The Herald Scotland reports on a Scottish survey that finds that “Home broadband was far and away the most popular innovation of the last decade, named by half of all respondents as having the biggest impact on their lives since the turn of the millennium.” I moved to Skye in August 2006 and have lived in three different houses with different solutions to the problem of achieving home broadband.
The first was a wee cottage, too far from my landlords house and wireless access, luckily the landlord was a technical wizz and implemented broadband down the electricity line, so that I could plug in my Airport and make my own wireless network.
Next place, even more remote but with a telephone, so I used dial-up until the exchange was upgraded, being just at the maximum distance from the exchange I managed a very slow broadband connection, but at least my phone line didn’t get tied up. As I left satellite broadband was on offer.
Now, I live about 200m from the exchange and have 8Mb broadband.
Some of the other options on Skye include building a wireless ring around the Internet connection at the local college (BBC). European funding for broadband is available for communities via the Leader programme.(Scottish Government)
Monday, 21 February 2011
Wednesday, 9 February 2011
Recovering from Information overload
http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Organization/Talent/Recovering_from_information_overload_2735
The title of this article says it all "Recovering from Information overload". My brother-in-law happened to retweet a link to it yesterday, so I found about it on twitter. You have to register to see the full article, but it is free - and yes, I can now get even more free information to my email box.
The article suggests that business productivity is being affected because executives are spending too much time on myriads of different information streams, as a consequence they are not getting enough, good quality time to sit down and think through issues properly. "The whole organization’s productivity can now be affected by information overload, and no single person or group can address it in isolation."
The article goes on to suggest that we're becoming addicted to multitasking "Nonetheless, evidence is emerging that humans can become quite addicted to multitasking. Edward Hallowell and John Ratey from Harvard, for instance, have written about people for whom feeling connected provides something like a “dopamine squirt”—the neural effects follow the same pathways used by addictive drugs. This effect is familiar too: who hasn’t struggled against the urge to check the smart phone when it vibrates, even when we’re in the middle of doing something else?" I think that it's not really multitasking we're addicted to, it's more about finding out more information - just what is the text that just pinged about?
The need for information filters and information light periods is advocated. The article concludes by extolling "The benefits of lightening the burden of information overload—in productivity, creativity, morale, and business results—will more than justify the effort. And the more we appreciate the benefits, the easier it will be to make new habits stick."
Working in a small rural business, I can see this happening time and time again, the amount of time I waste, "emailing that document again", is frustrating. I find that it's becoming more challenging to handle all the information which comes through - mainly be email. It's also a challenging time for small rural businesses at the moment, we need to use information more effectively in the competition for business.
The title of this article says it all "Recovering from Information overload". My brother-in-law happened to retweet a link to it yesterday, so I found about it on twitter. You have to register to see the full article, but it is free - and yes, I can now get even more free information to my email box.
The article suggests that business productivity is being affected because executives are spending too much time on myriads of different information streams, as a consequence they are not getting enough, good quality time to sit down and think through issues properly. "The whole organization’s productivity can now be affected by information overload, and no single person or group can address it in isolation."
The article goes on to suggest that we're becoming addicted to multitasking "Nonetheless, evidence is emerging that humans can become quite addicted to multitasking. Edward Hallowell and John Ratey from Harvard, for instance, have written about people for whom feeling connected provides something like a “dopamine squirt”—the neural effects follow the same pathways used by addictive drugs. This effect is familiar too: who hasn’t struggled against the urge to check the smart phone when it vibrates, even when we’re in the middle of doing something else?" I think that it's not really multitasking we're addicted to, it's more about finding out more information - just what is the text that just pinged about?
The need for information filters and information light periods is advocated. The article concludes by extolling "The benefits of lightening the burden of information overload—in productivity, creativity, morale, and business results—will more than justify the effort. And the more we appreciate the benefits, the easier it will be to make new habits stick."
Working in a small rural business, I can see this happening time and time again, the amount of time I waste, "emailing that document again", is frustrating. I find that it's becoming more challenging to handle all the information which comes through - mainly be email. It's also a challenging time for small rural businesses at the moment, we need to use information more effectively in the competition for business.
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