Posted by Reilly Atkinson on November 14, 1999 at 23:05:44:

In Reply to: Re: Information Overload posted by Vaughn P Fox on November 12, 1999 at 23:53:54:

Mr. Fox -- I've had the good fortune to work with many businesses addressing their information needs for the past thirty years or so. I've found that information overload is relatively common, and that specific information requirements are often not so easy to determine -- this can be particularly true in determining performance indicators according to the tastes of Senior Management.

In developing a info and communication system for a nation wide sales force, we relied heavily on interviews with sales people. These were depth interviews, and we ended up with maybe 100 such interviews. Trust me, this created an overload situation, but a necessary one in order to have a good sample. To reduce this info into manageable form took some doing.

I also do consumer research for a credit card co. The major data base covers the individual transaction records of 7 million cardholders over the past seven years or so.We're talking major overload here, and an extremely difficult problem of converting all this data to usable information to aid in cross marketing. And, the specific info needs evolved over the course of our reduction efforts.

Focus group transcripts, customer complaint records, general transaction records for banks and retail outfits, and .... These all can easily lead to overload situations, with no necessary clear path to get to the pearls (that is, no evident filters nor corporate protocols. The reality of the data-info-knowledge business is messy and dynamic. I say that's good thing, otherwise my business would decline.

Regards
Reilly Atkinson

---

Follow Ups:

---

Click Here to Post Follow Up in New Forums

    Knowledge Management Think Tank (New)

  

 Subject: 

Message: