Month: December 2011

Are we paying attention less or just paying attention to more things at once?

Data Points: A Nation of Multitaskers More than ever we’re likely to surf the Web as we sample fall programming

via Ad Week

The internet is a vast ocean of knowledge, spread wide and deep with facts and opinion.

This is good.

It gives us access to everything and anything we could ever want to find. It makes the information that once set experts apart from the rest of us accessible to everyone, leveling the field and removing the advantage of being in the know.

However, now that everyone can “know” following a few Google searches, the expert must evolve into something new. The expert can no longer be just a person who knows the fact, but a person who can tell you what the facts mean.

With everyone having access to the same information, there is more importance in the interpretation of that information than ever. But interpretation of facts are not the same as facts.

Now with a personalized web, there is yet another layer to consider. First there is the fact. Second there is the interpretation of that fact, the opinion. Finally, there is the filter of the personalized web that will decide if you ever get exposed to that opinion.

There is a true paradox in the web.

On the one hand, it opens up so many possibilities and perspectives. All the world’s knowledge is before you, just a search and a click away. On the other hand, the web can be rather insulating. You only see what you choose to see.

You only search the things you are thinking and you may only subscribe to the blogs that reinforce your would view. The links you see from friends on Facebook are links from friends who are you friends because of what you share in common.

How can this personalized web deliver the right interpretations of facts?

A simple questionair on What the Book can help you determine the kind of reader you are as you answer questions like this:

I silently judge others by their bookshelves.

this

A book has made me so angry that I’ve thrown it against a wall.

and this

Decorating with books is perverse.

The site also lets you know how you stack up against other readers.

Every idea needs space to breathe. That is how you sort out the good
ideas from the mediocre ones. That is how you decide what is important
to work on next, what should go on the back burner, and what you
should abandon entirely.

There is too little time to do everything, so focus and discernment
are critical for getting the right jobs done. Writing doable lists
and clearly defining next actions can help make the actual doing
automatic. The real work, though, comes first, when you answer this
question:

What am I going to do today?