Evernote is most definitely still in. All my research and analyst reports are there. Ok not all tagged but easily searchable. Excellent tool. Premium account is worth it.

New is the iPad which has resulted in using Instapaper. Absolutely superb for reading later. I generally use it as a staging post and if articles make the grade they get promoted to Evernote. Again excellent and recommended.

Now the iPad. The work device? Erm not for me, some work on it but not its primary use. The family device absolutely yes. Quick checking things, buying things (excellent eBay app, Amazon Windowshop, Debenhams, etc.).  Its also great for grab and instant browse and games are superb (my 5 year old is a wizz).  We have found we spend more online now – just need some good supermarket apps to do my online regular shopping.  Now don’t get me wrong I do use it for work and I can get all my corporate emails and access to a virtual desktop – however its primarily an information consumption device not a production device and I’ve not really had any travel where I haven’t had need for my tablet PC.  Rather than a corporate device its really a personal professional device which I use to keep up to date with information, read PDFs in a friendly form factor, read RSS feeds, keep up to date with twitter etc.  I do use it to scan emails, check my calendar etc. but don’t really use it as a mobile device.  Having said that I do like to take it with me……

The reason I take it with me is as a second monitor using MaxiVista which really helps on those evenings working in hotels etc.  You’ll notice from the picture I also have a mobile keyboard/mouse and laptop stand to allow me so save the old neck.

2011 I have no major plans for new tech, I will be using a mifi (my Christmas tech) to allow me to always have access to a personal mobile wifi unit which connects to the internet using my mobile data sim…just need more 3G coverage please

2011 I expect to be productivity focused, my life is generally very hectic and without focus nothing gets done well.  I’m managing a to-do list less and a focus list more and forcing myself to try and avoid distractions…..well its a challenge especially as I actually want to spend quality time at home with the family and enjoying my hobbies as well as being successful professionally.

So here goes…..happy new year!

 

I’m looking forward to the day when every web application, both internet and intranet can be used offline.  Its not a new request in that Lotus Notes performed this for what seems forever and recently new additions have started to emerge in the form of Google Gears and others.

So why do I ask or suggest we should drive in this direction?  I have a simple thought triggered by a recent read (Capture IT, a future workplace for the multi-generational workplace), and I’ll paraphrase:

If the task worker got 50 times more efficient in the 20th century then in the early portions of the 21st century the knowledge and information worker should also see a 50 times improvement in efficiency. 

How do we do this?  Well in hundreds of ways, some existing, some emerging, some not even considered.  One such method will be to make the information flow more efficient.  I am not talking RSS here I am talking about the integrating the data we work with today with our working requirements, our working styles, our experience of work.  Hence do we sync or do we surf?  My opinion is that we will start to build systems which understand our information consumption habits, understand our working requirements and sync that data, or maybe cache is a better word as we are likely to be living more in the cloud.  And that cloud, as Steve rightly asserts will no longer be simply corporate data but will increasingly be the mixture of personal knowledge, collaborative network knowledge, and corporate network knowledge.  Graham also recently asserted that user experience should focus on application speed today, tomorrow maybe its more about information access speed and knowledge transfer capabilities.

Some thoughts, a bit random, but something to ponder for me, and possibly you.