Information at the fingertips is overrated ##########################################
ЁЯУЕ 2014-02-07 :category: thoughts :tags: thoughts :slug: info-fingertips-overrated
It does not solve world hunger
Why do I think it is overrated ? It is because human beings are lazy by nature. I can probably cite biological reasons like caveman had to conserve energy, do not waste energy on things that can be avoided. But that was probably true in case of physicial work, but guess these lazy genes take over even in the information age… and I think our genes may not be wrong. Just look at this <https://www.google.co.in/search?q=thinking+burns+more+calories>
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While it is fair to assume that lack of information definitely blocks, but having the information isn't the silver bullet either. I am not talking about the information overload either.
Some of the examples of why I think it is overrated.
- I shared password for demo site w/ my boss multiple times via email - Even then, just before the demo he needs to ask the login credentials to me. It was always in his mailbox - but it is easier to ask.
- I spent a lot of time to write detailed root cause of a problem via email with my team mates. Still we have to have a meeting and discuss (and waste X hours multipled by Y developers ? when reading individually and spending time thinking and efforts to understand by oneself would have been more effective IMO)
- In the product I created :
- Customers have their “TO DO” list shown to them when they login, still they need email reminder before the task is due. So we send reminder 15 and 5 days before the task is due. Now their “managers” need email reminder 2 days before the task is due.
- There is online report for customers, still they expect the reports to be emailed to them.
In all the cases - the lack of information was never a problem, neither was information overload (may be only in case where password was needed to be searched from lot of emails)
This article was originally published on my other blog here <http://blog-desipenguin.rhcloud.com/information-at-the-fingertips-is-overrated/>
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