PHOTO:
Charles
The solution to workplace information overload is limiting data flow to the most relevant and urgent emails, documents, events and posts. One possible way to do so is to organize and present content by business topics, such as customer, project or product name. This all sounds simple, but is really hard for at least the following reasons:
What is an important topic?
How do you (automatically) classify content by topics?
How do you decide what is most relevant and urgent for each person?
These are complex problems because people interpret information differently. Topics differ by individuals and groups, so trying to define them in a meaningful way is impractical for large groups of people like departments and entire organizations. Even in the rare case where organizations agree on a common vocabulary, classifying emails or documents by topics accurately and uniformly is virtually impossible because of the unstructured nature of documents, and because of the am
Those who do not learn from history are bound to repeat it. Credited to philosopher George Santayana, the phrase doesnât necessarily promise solutions to current events, but does promise to put contemporary and potentially future events within context for deeper insights.
Whether itâs finding lessons in how to innovate from the Wright brothers, drawing comparisons between Isaac Newtonâs work with gravitational interaction and modern marketersâ struggle to keep up with a growing sea of data or simply noting Slackâs antecedent in Internet Relay Chat, David Lavenda is a one-man force working to make sure we learn from technologyâs past. An international scholar for the Society for the History of Technology, David brings this same perspective â as well as his knowledge gained from his 30-odd years in the technology industry â to bear for the early stage technology companies he advises.