Category: future

5 ways to manage information overload

If President Obama struggles with his information overload, how can the rest of us deal with it? Here’s five ideas on how to manage the inbox deluge.

In a speech to university graduates on the weekend President Obama described some of the problems we face with information overload. That the US President struggles with it despite his army of secretaries, assistants and advisors shows just how big the task has become for the rest of us.

Albert Einstein famously said “information is not knowledge” and that’s certainly true of the net. We need ways to process the data that comes pouring in so we understand the context and value of what we’re reading. Here’s five ways to manage your information overload;

Mail Rules

For most business people, email is the first thing we look at each morning and it’s where half the day can easily disappear. The mail rules built into every email reader help you filter the important from the not so important.

It’s also worthwhile reviewing your email subscriptions every few months and unsubscribing from newsletters that no longer interest you. The less clutter, the better.

Google Alerts

“Unknown unknowns” is a quote from a less esteemed historical figure and there’s a lot we don’t know happening on the net that can affect our lives and businesses. The Google Alerts tool gives you a regular email summary of what’s appeared on the web for any search term you enter.

The right terms in Google Alerts gives you an insight on news and trends about your industry, competitors and customers. It’s a great, but underused, market intelligence tool.

Twitter

90% of what you read about Twitter discusses marketing, in my view Twitter’s real value lies in following smart people who tweet smart things. You get the benefit of the accumulated wisdom of the people you follow and the things they find interesting.

These days I find I spend as much time reading links I’ve saved from Twitter as I do surfing the net. It’s become an invaluable tool.

RSS Feeds

Most websites have a built in feature called Really Simple Syndication, or RSS feed, which pumps out updates to the site as they happen. You can use the built in RSS features in your browser’s bookmarks folder or a dedicated feed reader to keep up to date with your favourite websites. Just click on the subscribe button most websites feature.

Favourites

Bookmarks or favorites is the oldest way to save information off the web and it can result in overload of its own. If you keep your bookmark folders organised, it can be a treasure trove of useful information.

We’re at the early days of the information economy and the flood of data which engulfs us is going to get even greater. The challenge for all of us is to learn how to manage this so we can derive the best benefits from this new economy for our businesses, society and families.

As President Obama said in last weekend’s speech at Hampton University, Virginia;

“What Jefferson recognized… that in the long run, their improbable experiment — called America — wouldn’t work if its citizens were uninformed, if its citizens were apathetic, if its citizens checked out, and left democracy to those who didn’t have the best interests of all the people at heart.

“It could only work if each of us stayed informed and engaged, if we held our government accountable, if we fulfilled the obligations of citizenship.”

The same is true of our personal and business lives as it is of our citizenship. Get informed.

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Five ways to deal with our changing economy

The last twenty years have seen massive changes in the way businesses operate, how do you prepare your ventures for the next two decades?

Last week broadcaster Tony Delroy celebrated twenty years of hosting the ABC’s Nightlife spot. The Gadget Guy, Peter Blasina, and myself joined Tony to look at where technology has changed over the twenty years he’s been on air.

One of the things that stood out was how the business world has changed radically; today’s workers have all the tools at their fingertips that once only the the biggest organisations could afford. The amazing thing is the change has only just begun. Most of us are still running our businesses the way our parents did in the age of telex machines and snail mail.

We may have got away with this for the last twenty years, but the rate of change is accelerating and smarter businesses are figuring out how to best use the existing tools while adopting new technologies. Here’s five ideas on how to keep up with our evolving economy.

Train your staff

Last Monday I met a lady who cuts and pastes in the old way, with scissors and glue, because she’s “hopeless with computers”. She’s in her early thirties.

One area we have really dropped the ball in the last twenty yeas is with training, we don’t train our staff sufficiently. For example, simply giving your staff touch typing lessons will improve office productivity out of sight.

Sending the technophobic workers onto an “introduction to computers” course run by most community colleges will have an immediate return on investment, you’ll also probably find the luddites will become your most enthusiastic staff when picking up new technology.

Be curious

We all know people who had to be dragged into the new era, those owners and managers who swore they would never need a fax, mobile phone, a computer or an Internet connection. By not being one of them, you’re ahead of the pack.

Markets are also changing — mobile Internet, social media, higher energy prices and the Global Financial Crisis are all reshaping customer behaviour. A good example is with Yellow Pages where many consumers have stopped using paper directories and now search online. You need to understand where these changes are affecting your business.

Don’t be on the bleeding edge

Early adopters are great for the tech industry as they pay full price and are the crash test dummies for the support sector. As we’ve discussed previously, being on the bleeding edge might be trendy and fun however it’s also expensive and can lead you down some blind alleys.

Sitting back and letting the overhyped version 1.0 of any technology allows you to learn the lessons from others.

Be sceptical

One of the big topics Tony and Peter discussed was the Y2K hysteria. While the rollover presented real risks and the IT industry did a fantastic job of mitigating them, there were a lot of snake oil merchants spreading panic to peddle their wares.

A lot of these people moved on to other technological waves like Search Engine Optimisation and Social Media marketing so have a healthy dose of scepticism when you’re told the world will change unless you buy a certain tech product.

Understand sunk costs

That 486 server or Nokia Banana Phone might have served you well for ten years but it’s crippling your business. It’s time to move on. Similarly any of those bleeding edge technology purchases that turned out not to be so good need to be dumped.

Basically any technology older than five years should be retired unless there’s a compelling business case for retaining it.

Don’t be afraid of failure

As the price of hardware and Internet access falls, so too do the costs of getting ideas, services and products to market. Don’t be afraid of testing new lines.

The key is to “fail fast”, that is to cut your losses as soon as it becomes apparent an idea isn’t working. The sunk cost rule applies here; regardless of how much you’ve spent on an idea if it doesn’t meet expectations cut it fast and move on.

Techonology has now matured to a point where people don’t even notice they are using it, coupled with other changes to society we are going to our market rapidly change over the next twenty years. That makes it a time of great opportunity for entrepreneurs. Understanding those changes and having a team who can react to them will separate the successes from the others.

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The Future of Journalism

Many occupations are faced with free or cheap labour swamping their marketplace. Journalism is one of those trades. Media140 met in Sydney to discuss exactly where the future of journalism lies.

Last week’s Media 140 meeting in Sydney looked at the future of journalism and how publishers are paying, or rather not paying, contributors to their online publications.

The evening was well documented by Martin Cahill and the message was clear — publishers are not going to pay for content because even if they want to they can’t afford it.

The prevailing view was journalists will have to learn how to multi task; but given YouTube is even more poorly rewarded than online journalism, it’s unlikely sites will be any more generous to video or audio contributions than they are to text contributors. Which only suggests a future of journalists doing more work for no money.

Valerio Veo, Head of SBS News and Current Affairs Online pointed out SBS is paying a 19 year a $1000 per contribution for covering Obama’s visit to Indonesia.

Ignoring this is pocket money in terms of sending a camera crew and traditional reporter, the fact SBS are one of the few Australian organisations paying online contributors suggests ABC Managing Director, Mark Scott’s, view at a previous Media140 that only government supported organisations will be able to afford to pay journalists is part of the future is correct.

So what is the future of professional journalism? Will it be restricted to a few subsidised outlets? Is it the gifted amateur contributing for their love of the masthead? Or is it that of the professional pushing their own or their employer’s agenda?

Maybe journalists will become editors cleaning up the shoddy contributions of not so gifted writers that have the only benefit of being free. Could it be that curating other people’s content will be the role of future journalists?

Or perhaps journalists are the new poets, starving in garrets and working in desperate jobs while waiting for the phone call from the ABC, BBC or PBS, penning great works that will lie undiscovered on obscure blogs which will only be found after their passing?

We didn’t really glimpse the answers at Media140 and this is an important discussion to have as the rise of the digital sharecropper isn’t confined to journalism.

Many professional and white collar occupations are going the same way and we need to understand what this means for large parts of our economy. Even if we choose not to discuss it, it’s the reality we face.

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The real digital divide

We’re often told that there’s a divide between the “digital natives”, those who grown up with computers, and the “digital immigrants”, those who’ve had to learn about computers. In reality this isn’t true, the real digital divide is about being prepared to learn and explore the possibilities being opened up every day by the Internet and computers.

The real digital divide isn’t between the young and the old; it’s between those who are prepared to explore new technologies and those who hide from change.

We’re often told that there’s a divide between the “digital natives”, those who grown up with computers, and the “digital immigrants”, those who’ve had to learn about computers.

In reality this isn’t true, the real digital divide is about being prepared to learn and explore the possibilities being opened up every day by the Internet and computers.

I was reminded of this shortly before Christmas when talking to a group of forty year old business owners who dismissed Internet tools like Twitter and LinkedIn out of hand – “a waste of time” “just for kids” and “I tried and received Chinese spam” being a few of the objections.

The contrast is the Australian Seniors Computer Clubs Association who prove you’re only as young as the computers you tinker with. These seniors, some of whom were retired well before computers became commonplace, are prepared to explore and discover possibilities that change their lives and the lives those around them.

The forty somethings all had successful businesses and they were the first to admit mobile phones, email and websites had changed the way they work. Yet nearly half of them didn’t have a website for their own business; a statistic consistent with business surveys that find almost 50% of small enterprises don’t have a website.

In many respects these businesses and their owners are reminiscent of the handloom weavers of the early 19th Century. At first technology worked in their favour and pushed wages up but as industrialisation continued they found their skills redundant and incomes falling. Eventually their trades and businesses disappeared; which is what will happen to complacent companies and industries in today’s industrial revolution.

A similar thing is happening to society and individuals. While you won’t disappear if you aren’t using the net, those who won’t will find it harder to do pay bills, communicate and simply get things done. Eventually they’ll find themselves marginalised as not being connected will make it harder for family and friends to keep in touch.

All of this is unnecessary, it’s just a matter of being prepared to try and to give something a go. The real digital divide is between those who choose to give things a go and those who don’t.

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The new economy

The final slide of Steve Jobs’ iPad launch sums up where the new economy is going. The tech and creative industries have come together and the results will be the great drivers of economic growth for the next 50 years.

The final slide of Steve Jobs’ iPad launch shows how the tech and creative industries are coming together.  The results will be the great economic drivers of the 21st Century.

Steve Jobs’ launch of the iPad was the classic  succesful Apple product launch before adoring fans however the bigger picture from the show is identifying where the world is heading as technology and arts come together.

With Apple and Jobs this is nothing new. Apple’s great success has been from incorporating well designed and Engineered product in markets where their competitors have been more on price points and often poorly implemented features.

Releasing products that work well with inuitive interfaces has allowed Apple to sell their products at a premium while their competitors in the computer and mobile phone markets have found themselves dealing with declining margins.

Regardless of wether the iPad itself succeeds or fails it shows though is how powerful the combination of good design and clever Engineering are in the new economy.

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2010: The year ahead

With the new year underway, it’s time to stick one’s neck out and make a few predictions for 2010. Smartphones and cloud computing will continue their rise, publishing empires will fall and the smart nimble businesses will thrive.

With the new year underway, it’s time to stick one’s neck out and make a few predictions for 2010.

Some predictions are easy, describing a trend that’s already underway. Others though are fraught with danger as it isn’t clear just how far media proprietors, telcos and other industries are prepared to go in protecting their old, threatened business models.

The big factor for 2010 is the world economy. If the green shoots of recovery continue through 2010 then the year will be very different from the one where the recovery is overwhelmed by another wave of bad news. Although for the technology sectors, either alternative may just accelerate trends that would happen regardless.

Each of these predictions are just a few short thoughts on each sector, over the next few weeks I’ll expand on most of these ideas, starting with the fast changing sectors such as cloud computing, social media and mobile telephony.

Smartphones continue their march
The proportion of smartphones sold will steadily increase as prices fall and consumers recognise the advantages. This will also drive development of mobile phone applications.

Telcos will struggle
As smartphone use increases, Telcos will struggle with the demand on their networks as we’ve seen with AT&T in the US. It may even be possible to see data prices increase as Telcos attempt to reduce traffic on overloaded systems.

Hardware prices will continue to fall
It’s a rare year we see technology hardware prices rise, but 2010 will be a particularly tough year for manufacturers as the world wide demand for computers stays subdued. We may even see some East Asian governments bail out struggling manufacturers because of these industries’ perceived strategic importance.

Social Media Hype Peaks
This is an easy prediction as for some months we’ve been seeing breathless reports on how Twitter is dead, Facebook’s growth is slowing and the whole social media thing was a passing fad for teenagers and technology dazzled forty somethings. We’ll see more of those stories through the year and probably see “what happened to Twitter mania” stories at the end of the year.

For smart workers and business this is a wonderful opportunity to experiment and grow using these tools while the luddites think they have won the war against pointless tech toys.

The death of the social media expert
As the hype exits the market, so too will the SEO and social media snake oil sellers. That’s not to say the entire SEO, social media training and consulting industries will fold; honest providers who add genuine value will survive, although some will find 2010 to be a tough year.

Things get worse for traditional media
As audiences continue to fragment and the advertisers cast their nets wider, things are going to go from bad to worse for the traditional media outlets. Reality is going to bite as once reliable cash cows go completely on line leaving publishers to deal with dwindling revenues and massive losses.

Paywalls work (kind of)
Newspaper proprietors will find Pay for View and paywalls can work, but the product has to be worth paying for. The realisation that readers aren’t prepared to pay for recycled agency stories, rewritten press releases and celebrity gossip will probably be the final straw for many magazines and newspapers.

Content wars are won and lost
As the most of the paywalls will fail, so too will the content farms. Early signs are these aggregators who either steal or publish cheap content are hurting bloggers and traditional media outlets, but over time this business model will collapse as thousands of identically worded rip off sites compete for search engine rankings. Expect Google’s, Bing’s and other search engines’ algorithms to get better at spotting these sites, further hastening their demise.

The cloud grows
As equipment and other Internet costs fall, the attraction of cloud computing and web2.0 will grow. Increasingly businesses, both big and small, will be finding the cost and utility benefits will make cloud computing an opportunity they can’t afford to miss.

The big question is where the world economy is going in 2010. The challenge for political and business leaders is to use the opportunity presented by the massive stimulus packages to put in place the reforms taming the excesses of the last decade which caused the Global Financial Crisis. Whether they are up to that challenge, or whether they get swamped by other wave of economic trouble, will be what 2010 is remembered for.

Regardless of where the economy goes in the short term, the continuing rise of cloud computing and smart phones means there are massive opportunities to be had. Fortune is going to favour the brave and those who can adapt quickly to a rapidly changing business world.

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