Information hubs in a post-email world

I came across an interesting summary article from MIT titled “In today’s knowledge-based economy, it pays to be an ‘information hub’”, based on some research looking at email flows:

“The researchers found that information workers whose strong e-mail networks allow them to receive new information sooner than their peers — or to receive more pieces of new information — are likely to be more productive than their less well-connected counterparts. Workers who are “information hubs” complete more projects in a given period of time and thus generate more revenue for their firm.

As part of a study of an executive recruiting firm conducted over a five-year period, the researchers were able to analyze ten months of the firm’s e-mail traffic. While the content of the recruiting firms’ e-mails was encrypted to ensure individuals’ privacy, the research team could track the flow of particular encrypted words through the firm’s e-mail network. The researchers then correlated those findings with data (provided by the firm and by individual employees who voluntarily took part in a survey) about factors such as individual workers’ project workload, project completion time and compensation — to gain dramatic new insights into productivity in the Information Age.”

There are some interesting ideas here, but the research was email-based - thus missing out on any other types of communication that the subjects were plugged into. It would be fascinating to run the same research again, but this time plugging in non-email communication routes, such as IM or Twitter. Does being connected to a network of like-minded Twitterers make you more effective, or does it result in information overload and productivity decreases?

And it’s also unusual to read some positive findings relating to email - the trend seems to be for it to be regarded as a problem rather than part of the solution. I’ll admit to being sceptical about email being entirely and unremittingly evil - like any tool, it can be misused, but there are obviously situations where it adds value. Perhaps the most telling reflection of the way that the information landscape has changed is that I didn’t find this article in my inbox - instead it popped up on a newsfeed of someone else’s bookmarks, a combination of RSS feeds and social bookmarking in action.

Technorati Tags: blogging, email, information, flow

Broken, but working

There’s an awful lot of rubbish being spouted presently about the semantic web, classification, tagging and folksonomies - from both sides of the argument. Euan Semple works in the field for the BBC, and has come up with one of the more intelligent summaries of the situation that I’ve read:

The web works because it is broken and not owned.

Yes, there is rubbish on the web but the availability of relevant, accurate information at your fingertips has exploded in ways that even ten years ago most people couldn’t have imagined and which have never ever been delivered by “conventional” means.

There were nay-sayers then, and indeed there still are, but I would be cautious about assuming that the collective, applied intelligence of millions of people is more fallible than a small group of experts with the power to confer meaning.

Shhh - don’t disturb the librarian, you’ll only annoy him

Filed under ‘reactionary old farts’:

A blog is a species of interactive electronic diary by means of which the unpublishable, untrammeled by editors or the rules of grammar, can communicate their thoughts via the web.

That’s the president-elect of the American Library Association, reacting to some criticism of his article in the Los Angeles Times which suggested that Google digitizing texts and making them available for search might not be such a good idea.

Which actually illustrates rather neatly the intersection of two rather 20th century viewpoints - on the one hand, you’ve got Mr Gorman who seems to view bloggers in much the same light as he no doubt views people who chew gum in his library. Information, it seems, isn’t for everyone - instead it’s to be handed down piece by carefully-selected piece to the great unwashed masses by those who have made it their lives’ work to mediate, filter and carefully shelve it.

And on the other, you’ve got the Los Angeles Times, who have locked the original article away behind their paywall, neatly removing it - and them - from any relevance as far as the web is concerned. I could have linked to them, sending a few visitors their way perhaps, or used my fair use rights and quoted a line or two.

The irony given the subject of Mr Gorman’s rant is that rather than hand over $5 or so to the LA Times, his article was available for free after a few minute’s Googling…

Advice from 43 Folders, part 1 of n

I should probably just splice in an RSS feed from 43 Folders, there’s that much good stuff there. Here’s a couple of ideas from the latest gem:

• Flame yourself - Grab yourself a free email account from someplace like Gmail or Yahoo! Mail and use it your as private punching bag. Every time you’re tempted to send an ill-advised flame to the latest assclown in your life, send it to your dummy account instead. Log in every few months and read your own vitriol. Experience relief that a long-forgotten flame-out remained your little secret.
• Are you managing actions or just data? - Finally, some words of wisdom I recently picked up from Chairman David (talking about productivity applications): “Actually, it’s fascinating to me that all the gazillions of $$$ have been spent in the software world, just finding slicker ways to input, rearrange, and access data - not how to manage action.” He’s right; if you’re not managing actions, you’re just making lists. Smart fella, that David.

A cautionary warning for Powerpoint users…

…who insist on loading their presentations with transition gizmos and sound effects:

…bear in mind that the participants who are still entertained by the twenty-fifth “ker-ching” are probably the ones that you will least want to find yourself bonding with afterwards.

(Courtesy of Beyond Crayons)

Capturing question-and-answer by blog

Previously I posted about a technique I use for making my passwords more difficult to guess, but easier to remember. Then today I came across a post on another blog on the same subject - a slightly more complex technique than I prefer, but a post that has sparked a huge number of comments.

It’s worth taking a look at if you’re searching for a way of managing the complexity/memorability problem - and for another reason besides.

Imagine that you’d asked that question in the workplace. How would you have done it?

Chances are, it would have either been by email (or standing on a chair and shouting over the cubicles if you work in a Dilbert cartoon). Either way would get responses, but neither would capture those responses for future reference by others.

Now imagine that you’d done exactly what happened here - asked the question on a blog. This time your coworkers respond, but their responses are comments. They’re permanent, archived, and searchable. The next time someone has the same question and searches the blog archives, back the answers will come.

It’s a simple example, but simple examples combining to create something that can greatly aid the way you work is what blogs and wikis are all about.

10 Things To Hate About Recruiters

Courtesy of an anonymous recruiter at ITToolbox.com:

I am going to briefly discuss the major “GRIPES” that I hear from people about recruiters and I encourage readers to also discuss the TOP 3 things that they hate about recruiters as a discussion forum on the topic. Maybe we can later rank them in order as a TOP 10 List to be submitted to Letterman?

10. “Recruiters don’t seem to truly understand the role they are recruiting for or that much detail about the clients needs.”

9. “I am not sure if the post-interview feedback is honest or I don’t get feedback at all.”

8. “Recruiters don’t want to help or talk with me if I am not a perfect fit for their open search assignments.”

7. “Most headhunters don’t return my calls or acknowledge that I applied for a job.”

6. “As a hiring manager, I hate when recruiters sling resumes at me and don’t take the time to understand my needs.”

5. “Dishonesty about a position, company, or the requirements for a role”

4. “Some form of discrimination or even reverse discrimination”

3. “Recruiters seem unethical and will do anything to make a placement; their tactics to recruit or develop accounts are dishonest.”

2. “I feel like job postings are not real jobs some time, the Bait and Switch.”

1. “Recruiters are only working for the company and aren’t looking out for my best interest through the Offer Stage.”

Crying Woolf on copyright

John Naughton has a well-considered rant about “the copyright industry’s crazed drive towards the propertization of everything” (his words):

Every cultural artefact that our civilisation has valued is the result of an artist’s conscious and unconscious borrowing from the works of others. Lock down the borrowing and you lock down our culture.

And he quotes from Virginia Woolf in support of the idea:

Masterpieces are not single and solitary births; they are the outcome of many years of thinking in common, of thinking by the body of the people, so that the experience of the mass is behind the single voice.

Call me cynical, but I’d be surprised if the average copyright industry executive has heard of Virginia Woolf, let alone read her…

LinkedIn to recruitment

LinkedIn has been around for a while now, as one of the more established social networking services - and they’ve just launched some new functionality to their existing site, LinkedIn Jobs.

On the face of it, it’s not too dissimilar to many other job boards - you see details of the role, the company, and the person who posted the vacancy. There’s the usual search facilities, and a prominent ‘Apply Now’ button to kick-start the application process.

What LinkedIn does is to add some additional details culled from their database of subscribers. As well as the basic job details, you can see the relationship between yourself and the poster - how many degrees you’re removed from them - as well as how many people have endorsed them. You can also see whether there are ‘inside connections’ to the hiring company - someone who’s listed on Linked In and who works (or worked) there.

It’s a simple enough idea - that the closer the relationship you have with the hirer, the more likely you are to be hired. As a concept, it’s backed up by hard evidence that a significant number of people find their next job through contacts and friends-of-friends rather than simply responding to adverts or job listings. What LinkedIn are attempting to do is to meld networking and job listings together.

It could be a neat way of doing this, as well as being a revenue stream for LinkedIn themselves. Unfortunately it falls down when it comes to situations where the recruitment is being handled by an agency, because rather the details of how well-connected you are to the role are based on the agency, rather than the hiring company. As this is the rule rather than the exception in the UK IT sector - and most agencies take a seemingly perverse delight in keeping the identity of their client secret until the last possible moment - it’s not clear whether LinkedIn will be able to add much value in this situation.

Nevertheless, it’s a good attempt to try to aid the networking elements of the job search process. It’ll be interesting to see how the service develops and whether it’s likely to become a threat to the established job boards.

A Mac-centric roundup of outliners and task managers

Here’s an unashamedly Mac-centric review of a number of outliner and task manager packages - it’s a long list, and it ranges from basic stripped-down lists to some packages that I suspect the authors would have difficulty explaining.

Ted Goranson: About This Particular Outliner

For the record, my current favourite is DevonThink, which pulls together elements of an outliner, list manager, text editor, web browser and database. I don’t for one minute think I’ve even scratched the surface of what it can do, but I’ve found that it fits quite well with the Getting Things Done technique - about which, more to follow.