121. Showcasing Knowledge

In the twenty-first century, the digital world provides a myriad means of communication. Distance, speed, and time no longer hold the importance they once did. Each day and night feed a growing flow.¹ Are today’s (and tomorrow’s) technologies leading to information overload² in a variety of formats? Information has become ubiquitous because producing, manipulating, and disseminating it is now cheap and easy.

But is more information necessarily good? A few responses follow. First, although we may be becoming better at capturing and storing information, there are processing limitations. (Observation suggests that “attention economy” emerges naturally from information overload.) Second, in reaction to the overabundance of views, we may avoid drawing conclusions. Third, with the increase in channels of information, people seem to have abandoned storytelling, that age-old technique that every society used to educate, entertain, and preserve culture; and to instill moral values. Fourth, without knowing the validity of content, we run the risk of misinformation. Fifth, are important discoveries, accomplishments, or initiatives being missed because vital papers are buried among others?

Denis Diderot (1713–1784), a French philosopher, art critic, and writer, mused about the information explosion in 1775.³ Inevitably, the difficult concept of information overload will continuously rewrite its history. But some things will never change: in the twenty-first century, much as in the years that followed the invention of the mechanical printing press,⁴ exploring the critical distinction between information and knowledge remains the most important thing anyone must do.⁵

Modern organizations are breeding grounds for information overload. (Sometimes, even trivial matters are packaged and marketed as important.) Long messages, especially in writing, overwhelm. Communicators of all types develop armor-piercing measures to attract attention (if not make a lasting impression).

Accountability for cutting “info-pollution” starts at the individual level. We can be smart agents and there are ways to manage our individual signal-to-noise ratios, for example, by not carbon-copying electronic mail to all. But, as primary sources of information smog, organizations should explore ways to contribute too.⁶ They might formulate strategies to eliminate duplication or exchange of unnecessary information. (Some argue that the issue is not information overload but filter failure. Others see information overload as organization underload.) Technological solutions that organizations might introduce promise relief. For instance, software can automatically sort and prioritize incoming electronic mail to regulate or divert the deluge. Importantly, nontechnological solutions may need to help people change the way they think and behave when communicating.

Then again, given our propensity for attention economy, is it possible that perceptions of information overload have less to do with the quantity of information in production or circulation at any time than with the qualities by which knowledge is presented? Might the biggest drain on our time simply be ineffective communication? For sure, there will always be demand for good knowledge products. Yet, paradoxically, authors often do not begin to understand how to disseminate these well.

Dissemination of knowledge is just as important as its production. High-performance organizations (i) adopt a strategic approach to dissemination; (ii) know their target audiences; (iii) formulate generic, viable dissemination strategies that can be amended to suit different purposes; (iv) hit the target; and (v) monitor and evaluate their accomplishments. Good marketing is essential to this and information sheets are a key element of effective outreach. In a crowded marketplace, a concise, well-written summary and its calibrated dissemination will allow readers to easily gain information and understanding that is found more deeply in the document summarized. Knowledge that is available but not summarized might just as well be lost.

Each organization needs to come up with a solution that works within its own culture. These Knowledge Solutions advertise a series of one-pagers, the Knowledge Showcase, that the Asian Development Bank (2008–) introduced to record, store, and share cornerstone information about the success of specific tools, methods, and approaches to problems and challenges; cut “info-pollution”; and generate and share knowledge.