Joan Rataic-Lang, Executive Director/Library Director of the Toronto Lawyers Association, spoke recently for Soutron Global on information overload, how to deal with it, and how it affects us during the September webinar. After listening to the webinar it’s easy to see how information overload is not only pervasive, but, unfortunately, here to stay.

McKinsey Report

According to a McKinsey report, employees spend almost two hours per day merely gathering information and looking for answers. That doesn’t seem bad; we all need to do research.

Think about it this way, though – five students pay for a university course, only four show up to class. The fifth student is running around the library, trying to find answers to questions. That seems counterintuitive, doesn’t it?

When you think about the McKinsey report’s findings, two hours every day now seems like quite a lot. Could we reduce that? Is that the kind of waste organizations can tolerate in the current climate?

Choices

We know that, over time, data and information are growing exponentially, and we have two choices:

1. We can maintain the status quo and hope that employees can find the relevant information and knowledge to do their work.
2. Or we can utilize best practice around asset organization and search technology to connect knowledge workers with the information and knowledge they need to do their work with the least amount of frustration and time.

Option One seems like an Avoidable Failure at the best of times and in standard working scenarios.  

Where We Are

But that is not where we are right now.

Putting all your eggs in that basket during the pandemic and distributed/remote work setups could be a recipe for information center closures. That leads to lay-offs, and no one needs that right now.

Smart organizations recognize the value of knowledge sharing and providing access to assets in all their forms.

THOSE are the organizations that are going to survive the current economic climate. 

Information professionals can play a significant part in that! The individuals that do will indeed thrive and not just survive the current economic conditions.

Don’t forget to listen to Joan Rataic-Lang‘s presentation on Information Overload here.