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Searching for a Needle of Knowledge in an Information Haystack: The Plight of the Modern Day Worker
By Steve Bannister

We are drowning in information. Traditionally, the culprits have always been television, radio and the print media. More recently, we have been wrestling the internet (blogs, social networking, instant messaging etc.), email, PDA's (Blackberrys etc.), and cellphones. There does not seem to be anywhere left to hide.

Just how bad is it? A recent article in USA Today discussed how John Gantz, a researcher at IDC (www.idc.com), took on the arduous task of determining approximately how much digital information was generated in 2006. He counted such sources as e-mail, spreadsheets, and other data collected by corporate computers as well as digital photos from personal cameras, security cameras and cellphones. Gantz ultimately estimated that 161 exabytes of data were generated in 2006! That's all well and good but just how much is 161 exabytes of data, anyway?

A Quick Lesson in Data Storage

The University of California at Berkely, School for Information Management Systems (SIMS) lists the following items to help understand data storage;

A binary digit (0 or 1) 1 bit
A single text character 1 byte = 8 bits

Note: byte comes from a different spelling of "bite" and it refers to the smallest amount of data a computer can "bite" off at one time.

A typical text word 10 bytes
A typewritten page 2 kilobytes (KB), 1KB = 1000 bytes
A short novel 1 megabyte (MB), 1 MB = 10⁶ bytes (6 zeros)
A pickup truck filled with books 1 gigabyte (GB), 1 GB = 10⁹ bytes
An academic research library 2 terabytes (TB), 1 TB = 10¹² bytes
All U.S. academic research libraries 2 petabytes (PB), 1PB = 10¹⁵ bytes
Total volume of information generated in 1999:
2 exabytes (EB), 1EB = 10¹⁸ bytes = 1 000 000 000 000 000 000 bytes!
1 zettabyte (ZB) = 10²¹ bytes
Everything that there is! 1 yottabyte (YB), 1 YB = 10²⁴ bytes

It's interesting to note that there were approximately 2 exabytes of information produced in 1999 and a startling 161 exabytes of information produced in 2006! As this exponential trend continues, we will find ourselves under more pressure to discover better ways to store and interpret data.

The Man Who Remembers Everything

At first glance, Gordon Bell seems like an average 72-year-old man. Closer inspection reveals a tiny bug-eyed camera around his neck and a small audio recorder at his elbow. Bell is a researcher for Microsoft who for the past seven years has been conducting an experiment, which involves a near total digital record of his life.

Bell's custom-designed software, "MyLifeBits" saves everything Bell does. It saves all of Bell's emails, documents, chat sessions, web pages surfed, telephone calls and pictures of what he sees (snapped every minute). He has also scanned in stacks of documents from his 47-year computer career. MyLifeBits now has more than 101, 000 emails, almost 15, 000 Word and PDF documents, 99, 000 web pages and 44, 000 pictures.

Is Bell living in a world of science fiction? Don't be too quick to judge. Bell argues that computers and the internet are rapidly becoming capable of storing everything we see and do. Technology minded people are able to blog their thoughts and network with colleagues using LinkedIn. They are also able to upload personal pictures to Flickr, MySpace or FaceBook, save email using such internet accounts as Gmail and save phone calls using Skype. There may well come a time when we won't have to burden ourselves with remembering mundane things leaving us extra time to pursue more creative ventures. Then again, could this marriage with technology end in divorce?

Blurring the line Between Man and Machine

Ray Kurzweil (www.singularity.com) is an inventor and futurist who has always been curious about artificial intelligence. He has invented the flatbed scanner, the first electric piano and vocabulary speech recognition software. His ideas about the future have caught the attention of many influential people such as Bill Gates who has called Kurzweil a "visionary thinker and futurist".

Kurzweil demonstrates how technological changes follow a distinctive exponential pattern as opposed to a more popular linear pattern. An exponential pattern refers to a doubling or halving of some variable every year and Kurzweil has reams of statistics that back up his predictions. For example, the cost of a gigabyte of computer memory followed an exponential pattern when it dropped from $10 million in 1956 to a mere $1 in 2006!

A more powerful exponential example from Kurzweil describes the power of $1,000 of computation. Because computer chips are getting smaller and faster, Kurzweil predicts that by 2010 $1,000 worth of computation will equal the intelligence of one mouse brain. This doesn't seem like much until a further look along Kurzweil's exponential growth curve reveals $1,000 worth of computation equal to one human brain by 2023 and then equal to all human brains by 2050.

Kurzweil predicts that this incredible access of powerful cheap computing will allow humans to reach what he calls the point of "Singularity". This is the point whereby advancements in nanotechnology allow computers and humans to become intertwined. Nanobots (robots about the size of a blood cell; 1 nanometre = one billionth of a metre) of all different types will be easily inserted into the blood stream to assist the body with all its functions. Kurweil's future describes humans with the ability to live to be healthy beyond 100 years and the ability to think millions of times faster than their purely carbon-based predecessors now do.

The line between information and knowledge looks to become quite blurry. In the meantime...

Transforming Information into Knowledge

Thomas Friedman recently wrote a best-selling book entitled, "The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twentieth Century". In his book, Friedman describes how globalization has leveled the competitive playing field between countries around the world. One of Friedman's world "flatteners" is referred to as "in-forming". As Friedman says, "In-forming is the individual's personal analog to uploading, out-sourcing...[it's] about self-collaboration - becoming your own self-directed and self-empowered researcher, editor ...In-forming is searching for knowledge."

This search for knowledge has been ongoing for many years. Peter Drucker in 1959 coined the term "knowledge worker" as one who works mainly with information or develops and uses knowledge in the workplace. A recent estimate (Haag et al in "Management Information Systems for the Information Age", 2006) reveals knowledge workers in North America outnumbering other workers by a margin of four to one.

In today's knowledge economy, the individual creates knowledge by focusing on patterns gleaned from the vast amount of available information. This new knowledge is then shared among networks where it is eventually used to spur economic growth. Gaining new knowledge, i.e. learning, is all about everyone becoming learners and sharing his/her knowledge and enthusiasm. This flattened world has no more experts, only fellow learners in numerous interlinking networks.

Personal Knowledge Management (PKM)

Personal Knowledge Management is a term coined at the Anderson School in UCLA. The Anderson School describes PKM as, "a conceptual framework to organize and integrate information that we, as individuals, feel is important so that it becomes part of our personal knowledge base. It provides a strategy for transforming what might be random pieces of information into something that can be systematically applied and that expands our personal knowledge."

The following tactics will help in designing a PKM system;

Clarify any information needs for each situation. Information needs vary according to the type of decisions, the type of projects and a person's role in the project. By understanding your goals, priorities, and critical decisions, you can focus your efforts regarding what information you need.
Identify critical questions to be answered before (as well as during) an information search. This will provide a framework to filter, sort, store, and further investigate information. A clearer understanding of what is needed will result in more effective searching and processing.
Develop a strategy. Identify potential sources, such as books, articles, Web sites and databases as well as common keywords that describe the concepts you are researching. Use the advanced capabilities of Google. Try out a new search engine called chacha (www.chacha.com). Chacha works similar to Google but after it completes a search, the user has an option to have a live chat with a guide who can further assist in searching for information.
Develop and access a network. This may include key people in the organization or people networked via the internet through software such as LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com).
Identify "push" vs. "pull" information. "Push" information includes items sent without request; for example, email, whereas, "pull" information includes items that are a result of searching usually on the internet. To better manage information overload, clarify what information is needed to be "pushed" and what information is needed to be "pulled". Use filters to pre-sort incoming mail and selectively participate in bulletin boards, listservs and chat rooms.
Use meaningful names and abbreviations to sort data. These names need to be recognizable a few months later. Make names brief and stay consistent when using name abbreviations and file extensions.
Use the Organizational Rule of Four.
- FOR NOW - Read incoming information immediately and decide if it's important.
- FOR LATER - If the information is important then file it appropriately.
- FOR EVER - Backup crucial information on a thumb drive and hard drive.
- FORGET - Delete wherever possible. Hold on to what is interesting and discard the rest.
Review information periodically. If information is not used within a specific time limit, then don't keep it.
Bookmark when surfing the internet. Use any one of the following bookmarks:
www.blinklist.com, www.co.mments.com, www.del.icio.us, www.digg.com, www.fark.com, www.furl.com, www.reddit.com, www.smarkling.com, www.spurl.com, www.yahoomyweb.com, www.newsvine.com.
Practice email etiquette.
- Don't check email all the time. Keep it to once in the morning and once in the afternoon.
- Don't let email interrupt projects, phone calls and conversations.
- Turn off the feature that notifies every time an email message is received.
- Don't use "reply to all" when responding to email. Send follow-up messages only to those people who will actually benefit from the reply.
- Write informative subject lines for your email messages.
- Create a special email address for personal messages and newsletters and check this account once a day.
- Keep emails short and to the point.
- Maintain proper spelling, grammar and sentence structure.
- Never write an email when upset. Emails are forever.

Dealing with information overload is not a new concept. In T.S. Eliot's 1915 poem Choruses from "The Rock", he said:

"Where is the Life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information? Where is the information we have lost in data?"

As it was in the past and as it will continue to be for many years to come, knowledge gained from accessible information by any available means (human or otherwise) will always be an important commodity.

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