Attensa

Information Overload on Scobelizer by Bubba

So Scoble's new guest blogger, "Bubba" posted about information overload today. The shocking information though was that one of his solutions was to "stop using an RSS reader." Wow! Here is an excerpt...

More recently I've tried two ways dealing with info overload.  Ones I never thought I'd try. 

The first was un-subscribing from almost all e-newsletters, internal microsoft distribution lists, and setting up very strict email rules that filter away other sources of bulk mail.   I went from a lot of mail, to very little mail.  This was cool because I found myself walking around my office more, having more face to face conversations and just generally connecting with people at a deeper level.  On the flip side, I was the last to know about things like the new google calendar launch.  But, I still found out about it relatively quickly - the day it launched.  The interesting thing was that I my "virtual" relationships actually got better because I had (made?) the time to really engage people that weren't geographically co-located with me. 

The other method was to stop using an rss reader.  I know this is like blasphemy here on Scoble's blog and I'm kind of scared to admit it.  My logic was that I my brain would only remember a handful of sites and thus regulate how much time I spent absorbing information.  The weird thing is that it actually works pretty much like un-subscribing from bulk email sources.  The really important stuff found its way to me anyway (like bootcamp) and I spent more time out in the world. 

"Scared to admit it!" Bubba says! This reminds me of my mother! She still won't use ATM machines and consistent with that bizarre fact she refuses to get a computer or even use free email. No digital camera either. She doesn't like technology (her words) - however the cordless phone and fax machine did make the cut. That said, she has also cut down on information overload because she gets no e-mail. None. She has never gotten one e-mail message! She has an hour or day that most of us don't have as we sort through email, and now, RSS subscriptions. But sheesh, she's a 70 year old artist, so I can get it if she doesn't want the noise. Bubba needs to learn to adapt besides dumping his RSS reader

People in business will find RSS inescapable to effectively do their job in the future. And accordingly, they will require tools for efficiently handling "information overload" that is the unfortunate byproduct of this innovation we now call RSS. It's just like email all over again with numerous positives and negatives but at least this time there's no spam.

Tags: Scoble, Information Overload, Attensa

Commonsense Tagging Tools for the Enterprise

 

Jon Udell zeros in on how social bookmarks and tagging are commonsense tools for building effective knowledge systems that can benefit the individual and the workgroup.

 

"Shared bookmarking, coupled with tagging, is another piece of low-hanging fruit. Sprinkling Web 2.0 pixie dust won’t solve every problem, but the benefits of public services such as del.icio.us and Furl can be realized within the enterprise, too. That’s true because they benefit the individual first, and then, as a useful side effect, the community.

Given the opportunity, people will want to bookmark and tag the resources they publish internally. It’s the easiest way to create, manage, and share dynamic lists of such resources. This system pays for itself in improved personal productivity alone. Everything else is gravy, and there’s plenty of that.

Saved bookmarks chart the current and historical levels of interest in what their URLs represent, and they identify groups that share those interests. (Note that behind the firewall, bookmarks can refer to public resources as well as private ones inside the enterprise.) Tags identify sets of related resources and groups related to those sets. They also extend the metadata vocabularies that can be used to improve search. What’s not to like?"

We'd like to think that the Attensa tagging toolbars for Outlook, IE and Firefox are an easy way to get started enriching the value of your information.

Using RSS in your small business?

I have a media opportunity for a company that is using RSS and Attensa for Outlook in their small business (20 -200 employees). I received a call from a writer from Inc. Magazine who is writing a piece on RSS. If you are using RSS in an interesting way and want some great exposure send me an email and I'll put you in contact with the writer.

Call to Attention

As we continue the development of an RSS network based on attention streams to intelligently improve the relevance of information for everyone using RSS, our mantra is Less is more.

Brain power and energy are being devoted to the development of the Attention.xml spec through Dave Sifry and the brain trust at Technorati. We think it is just as important to start bringing consumers and businesses into the loop on how RSS and attention can deliver on the Less is More promise. Even the passionate and eloquent voice of Steve Gillmor can't don't it alone.

Craig Barnes, our CEO, has issued a call to action to establish an industry initiative to evangelize the inherent benefits of artfully using attention data to drive RSS to the next level.

If you or your company want to join us in this noble effort, send me an email.