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 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
