Institute for Innovation & Information Productivity

Information Overload or Uncertainty Overload?

Michael LoBue writes: The New York Times recently reported on the formation of a new special interest group, the Information Overload Research Group – see June 14, 2008 article by Matt Richtel.

What knowledge or information worker doesn’t want this group to succeed?  What “soccer mom (or dad)” doesn’t want them to succeed?  None – we all want relief from information overload!  Or do we?

When I reflect on my own working experiences, not trivial as I’ve worked in every sector of the economy in a wide variety of jobs and levels of responsibilities for more than 30 years, it’s not information overload that has the greatest impact on my ability to produce – especially my ability to produce the right results.  No, it’s uncertainty.

It’s also not any uncertainty, it’s uncertainty about what matters to me, which may be different than what matters to my colleagues, co-workers and clients.

Clearly the volume of information and the way it arrives (e.g., text, audio, print, video, etc.) have an impact, but I sense the real culprit is whether or not that information gives me a sense of uncertainty about what matters most to me.

Taking this one step further, as a manager, what information flows should I be concerned about that might increase the levels of uncertainty of those in my organization?

I suspect a good bit of research about uncertainty exists in the fields of economics, psychology, sports competition, management and decision sciences.  I seem to recall reading of a study some years ago about airplane delays and how passengers became anxious when sitting on a plane after pulling away from the gate, but clearly not proceeding to the runway to take off.  As I recall the research demonstrated that passengers will calmly wait a good deal of time if the pilot (person of perceived authority) provides the passengers with seemingly accurate information about the status of the flight.  Absent this useful information the passengers experienced high anxiety and agitation, clearly affecting their judgments and behavior.  Sound like a work environment today?

Perhaps it’s less about information “overload” and more about our information "diet"?

Dr. Guus Pijpers' issue paper entitled Using an Information Profile deserves another read...

The Problem with Productivity As Policy

Daniel W. Rasmus writes: I was struck by a recent Caribbean News piece where Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Secretary General Edwin Carrington Tuesday called for a "massive increase in our productivity" to boost the region's competitiveness in the face of the just-concluded Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with the European Union (EU) - (read more here).

Why, because a call for productivity in markets that are small and undifferentiated will not result in economic prosperity. When we look at productivity as independent of other measures, it may be a positive metric for improvement, but as the US auto industry has learned,  being efficient at the wrong things is perhaps even worse than being inefficient - more of the wrong cars in the market is a bad thing when you have to take the hit on liquidating those automobiles.

Productivity and innovation need to be tightly linked. What Carrington really needs to focus on in a competitive global economy is creating economic opportunity that takes into account the capabilities of the Caribbean, its uniqueness and how to not only create innovative goods and services, but to think about innovative business models that may make their limited resources more accessible to the world.

When productivity is a policy, and it drives economic growth more than other factors, it can be a problem. The Caribbean, and every other emerging market segment, needs to create policies that encourage innovation because the doing more of the same, especially in comparison to the US and Europe, will not create the kinds of prosperity that governments seek.

Emerging market government have huge influence over commercial development in their regions, more more than the US or the EU exerts on the companies that reside in those regions. Areas like the Caribbean should use policy to effectively drive the innovation dialog, and figure out what differentiated models can bring about new development and growth, even if those models challenge Western views. Innovation isn't limited to goods and services, and can mean new economic models and new governance models as well - and those are all about policies that leave the industrial age anachronism of productivity much lower on the list of things to tackle than looking through a Western industrial policy lens would leave other nations and regions to believe.

When is productivity a bad thing?

Michael LoBue writes: Michael Hicks, director of the Bureau of Business Research at Ball State University, asserts in this morning's The StarPress.com that "globalization isn't the problem [for job losses]; productivity fueling drop in jobs."

Trusting Mr. Hicks' data and his analysis of the data, one still has to question the basis thesis that "productivity is a problem".  The logical extension of his conclusion doesn't make sense — that by reducing worker productivity we retain local jobs.  Isn't that the logic that justified agricultural subsidies?  You know, farmers receiving government subsidies for not growing certain crops. I believe the only productive outcome of that program was to keep certain politicians in office longer.

Mr. Hicks does conclude with a provocative question:  "The real question about manufacturing jobs isn't why so many have disappeared, but why so many still remain?"  This blog site is interested in hearing about the possible answers to this question.

Thank you, Mr. Hicks, I enjoyed your column.

Honey Bee Productivity

Daniel W. Rasmus writes: The 20 July 2007 issue of Science covers productivity in Honey Bees (Genetic Diversity in Honey Bee Colonies Enhances Productivity and Fitness - Mattila and Seeley)  an issue of increasing importance to farmers as the honey bee populations go through what all hope is a mysterious, if periodic, decline.

The crux of their argument is that bees are more fit, not when they have the strongest of mates creating a colony, but when the queen mates with a variety of males, creating diversity. This seems to run counter to Darwinian theory, but I'm not so sure. I think social animals benefit from multiple kinds of diversity. Unlike human societies, the immobile queen is incapable of taking flight to add additional genetic material to a hive that may be less creative about its foraging that it should be. So this behavior has evolved to create diversity in the workforce (leading to between a 27% and 78% increase in hive productivity).

It is often dangerous to draw conclusions about human social interactions from seemingly parallel behaviors in nature, but I will risk of doing so here because I want to suggest that productivity, and to perhaps and even greater extent, innovation, emerges when the workforce is diverse. When the experiences of the team are not uniform, nor homogeneous in their cultural orientation they have, in my experience, a much better chance of creating something unique: insight, analysis, design, etc. Unlike honey bees, the diversity of human populations probably requires mediation and facilitation to bring about the productivity and innovation improvements, but that pretty much makes the point, because if people all agreed, and didn't need guidance to converge their ideas into something ultimately deliverable as a product, service or process, then they would all just be sitting around and agreeing on the mundane while getting further behind their competitors.

I won't endorse polyandry for people, but I will endorse diversity in the workforce. So as a manager, if you look around at a meeting and everybody is nodding, it is time to go get some people who disagree with you, or at minimum, see the world in a very different way.

Its Not Just Enough to Understand the Measurement, We Need to Act

Daniel W. Rasmus writes: Productivity and innovation are hard to measure. Energy use is old school. The 25 July 2007 New Scientist (Building for a cooler planet) reports that 29% of energy use in large buildings could be cut by 2020 using existing technology, reducing a large chunk of the 33% of  CO₂  emissions responsible for upwards of 33% of society's production of that gas.

In the US by 2020 buildings will be using 25% more energy than today, and China 50%.

We know what to measure. We know how to measure it and we know how to act responsibly in light of our measurements, yet architects and builders continue to build energy inefficient structures.

When we look at our own organizations, there are things we know. Anecdotal things. Measurable things. We too often look to the superficial.

Think about sales productivity. How many sales people do you  know that just love their interaction with your CRM system. Probably few if any. They are berated when it isn't used, and seldom praised when they are, because praise comes in results, not in practice. Practice is a way of pointing to deficiency, not proficiency. Proficiency is measured in dollars or euros. If you are proficient you need not worry about your database deficiencies. But to the organization, the knowledge is missing. The good sales person, when he or she leaves, creates an information void. If the reward would have been a universal recognition of the technologies deficiency to be more amenable to the work, then perhaps more people would reach their goals, perhaps they would just be happier because the system they were forced to used worked in a way that enhanced, rather than burdened their production (creating the need for workarounds).

If you know something. If you can measure something, then not acting on it means the measurement is meaningless to the organization, and should therefore be stopped. Having employees know that you know something and that your aren't acting on it is perhaps the most disconcerting data of all.

Measuring IT Value

Daniel W. Rasmus writes: I'm going back to April now as I clean out some old magazines. The April 15, 2007 issue of CIO magazine to be exact where they asked the question: IT Value Methodologies: Do They Work?

I will let you read those authors and their opinions, all of which are valid perspectives. Here's mine.

First, we don't understand the nature of information work. So attempting to measure the value of an IT investment within the context of a business invest that is itself vague (have you ever tried to justify a thought leadership marketing spend, or the "value" of better customer relationships - really) makes little sense. It is important first to understand the work. I have spent a lot of time consulting to companies who ask for suggestions of improvement on a process that, when the cards are all turned face up, shows they have no idea what it costs them to do business the way they are doing it, or in most cases, even how they are doing it (to make the metaphor work, they didn't know what their hole cards were).

What this means is we need methodologies that can capture current costs and practice, and then reflect forward improvements. The first organizations that adopt these will be the benchmarks by which others are judged - but that is very useful as today, executives too often go to arbitrary metrics like IT as a percentage of sales or other nonsense that is far from being tied to performance.

Second, IT as an investment. All investments require the expenditure of more money in a budget than was in the budget before. Trying to manage IT as an expense rather than an investment is great if you aren't trying to be innovative. Organizations looking to manage their demise efficiently are well advised to make sure they reduce their IT costs, until like other parts of their organization, they are no longer differentiated from competitors and therefore, no longer relevant to their markets.

Organizations that understand the potential of IT, regardless of their ability to measure its impact, understand that the trick is not to look just at things like "cost of ownership." IT is not a leased car (though some parts of it, like outsources mail may fit that metaphor). For a company driving innovation, collaboration technology is an indispensable tool in their arsenal. Their engineers, customers and business leaders can't over communicate. They need to share ideas, prototype, tweak, refine, and ultimately decide what to keep and what to discard. The investment in shared ideas, rapid communication and processes that help transform ideas into revenue streams - not a cost issue. An investment. See number 1, but also remember that how you do things today is in the context of either no, or older technology, don't sell the "what we couldn't imagine with our old processes" perspective short. IT can be a game changer, but that it about imagination, and unique use within an organization context - and you won't get to either if you only worry about cost.

Minimizing risk. Again, often seen as cost. If you are a US manufacturing company the risk is being US-centric. We can't fix our schools, encourage our children to become engineers or bring in thousands upon thousands of smart immigrants to fill open needs for US innovators. So we need to go to the innovators - where they live. That is an investment. It is a cost. It is also a way of mitigating risk in a real and tangible way - and the only way you are going to manage far flung employees is through communications and collaboration. You may not be able to put a real value on the IT side of that, and you know what, the business argument is pretty tough too. Its a bet, a hedge, and why can't we see IT like that too.

Third: Infrastructure and costs. We isolate and consolidate IT spend when we talk about infrastructure. A phone isn't used just to talk to customers, and neither is an IM system. We need to see infrastructure in light of overall IT objectives and not cut costs at this lowest level of implementation because we can't see how the extra server adds value to a particular business process. Keep track of how, when and why infrastructure is used, don't view it in the abstract.

Well, I can go on. And I will in time, as will my colleagues. What do you think about IT value measurements?

It Pays to be An Older Worker

Daniel W. Rasmus writes: I just blog entry on my Future of Information Work blog (It Pays to be An Older Worker) about pay for older workers. My thought process raised some issues about the fundamentals of the BusinessWeek article in which the analysis orignally appeared (see "Golden Paychecks").

The issue of dollars as an indicator of value disregards what the Millennial generation is saying about their motivations. Many younger people state that they are willing to give up money and benefits - for flexible time. That incentive mix would show just what this data shows, lower wages for them - but for the picture to be more complete, we would need richer data relationships that include employee satisfaction and retention, which would then demonstrate that wages aren't the only thing keeping Millennials around (or show that the mix of benefits is indeed working or not).

As we engage in our work on measurement, we need to be aware that single points don't tell a story - and then look for the data that does tell the story.

Offshoring and Phantom GDP

Daniel W. Rasmus writes: On June 18^th, BusinessWeek launched an investigative report (The Real Cost of Offshoring) on the issue of “Phatom GDP.” As an organization interested in finding new methods of measurement in the information age, this article caught my attention immediately. And according to the July 9&16 2007 issue of the BusinessWeek, it caught the attention of economists and others (A Storm over Offshoring).

Several of the issues related to the original story were about how late BusinessWeek was to the table, or arugments about the size of the issue. What I think was important was the general agreement that we faced a phantom GDP isse and as author Michael Mandel writes in his feedback commentary:

“Hall and other commenters have a valid point. And it may very well be that real GDP and domestic productivity are no longer the best guide to policy.”

I would like to add that in the global economy, we have three big risks when it comes to understanding performance.

First, most measurements, at all levels, from personal productivity to the economic health of a nation, are seen through an industrial age lens. We need a new lens sooner than later, as industrial age perspectives no longer reflect our global, interconnected information age economy.

Second, we are still too locally focused on measurements. As noted in item one, national measures were great in isolationist economies, cold war economies and developing economies (which I would argue the US was until after World War II) – but they don’t reflect the reality of the connections and tradeoffs of globalization – and the reinforce nationalistic tendencies by creating competitive comparisons without stating reciprocal benefits, risks or other detriments. The public is feed numbers in a vacuum and we need to fix that by creating more meaningful, and more inclusive descriptions of economic health, however, as number three points out, we decide to define what that means.

Third, we are too focused on industrial measures and growth measures determined by industrial mentality. Economics are arbitrary in terms of what they measure. We have created a “science” around industrial measures, but as physicists and cosmologists well know, when you fundamental understanding of something changes, the measurements change as well. What does GDP mean, for instance, if we were to measure global economic performance on sustainability rather than growth? The answer is, it would mean very little, except perhaps as a negative indicator for countries not yet on the new bandwagon.

I look forward to research and discussion on these topics, and to your feedback.