If you are like me, you have too much stuff going on in your head at one point in time, and you owe your affliction to the mass of crud we’ve come to know and love, the intarweb.
I’ve ranted in the past about biz plays to decrease the amount of clutter and use sense-making technologies (sometimes as simple as GTD for tasks).. but to say that I’ve conquered the ability to acquire new information, digest it, and take meaningful action with it, is really stretching it.
The problem with being a generalist is– that’s exactly what you need to do to succeed. You need to understand context in your industry –and even more so, outside it.
Ron Burt, GSB @ Chicago professor suggests that “People who can make connections across knowledge gaps have a competitive advantage, because they see new combinations and alternative ways of doing business“.
In my estimation, there exists a huge untapped world for augmented human memory and information management. The acquisition of information is only one small part of the info lifecycle. Creating relationships between information and using these relationships [repeatably] and meaningfully is what’s tough.
I have hope though. This recently released book, Keeping Things Found, has some decent reviews on Amazon and in the blogosphere. I’m curious enough to pick it up.
Oh. And it’d be nice if the Chicago Public Library ever decided to send over “Everything is Miscellaneous” to the Wicker Park branch. Somehow, I doubt that’s ever going to happen.
Visit http://www.chipublib.org, click on View your library card, enter your card number and zip to see the status of a hold request. The library’s automated notification system isn’t reliable.