[Design] Microsoft's take on Group Collaboration and Information Overload

[Mimi Yin]

http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/execmail/

Some relevant excerpts: At the conceptual level, a much more workflow- 
centric, less tool-based approach to solving the problem. In short,  
Search is not the answer.

Productivity: Information fatigue is one inevitable result of  
information overload. We are working to develop tools that help  
information workers prioritize their work and focus on the tasks that  
are truly important. At the same time, we are working to create  
unified communication solutions that provide a single entry point to  
all of the tools we use to communicate with coworkers and customers.

During the next 10 years, the idea of “search” will give way to a  
notion of seamless access to knowledge as people begin to utilize  
tools that let them interact with their computers using plain English— 
or plain Spanish, French, Chinese or Russian—to instantly link to the  
information or people they need. In this New World of Work,  
repetitive, uninteresting tasks like moving data from one system to  
another will be automated and employees will focus much more of their  
time and creative energy on work that generates real value and growth.

===

The problem, really, is twofold. The first is information overload.  
Faced with the endless deluge of data that is generated every second  
of every day, how can we hope to keep up? And in the struggle to keep  
up, how can we stay focused on the tasks that are most important and  
deliver the greatest value?

The other problem is something I call information underload. We’re  
flooded with information, but that doesn’t mean we have tools that  
let us use the information effectively.

Companies pay a high price for information overload and underload.  
Estimates are that information workers spend as much as 30 percent of  
their time searching for information, at a cost of $18,000 each year  
per employee in lost productivity. Meanwhile, the University of  
California, Berkeley predicts that the volume of digital data we  
store will nearly double in the next two years.

That makes solving information overload/underload a critical task.  
Fortunately, a new generation of technology innovations is opening  
the door to solutions that will make it dramatically easier to find  
relevant information quickly; to use that information to drive  
intelligent decision-making; and to instantly share the knowledge  
that results across the enterprise and beyond. Resolving the  
information overload and underload problem will take more than just  
better search tools. What’s required is a comprehensive approach to  
enterprise information management that spans information creation,  
collection and use and helps ensure that organizations can unlock the  
full value of their investments in both information and people.
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