The phrase alone is sufficient to strike terror into hardiest of managers; it presages breakdown of society as we know it and failure of management to cope with change. Media constantly dissect forthcoming collapse brought on by TMI ("Too Much Information"), even as they themselves pile up larger and larger dossiers on subject, and we are oufte informed that it is our own damn fault which we are drowning in data, as we simply can not discriminate between significant stuff and everything else. Therefore, info-tsunami warning signs posted all along what we once so naively called "information superhighway".
So how does all this tie together? Well, we have got all this lovely data, information, and maybe even knowledge floating around most organizations, but we do not seem to be able to make lot of use of it. Either there is just too much, or we can not recognize suiatble material on timely basis, or things fall between organizational cracks. In any event, we experience what amounts to "information overload" on pretty regular basis, despite having all this understanding of information and some really good tools for managing and using it. How come?
There is a lot more out there in optional and supplemental readings also wide wonderful world of Internet to provide you a feel for whether or not we are about to be washed away by "info-tsunami"; more widely you can spread your own information gathering net, more effective your analysis is probable to be.
How taking socio-technical perspective can be more helpful in helping organizations manage information overload than either technical solutions or organizational solutions alone?