When the fog falls - information overload as a challenge from the business education perspective

1. When the fog falls -
information overload as a
challenge from the business
education perspective
Konya, 24 July 2010,
Dr Jan Fazlagić
Poznan University
of Economics, Poznan, Poland
E-mail: jan.fazlagic@ue.poznan.pl

2. 1. Knowledge vs.information
2. The traditional approach to
(business) education)
3. What has changed recently?
4. What do we do about it?

3. • The natives were ingorant about boiling
water – why??

4. 1. Didn’t know the word „to boil water”
2. Were not familiar with the concept of
time flow
3. Did not have time measuring devices „

5. • Intelligence/intellectal excellence is valued
• Intelligent, not creative students score
best
• Teaching is based on case studies and
hindsight analysis of past successes
• Problems are pre-defined
• The instructor knows the truth – the
student is to ‘get there’
The traditional approach to
(business) education

6. Why well-informed decisions
are a myth?
• 28 September 1998: a consortium of US
baks supervised by the US government is
bailing out the LTCM (Long-Term Capital
Management) equity fund;
• cost: billions of US dollars

7. LCTM in a nutshell:
• Two noble winners on board
• Above the average ROI
• Best traders on staff
• Innovations: 24/7 operations
• Huge IT investments

8. • US Army experience says clearly: „More
battlefield transparency does not guaranty
a better operational efficiency”
• The most intelligent decision makers will
never make the best decisions (due to the
intrinsic human irrationality)

9. Option acceleration

10. Does better information on the
targets affect the consumption
of ammunition?
• YES!

11. Does better information on the
targets affect the consumption
of ammunition?
• YES!
• The units in combat demaned 5 times more
ammunition then previously
• Result: a logistics nightmare

12. Information as a resource
• Abundant resources tend to be wasted
… an that includes information!
• Best-quality, on-time information tends to
be wasted
• Todays’ business must learn how to
operate in the information overload
• More information = more analysis

13. New challenges for business
education
• How to PROTECT organizations from
information?
• How to co-ordinate information = how to
manage knowledge?
• From „What do we know?” >> „What does
it mean for us?”
• What to analyse?

14. How to cope with a steady, day-to-day
stream of false information:
• Steve Jobs: „we will not enter the video
market”.

15. Lessons learned (US Army):
• As the value of information decreases, the value
of judgement, assumptions, aspirations and
mental models increases.

16. Business schools must start to
teach such news skills as (1):
• Information filtering
• Responsiveness to information
• Elasticity of thinking (changing
assumptions, mental models)
• Distinguishing creative from intelligent
not-so-creative ideas (and people)
• Quizzics: the art. of asking the right
questions

17. Business schools must start to
teach such news skills as (2):
• New focus for strategic management:
more information does not equal better
decisions
Capacity is no t the sam e as capability.

18. Thank you for your attention
Jan.fazlagic@ue.poznan.pl
Fazlagic.pl