Fatigue from information overload has a remedy, expert says

Given the avalanche of information from numerous avenues including e-mail, instant message and syndication feeds, corporate users could start to feel attention fatigue and companies may need to institute a strategy for attention management, according to one analyst firm.

Craig Roth, service director and vice president of collaboration and content strategies at the Burton Group, says attention fatigue has a negative impact on information workers and is caused by the limited amount of attention they have to spend on an ever increasing amount of information that demands their attention.

He says that fatigue also leads to an unwillingness to adopt new communications technologies such as blogs and wikis.

Roth presented his thoughts and suggestions for coping skills and solutions Wednesday during a Burton Group telebriefing.

He says processes, cultural changes and even technology lumped under something he calls “attention management” (AM) can help users cope. He says AM applies concepts from psychology, physiology, and economics.

“Attention management provides a way of framing a lot of the issues we see today,” say Roth, “with the intrusive aspects of these technologies, the unforeseen impacts on information workers from what are otherwise very beneficial collaboration communication and content technologies, and explaining why the promised life and productivity benefits of these technologies often seem elusive in the real world.”

He says the upside is that things are not hopeless and companies should not throw up their hands, accept their perceived fate, or make rapid changes to combat information overload problems.

“It is not hopeless, there are techniques that can help,” says Roth. He says users must become aware of the issues and implement changes to corporate culture, processes and technologies.

Roth says attention management in the enterprise means improving control over messages sent and received by information workers by changing work habits and culture, business processes and software tools.

Roth says even though technology got users into this mess, it can help ease the information burden.

He says technologies like spam and IM filters, caller ID and blocking, and popup blockers help reduce information overload by pushing unwanted communication into the background. In particular, he says presence information provides critical data about a user and says IM’s free/busy toggle is but a first step.

He says the next level would include calendar search, device detection, location, and microphones and cameras, which could detect if a user is physically present.

In addition to using technology to filter out or redirect communication, Roth says tools such as alerts, portals, syndication feeds, social networking, search and e-mail filtering rules can help bring some information forward and highlight its value.

Roth has created a conceptual model he calls the Attention Management System, which sits between the senders and the receivers of messages, and includes an attention response engine that features rich presence information, rules and scoring tools used to make decisions on messages, and redirection of communication along different routes or channels. It also includes sensors to monitor load and information gleaned from the user’s desktop such as what task they are on or what time zone they are in.