Can Read It Later’s Digest feature help us organize and consume abundant information more efficiently? The demo video from their web site certainly strikes at this as the key value behind this feature. We intend to find out.
Automatic Grouping of Information
This video talks about how web articles can automatically be grouped and presented in an organized way. Since it is so easy to clip articles with the Read It Later’s embedded browser widgets, users presumably end up with a ton of unrelated content in the Reading List. In other words, uncontrolled abundant information. Not good. The key feature of Digest is to automatically organize that Reading List into a sub-topics that can be easily browsed. Sounds like a step in the right direction.
Does it Work?
Over the next month or so, we intend to try this out and see how useful it is. The key will be (1) convenience and (2) how well the automatic groupings work. We want to find out if it saves us time and helps us benefit from all the great information we will be putting into our Reading List.
Fogozine Integration
Additionally, Read It Later could become even more useful when integrated with our Fogozine product as both an import (article library) and export (sharing) feature. Maybe we should even add it to this blog so our posts can be quickly moved to people’s Reading List. Any Read It Later users out there who would like to see this?
How Mobile Devices Affect When We Read
Finally, I have to point out a really good post from Read It Later’s blog titled Is Mobile Affecting When We Read?. It presents some very interesting data about people’s information consumption habits and how they are shifting as more advanced mobile devices like the iPad become available. It is worth adding to your Reading List, and it is the first one in ours.
“More matter is being printed and published today than ever before, and every publisher of an advertisement, pamphlet, or book expects his material to be read. Publishers and, even more so, readers want what is important to be clearly laid out. They will not read anything that is troublesome to read, but are pleased with what looks clear and well arranged, for it will make their task of understanding easier. For this reason, the important part must stand out and the unimportant must be subdued …” Jan Tischichold, 1935
That was true in 1935 when publishing books and pamphlets was on the rise, and it is even more true now that the number of mediums for information exchange have risen considerably. It does not matter if information is conveyed with applications running on mobile devices, ebook readers, web pages, iTunes podcasts, or good old print. “Clear and well arranged” information makes it easier to understand and more likely to be consumed. Every publisher (using this term broadly) and every information consumer wants this. We like to think of it as information aesthetics, because it has a lot to do with how the information looks, but there is more to it than just beauty. It is really about good design.
Good design is peculiar because you don’t really notice it (in contrast to bad design, which is usually obvious) . For information, things like organization, typography, contrast, alignment, clarity, repetition, flow, color, and sound all contribute to the overall experience of information consumption. When it is done well, you are more likely to read, listen, or watch the content. You are more likely to take something away from it, and you are also more likely to share and recommend it. Read more →
Fogozine for iPad is officially here. Version 1.0.1 (yes, we had to make one revision) is available for download here.
As far as we know, it is the first app (on any platform) that allows you to bundle digital media from web sites, digital pictures, and RSS feeds into a convenient and sharable packages. We are finding new uses for it every day and we hope others find even more. You will soon see more and more posts on this site about different ways to use Fogozine. Read more →
Nearly one year in the making, Fogo Media’s first commercial product is on the verge of being launched. Fogozine, the product for easily making digital media ‘mix tapes’, is coming to the iPad. Version 1.0 has been submitted for acceptance into the App Store, and we hope to see it go live before the end of the year. Read more →
Sometimes more is better (and we all know there is no limit to the amount of information available to us).
More information makes it more likely you will find the most useful information, and it gives you more raw material to draw from when synthesizing information. It is also has the potential to drive you crazy. If you want to drink from the information fire hose, you must have a good strategy for information skimming.
Information Skimming Helps You See the Big Picture
In a nutshell, information skimming is about consuming more, highly focused (short), bits of information in order to be better informed, make better decisions, and seeing the big picture more clearly. Done well, this technique will give you a huge advantage over the rest of us who get bogged down with too much, or too little, useful information.
Goals
Unlike the focused information consumption approach discussed previously on this blog, the goal of information skimming is to continuously scan and consume small bits of information that have relevance and meaning to you. Sometimes called environmental scanning, this approach works much like a radar–you continuously scan, and received signals from, your environment. If you quickly pick up the right signals, you can make better-than-average predictions of the future. For example, think of meteorologists who use radar to help them predict the weather. They are not always right, but continuously monitoring the environment sure helps them be more accurate.
Lets look at what advantages you will have when you skim information really well:
You will know what is going on in your world. The emphasis is on you because the information is only useful if it is meaningful in the context of your industry, your interests, your tribes, your competition, etc.
A constant stream of new inputs will help you make better conversation, and it will continuously provide new inspiration for your art (which is hopefully part of your work).
Many diverse and relevant information signals will help you detect patterns. Pattern detection is fundamental to making future predictions (which in turn greatly impacts decision making), and it also helps you become better at anticipating and adapting to change.
You will make new connections to people and ideas. Some of these connections will turn your world upside-down and some will open up new opportunities. A small number will be life-changing.
The big picture will start to emerge from the noise. Light bulbs will go on. Confusion will subside (at least temporarily).
How many of us would not want to have more of these advantages?
Is information skimming the only way to get them? Certainly not. Information skimming provides kindling for the fire, raw material for the production line, nutrients for the seedling. In other words, the best of us can not succeed without some quality information to chew on.
This blog is about making information more useful, so it may seem out of place to talk about sharing. But this post is about sharing information, and the act of thoughtful and generous information sharing is fundamental to making information more useful for all of us. Selfless sharing also has side benefits like improving the size and strength of your social networks and increasing happiness, but let’s first focus on how information sharing allows us to take control of the information that matters.
We have said it before, but consider all of the information being produced on a daily basis. Only a very small fraction of that information is going to be relevant to any one of us. Who has the time to find the important and relevant bits? Individually, we don’t stand a chance. There are lots of ways we can try (many of which are discussed on the blog), but a single person just can’t keep up. The answer is to look at what we can do collectively. All together, we can consume and filter a lot of information, and the act of sharing is what enables everyone to benefit. Of course, all sharing is not equal.
Effective Sharing
The effectiveness of sharing is proportional to the level of personalization, thoughtfulness, and selflessness. These three things are very important.
First, lets consider personalization by breaking information sharing down into three different types:
Sharing publicly – this is sharing information in a public forum like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, or on a blog. Sharing information this way is generally not very personal. The most effective public information sharing usually comes from people who consistently share good information on a particular topic. By doing this, they build up followers who are like-minded and interested in the same information. In a way, this makes their public information sharing more personal.
Sharing to a group – sharing information to a [relatively small and like-minded] group is more personal than sharing publicly, and is typically done in some sort of online forum, email distribution, or newsletter. Groups share common characteristics, and information sharing can be personalized to be more useful to people with these same characteristics.
Sharing to an individual - sharing one-on-one to another individual is as personal as it gets. Emails, twitter DMs, phone calls, and face-to-face conversations are examples of individual information sharing. By knowing exactly who you are sharing information with, it can be extremely targeted and personal (and hence, more useful).
By the way, the opposite of personalized information sharing is information spamming. Constantly spewing information can cause more harm than good. Think of personalization as a filter, not a fire hose.
Next, let’s see how thoughtfulness and selflessness lead to effective information sharing. Thoughtfulness implies thinking about how shared information will impact the people you are sharing with. Randomly spamming people with information that has no relevance to them is not useful. However, information that is carefully considered and deemed useful can be of tremendous benefit. This is where the benefits of sharing goes into overdrive, and it requires us to constantly think about how the information we are consuming can impact others. In addition to thoughtfulness, it is important that sharing information is a selfless act – meaning that it is an act of generosity, not for personal gain. When you start keeping score, or you adopt a tit-for-tat mentality, you are no longer acting selflessly.
The fact is that everyone wins when we all share information that is personalized, thoughtful, and selfless. The power of social networks is unleashed, and we become a collective group of information filters for one another.
Take Personal Action
To improve the effectiveness of your information sharing (and we all have some room for improvement), you must take personal action. What can you, as an individual, do to enable collective information sharing? For starters, try to do more of the following: Read more →
Deep consumption of information … free from distraction … focused on the present moment … reflecting … connecting … deriving meaning. How often has this happened lately?
Most of us experience focused information consumption much less frequently than we should. We are lured by the power of technology to make us efficient information skimmers, multitaskers, and hyper-communicators. Often times, this efficiency is for the better; it allows us to be more informed, connected, and productive with our time. However, when short, fragmented mechanisms become our sole means of information consumption, we start to loose our ability to make important connections and see the big picture. This leads to shortsighted decisions and “status quo” work production. Life-changing decisions and high-value creation requires focus. There is a time and place for Twitter, RSS feeds, web aggregators, and news headlines, but we must also make time for focused, deep consumption of information.
Meaningful Knowledge
The goal is to be able to turn information into meaningful knowledge. For this post, the term “meaningful knowledge” is something that goes beyond the mere understanding of a concept or fact. Meaningful knowledge comes from the synthesis of many facts and concepts into a new and highly personal understanding that allows you to make good decisions, see the world differently, and create value in the world (whatever that means for you). This is big picture stuff, and it will provide you with frameworks and filters for organizing the rest of your life.
A Focused State
To turn information into meaningful knowledge, we must get into a focused state that allows us to consume, and reflect on, lengthy content (e.g. books, large magazine or blog articles, and long videos or podcasts). Sometimes, a collection of related content is the key to making important connections. Here, more than anywhere, focusing on relevant content while blocking out the rest is critically important. All too often, “more is better” thinking leads us to try and get to a little bit of everything we find, which can in turn cause us to lose focus on what is most important.
Focus: A Simplicity Manifesto in the Age of Distraction
Leo Babauta has a nice ebook called focus – a simplicity manifesto in the age of distraction. He does a good job explaining the importance of focus, and he provides lots of suggestions on how to achieve it. Since he has freed this ebook from all copyrights, I have taken the liberty to aggregate it using Fogo Media’s Fogozine Mac Application – check it out here. Here are some of my favorite quotes:
“It’s not technology we should be afraid of. It’s a life where we are always connected, always interrupted, always distracted, always bombarded with information and requests. It’s a life where we have no time to create or connect.”
“When you consume information, you’re helping your creativity as well — you find inspiration in what others have done, you get ideas, you gather the raw materials for creating.”
We at Fogo Media believe information abundance is a great thing, but technology is drastically changing the way we create, consume, and share it. Are you having a hard time keeping up?
Many of us feel overwhelmed by the onslaught of digital information piling up in our email inbox and available to us through internet-enabled services. Many are also struggling to understand how to use the Internet and social media to our greatest advantage.
If there is one thing we want to do at Fogo Media, it is to help you find ways to harness the power of digital information. Unless you are 16 years old and never knew any other way, you are going to have to adapt in order to take full advantage of the changes taking place. We want to show you how.
Our firm belief is that it is worth the time and effort to change the way you think and act. You will need to try new tools and devices, you will need to change the way you consume and filter information, and you will need open yourself to new methods of communication. This may be hard for many, but doing so will give you an advantage over those who fail to change.
By getting access to more of the right information at the right time (and that will be very specific to your needs), you will be able to quickly detect new and emerging patterns. This will lead to better decisions based on more accurate predictions of the future. You will also be able to share information and communicate more effectively, giving you more influence over others. Please use it to do good things!
This is powerful stuff. Information abundance + social media allow you to connect with others in a way that makes everyone collectively more intelligent. Just imagine what is possible. Even better, take action and make things happen. Experiment. Think big. Do not be afraid of failure. We are all figuring this out as the world continually changes. Your efforts will be rewarded with accomplishments not possible if you sit on the sidelines and watch.
The following set of slides is from a presentation I gave at the NJ Mobile Meetup event on April 22nd. During my 15 minutes presentation, I highlighted the opportunity created by four technology trends: advanced mobile devices, fast wireless technology, cloud computing, and digital media. This is the opportunity we are hoping to capitalize on with Fogozine, and I really hope others continue to push the limits and make better tools to help us all benefit from information abundance.
I admit it, I am not a power Twitter user. But I want to be, and here is why:
Twitter may be the single most effective digital information filtering tool available today.
What is an information filter? Anything that separates the things you want to read from the things you do not want to read. That is a good thing. With the abundance of digital information available to us, we must aggressively filter information to make it useful. Searching, tagging, sorting, and segmenting are all examples of filtering. Everyone must do this, but those of us who filter the best will get the most relevant information in the least amount of time. Time, being the most scarce resource, is very valuable, so Twitter usage may give you an advantage in a time-starved world.
Twitter helps you find the "golden nuggets" in less time
Why is Twitter the best digital information filter? Because people filter better than machines. The trick is to follow the right people. If you follow people who tweet a lot of new content that is of interest to you, you no longer have to go out and find that content yourself. It is like you have an army of information miners working for you to find the nuggets you are most likely to want to read. Internet searching and online recommendation services are great, but they can not beat (yet) an actual human brain for filtering information.
Recommended techniques for using Twitter to filter information. Here are six techniques that help get better results with Twitter:
We all create documents with the intention that someone will learn from the valuable insights we are sharing. I am talking specifically about written communication to other people. Whether it is an email, Word document, or blog, we expect someone is going to read, and benefit from, our hard work. Yet we all know how inundated we are with emails, documents, and blogs. Do you read everything that comes in front of your eyes? Hopefully not. If you do, then you probably don’t have much time for anything else.
So, how do you increase the odds that your documents will be read? Here are 10 ways to create documents people will actually read:
1. Use Headings
Use headings to break content down into smaller sections. Headings allow readers to quickly scan the structure of your document and determine which sections are worth reading. This is particularly important for longer documents (over 500 words) that people will tend to avoid unless they can quickly jump to parts of the document that interest them the most.
Here is an online text book with more information on the use of headings.
2. Get to the point
Unless you have the skills to captivate readers with Shakespeare-like prose, get right to the point. Don’t add words, sentences, or paragraphs that are not needed. You may have heard this concept referred to as “Keep It Simple, Stupid”, or KISS. This is another tactic to help save readers time and ensure that you get your point across.
3. Begin with the end
Most documents should state the key conclusions, takeaways, or purpose near the beginning. If you have one big build-up to the end, you risk readers never making it there. It is better to summarize the key conclusions up front and then use the rest of the document to support those conclusions.
We like to talk about Information Abundance at Fogo Media, and you have probably heard it before. The Internet coupled with digital media has put a large majority of the world’s information at our fingertips. For example, Fogo Media has just joined 175,000 other people and organizations by creating a blog today. That’s right, 175,000 people will create a blog TODAY. These words will be among 20 million or so recorded on the Internet today. While much of these words are probably garbage (hopefully not THESE words), there is certainly some useful information being created as well.
So how do you keep up with, and find, the information that is relevant and useful to YOU? That is what Fogo Media, and this blog, is all about. This post kicks things off by looking at how we can benefit from information abundance while acknowledging that information abundance can also cause problems.
However, before we do that, lets address another phrase commonly used: Information Overload. This turns “Information Abundance” around and makes it a negative phenomenon. Our belief is that information abundance is a good thing, so we are going to avoid using this phrase. In cases where information abundance goes too far, we will use the phrase “Information Over-Abundance” instead. We know, it is six in one hand and a half-dozen in the other, but we are going to opt for the more positive phrasing.
How does it help?
Here are some ways information abundance can benefit us (not an exhaustive list):
Going to Mobile World Congress? I'll be at the Spirent Booth (#1C14), and we have a world-class barista to help fuel you with coffee or tea.02:08:41 PM February 23, 2012from LinkedIn
