ACM TechNews

Tech Giants Tackle Information Overload

CNet (07/18/08) Jackson, Holly

Information overload costs the American economy more than $650 billion in lost productivity, and takes up 28 percent of workers' time, Basex reports. To combat information overload, Intel engineer Nathan Zeldes and other tech industry insiders have formed the Information Overload Research Group (IORG), which includes members from Microsoft Research, IBM, Xerox, and Google. The nonprofit consortium recently held its first conference in New York. As more minds join the effort to solve "the world's greatest challenge to productivity," Zeldes hopes the group will generate innovative ideas that will benefit both businesses and individuals. "Hopefully, in a year or two, we'll be where major organizations, governments, wherever, that need information about information overload will come to us," he says. IORG believes that solutions come in two forms. The first is physical restrictions placed on email or Internet use. For example, companies such as Intel are starting to deploy "quiet time" or "no email Fridays" to allow workers to focus. These programs have employees stay offline and turn their phone to voice mail to allow them to concentrate. The other solution deploys special software to organize information. For example, Xerox is developing smart documents software that compiles information into a flexible, sharable, single file.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-9993917-92.html

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