Be Your Own Filter In the Global Brain

Photo by VaxZine

Almost ten years ago, I used to teach a workshop called "Digital Information Coping Skills" for  artists and arts organizations as part of a series of workshop on the theme of how to integrate the Internet into your (arts) organization's mission.  Think Web 1.0 strategies and tools from both an individual and organizational viewpoint.  I developed the information coping skills workshop after observing the "information overload" or "techno stress" reaction to the glut of electronic information coming into email boxes.  It was the first inkling of what David Shenk wrote in his book "Data Smog: Surviving the Information Age."

That book uses the metaphor of pollution to explain the cultural impact of too much information (from the Internet) on society.  He talks about the impact of too much information on the human brain and considers how the human brain may evolve over time as the Internet matures and the amount of digital information increases. The last chapter offers some practical advice, including the "Be Your Own Filter" and "Give A Hoot Don't Data Pollute."   The book was written in 1997, so the practical nitty gritty was talking mostly about dealing with waves of email and human systems/skills - NOT automated software programs.

Some neurons in my brain made me connect back to Shenk's book I attended NDN's New Audiences, New Tools Forum.   I think about the increasing connectedness that Peter Leyden described in his overview of networked politics (he used an incredible visually rich set  of powerpoint slides that kept us engaged and this visual.)  The panel "The Evolving Model Using New Tools" where Micah Sifry, Tracy Russo, and Jerry Michalski spoke also made me think back to that book again. (BTW, Dave Witzel did an awesome job of tweeting the key points)

Jerry Michalski use the metaphor of the global brain and mentioned that we were halfway through a transition process where we are renegotiating social contracts and connecting with people in a way that we haven't before.  Jerry talked one benefit of this connectedness and openness is innovation or Cantabridgian Creativity.  The idea that you can in a couple clicks go onto a site like Slideshare and see ideas on a topic from some of the best thinkers on that topic and recreate your own meaning of it.   I had joked with Jerry that one downside is the inability to remember our calendar - and that with this socialness will our friends eventually collaborately remind us of our appointments.  (It was funny at the time)

But the point is that knowledge is now externalized in our global brain of connections with our friends.

Maybe that's why Robert Scoble responded to a Twitter user asking if ever experienced information overload. He said no.  I asked him, on Twitter, if he thought his brain had evolved.  He said, "no my brain has not evolved, but my network has."

And, as our networks evolve and the tools to aggregate our friends activity streams - so does the amount of noise increase.    Are we know evolving to Web2.0 version of information overload?  Perhaps called "Networked Overload?"  In this recent post from Read/Write Web called Too Many Choices, Too Much Content describes approaches to filtering your content and reducing the noise.   The bottom line:

It's hard to say. Early adopters are not going to stop playing with every new service, but it's clear that we're getting to a point where tools that centralize, aggregate, but most importantly filter our content are going to be the ones that win out. There are only so many hours in the day, and, as it stands right now, every single one of them could be filled just consuming and interacting with content, social media, and web services. There's also this little thing called "going outside" that we would like to take part in, too. Hopefully we'll see the killer web app to filter the noise someday soon to help us do so, but it's definitely not here yet.

Given there isn't yet a killer app (or maybe there is) How are your filtering your networked content?  What human skills or existing tools are you using to help you avoid networked overload?  What are your best information coping tips and techniques in an age of social media and networked digital lifestyle feeds?

 

 

 

Comments

[Jeff Trexler]

Marshall McLuhan used to say that when he read a book, he would just read every other page and fill in the rest. Personally, I've extrapolated this to online media by resisting the temptation to fetishize catching up.

There's a reason for this besides the need to avoid clogging up my mental and chronal RAM. I find info on the web in a couple key ways: gleaning obscure buried gold and looking at the shiny things that attract mass attention. The shiny things that spread mimetically tend to disseminate over enough time that I'll catch 'em even if I miss or day or two, so skipping isn't death. And with a gazillion eyes looking there were always be new buried gold, with the best stuff likely to spread enough that I'll catch it in a later round.

Thus armed, I can hit control-K in my NetNewsWire, which is pretty much my hub for everything (including Twitter RSS feeds). For my social networks, I'm moving to a browser based aggregator that keeps everything current & in my peripheral vision, which makes 'em much less of a distraction. The aggregator I'm testing now is Yoono, but I imagine I'll end up trying out a few.

[Daniel Bachhuber]

As much as I may disagree with Scoble on other issues, I may have to agree with him on this end. To keep ahead in a knowledge-based economy, one of the key strategies is to absorb and filter as much information as you can with your own mind. Sure, you develop or evolve networks which push you information, but it doesn't do you any better to read just 10 items a day from one very good source instead of 100 from poor ones. It is necessary to continually better the quality of information coming to you and absorb as much as you can. I certainly think this will hold true as services to become external processing "brains" are created.

To apply this to technology, I still have hundreds of feeds in Google Reader to fly through at high speed, but I'm finding more and more that the valuable information is that which come directly to me (via links in Twitter, share button in Google Reader, or the share bookmarklet in Facebonk) from friends and people who work in the same sector. One reason for the high value might be the fact they made the effort to pass it along, with no thought of how they might benefit. The increasingly simple action of consciously sharing information amongst people you actually know is an amazingly valuable filter.

[Beth Kanter]

@Daniel
How do you strenghten your mind muscle to absorb
more and more information?

[Beth Kanter]

Daniel answered my question in email and posting here:

Obvious, by working it. How else do you get in shape for a marathon?
I think it's super valuable to have a large network to draw upon, and
continue refining it and refining it to get a wider body of really
good information. At least for this iteration of the knowledge
worker, however. It's interesting to speculate on how intelligent
algorithms will be able to push more relevant information our way.
For the moment, content aggregation is largely dictated by the wisdom
of the masses, Google News and Digg being the most popular example of
this. When data starts coming my way based on what the algorithm
already knows of my day, friends, occupation, and habits, that's when
it will become even more interesting.

I saw the Qik video you recorded at the airport and thought it quite
poignant. Mobile, as soon as someone figures out how to tap the US
market, is going to explode. I recently returned from 3 months in
India where nearly everyone has a mobile. The same is true for the
US, both my parents have mobiles for both voice and SMS but neither
are on social networks. My dad thinks Twitter is cool, but has yet to fully step in. Considering such an amazing potential to reach out and connect with people, how do you apply this to engagement strategies in the non-profit sector?

Enjoy your travels, wherever you may be headed!