Society, the Knowledge Worker, and Information Overload

Monday, July 25, 2011
10:10 am to 11:30 am
110 Barrows
Jonathan Spira

Information has become the great leveler of society and business. In 2010, information overload cost the U.S. economy almost one trillion dollars. From endless email, social media, and texting, to poor search tools and a dramatic increase in information generation, information overload is stretching the bandwidth of businesses and employees at unprecedented levels.

Revealing how the very tools deployed to make knowledge workers more efficient have in turn bogged productivity down, Jonathan Spira explores the many ways today’s tidal wave of information has bombarded and dulled our senses as well as hampered our ability to innovate and produce.

(This lecture is part of the course Info C103: History of Information. All are welcome.)

Jonathan Spira is CEO and chief analyst of Basex, a research firm focusing on issues companies face in the knowledge economy. His points of view and commentaries have appeared in Time, the New York Times, Business Week, and the Wall Street Journal. Spira is the author of Overload! How Too Much Information Is Bad For Your Organization

Last updated:

March 26, 2015