1. Information Overload: The Impact of Too Much Data
Capstone Seminar
for
Master of Applied Science
Information and Communications Technology
Michael Reese
University of Denver University College
January 28, 2015
Instructor: Holger Weinhardt

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Abstract
Information overload has been an intrinsic condition of the human experience since the advent
of communication. As new mechanisms for collecting and analyzing data have evolved, so too
has man’s appetite for more information. In conjunction with the easy availability of
information to a broader audience, the incidence of information overload has increased. In
addition, the explosive growth rate of information and the value of information to the success
of businesses, have both contributed to that increase which affects individuals, enterprises, and
governments. This paper investigates the implications of unfettered data growth, evaluates the
effect information overload has on organizations, and considers what steps organizations
should take to remain competitive in the rapidly changing world of the digital universe.

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Contents
Abstract............................................................................................................................................ ii
Project Definition...............................................................................................................................1
Introduction...................................................................................................................................1
Project Foundations...........................................................................................................................3
The Value of Information.................................................................................................................3
Enterprise Data Growth...................................................................................................................6
The Issue with Too Much Information...............................................................................................9
Analysis Approach and Results.........................................................................................................11
The Analysis..................................................................................................................................11
The Results...................................................................................................................................12
The Problemof Information Overload..........................................................................................12
Dealing with Information Overload..............................................................................................14
Case Studies………………...............................................................................................................16
Discussion and Recommendations....................................................................................................22
Discussion ....................................................................................................................................22
Recommendations........................................................................................................................26
References.......................................................................................................................................29

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Project Definition
Introduction
Information has become the mainstay of most enterprises in today’s business world. It
drives business value by reducing risks and costs, and increasing competitiveness and customer
interests. In addition, people have an instinctive need to know, to uncover new information
from which to glean knowledge. Laurence Sterne, an Anglo-Irish novelist and clergyman from
the 18th century, described this relentless pursuit when he stated, “the desire of knowledge,
like the thirst of riches, increases ever with the acquisition of it”. Modern technologies have
enhanced man’s ability to gather, store, and share information at prodigious levels that show
little sign of abating. We now live in a digital universe, completely surrounded by, and wholly
dependent on, immediate and accurate access to information from a plethora of sources.
The International Data Corporation (IDC) is a premier provider of global market
intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications,
and consumer technology markets (IDC 2014). Since 2006, they have conducted an annual
study, in conjunction with storage provider EMC, that quantifies and forecasts the amount of
data produced annually throughout the world. Their most recent report is both informative,
and potentially alarming for businesses and individuals. It predicts that the volume of
information is growing at an exponential rate that they consider to be “doubling in size every
two years” (EMC 2014).
The result of this proliferation of information is a phenomenon known as information
overload. Alvin Toffler originally coined the term in his 1970 book Future Shock, which
“examines the effects of rapid industrial and technological changes upon the individual, the

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family, and society” (BarnesandNoble.com, s.v. “Future Shock,”
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/future-shock-alvin-
toffler/1100191736?ean=9780553277371 [accessed July 20, 2014]). It occurs when people
must cope with more information than they can easily process, which psychologist recognize
more accurately as “cognitive overload” (Tartakovsky 2013). Gleick writes,
Our world is built on the science of information theory, created by engineers and
mathematicians in the 1940s, but hard on the heels of information theory have
come "information overload", "information glut", "information anxiety", and
"information fatigue". This last was recognised by the Oxford English Dictionary
in 2009 as a syndrome for our times: "apathy, indifference, or mental exhaustion
arising from exposure to too much information, especially (in later use) stress
induced by the attempt to assimilate excessive amounts of information from the
media, the internet, or at work". (Gleick 2011)
For enterprises, information overload translates into a loss of productivity, a surge in employee
anxiety, increased business risk and costs, and an increase in IT investment to manage the data
controlled by the organization. In addition, information overload, or the pressure of dealing
with the glut of corporate information, will affect corporate strategy. Hemp (2009) describes
research that “suggests that the surging volume of available information—and its interruption
of people’s work—can adversely affect not only personal well-being but also decision making,
innovation, and productivity”. This increases the need for organizations to develop and
implement a data governance plan that will aide them in managing current, and future data
stores. Such a plan will allow enterprises to define the data that can best support the strategic
goals of the organization, and assist them in their efforts to combat the incidence of
information overload, and to maintain their strategic competitiveness.

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Project Foundations
The Value of Information
In business, information is data defined as being:
1. accurate and timely
2. specific and organized for a purpose
3. presented within a context that gives it meaning and relevance
4. can lead to an increase in understanding and decrease in uncertainty
(BusinessDictionary.com, s.v. “information,” http://www.businessdictionary.com
/definition/information.html [accessed July 7, 2014])
The advent of technological advances has resulted in a massive increase in the amount of data
businesses must process. As a result, organizations, through necessity, must deal with
numerous data sources and data types (emails, RSS feeds, social networking posts, etc.) that
may reside within a number of different organizations or teams. As Isson and Harriott (2013)
denote, “getting data to inform strategic decisions that cut across departments and data
sources can sometimes be a painful process for executives”.
In today’s rapid, constantly changing business environment, enterprises need “a steady
flow of fully-integrated, actionable information about all key business areas, including
production, customer service, supply marketing, sales, and HR” to remain competitive (ACM
Digital Library 2014). In addition, the ability to access and analyze this information quickly is
critical for the successful fostering of innovation needed to gain that competitive advantage.
Often, the success or failure of an organization is dependent on its ability to obtain, analyze,
and make decisions from numerous sources of information. That some of these decisions are
based on fact, and some on personal experience and capability, is a situation that concerns
many CIOs and CEOs (Bhatt and Thirunavukkarasu 2010).

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Advancements in technology have, in some cases, helped to facilitate the management
of information, and many enterprises have
made significant investments in
information management technologies.
The IDC digital universe study from 2011
found that, while the cost per gigabyte has
decreased significantly, enterprise
investment in information technologies have risen; a trend that is projected to continue in the
future (Gantz and Reinsel 2011). According to the IDC report, “enterprises are finding new
sources of data, new ways to analyze data, new ways to apply the analysis to the business, and
new revenues for themselves” (EMC 2014) aimed at adding more value to the organization. In
addition, the report claims that “before organizations can begin to turn the promise of the
digital universe into reality,” (EMC 2014) organizations must implement several initiatives, key
among them being an improvement in the use and management of data warehouses, along
with the application of data analytics at all levels of the organization. Survey data produced by
Pricewaterhouse Coopers supports this premise in finding that 44% of respondents viewed
business analytics as their primary initiative for 2014 (PwC 2014). Such findings as these clearly
highlight the value of information management and business intelligence to the viability of the
enterprise.
The demand for ever-faster systems that process information to enhance business value
escalates the increased focus on advanced analytics. A 2010 survey conducted by the MIT Sloan
Management Review and the IBM Institute of Business Value produced the following:

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 The use of business information and analytics differentiated top performers over
their less successful peers.
 Top performers were twice as likely to use analytics to guide future strategies.
 Successful organization use analytic insights more frequently in guiding day-to-
day decisions.
 Decisions based on rigorous analysis
were twice as prevalent in top
performing organizations as in those
that were less successful. (LaValle et al.)
This increased reliance on business information has led to the rise of big data methodologies,
and a need for better analytical tools such as “data visualization . . . process simulation . . . text
and voice analytics, social media analysis and other predictive and prescriptive techniques”
(LaValle et al. 2010). These techniques and methodologies are becoming increasingly more
important as the volume of data continues to grow.
Enterprises, much like individuals, are enamored with information – with uncovering the
unknown and getting to the “truth” of things. In addition, numerous sources in both academia
and the popular media tout the value that information, and information technology, has in
gaining and maintaining a competitive business advantage. In an interview for TDWI, Swoyer
quotes McKnight’s assertion, stating,
"Information is only growing in importance for companies. We thought it was
pretty important five years ago, but now we're seeing [its importance] in the way
organizations are aligned -- or realigning [themselves]," he says.
"[These companies] have different information management groups and central
information management groups, and it's hard to imagine any application that
Source: LaValle et al. 2010.

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isn't revolving around the information it manages, that it serves, [and] that it
distributes to users." (Swoyer 2013)
However, information alone is not enough. Buytendijk (2010) suggests that companies
can increase the value of their information by sharing information with their customers,
“turning [their] customer base into a community” (Buytendijk 2010), enhancing the information
via interpretation, and by implementing a pricing model that is consistent with the immediacy
of the information.
Enterprise Data Growth
The 2014 digital universe report estimated that the volume of data throughout the
world would exceed 44 zettabytes (ZB) by 2020 (EMC 2014). That is equal to 44 trillion
gigabytes. To put that into perspective, if one gigabyte is equal in volume to an 11-ounce coffee
cup, a zettabyte would be equivalent to the entire Great Wall of China. To relate that to the
expected volume of data of 44 ZB, consider that “the most popular new smartphones today
have 32 Gigabytes (GB) or 32 x 230 bytes of capacity. To
get 1 ZB you would have to fill 34,359,738,368 (34.4

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billion) smartphones to capacity. If you put 34.4 billion Samsung S5’s end-to-end (length-wise)
you would circle the Earth 121.8 times” (Oulixeus 2014). While that number is comprised
primarily of content created by individuals, such as pictures, tweets, Facebook posts, and
watching TV, enterprises are responsible for approximately 85% of it (EMC 2014).
Along with the explosive growth of data, our capacity to store information has also
grown, at nearly the same exponential rate. In 1985, the typical disk drive was capable of
storing a mere 5 MB of data. Ten years later, capacities had increased by a factor of 60, to 120
MB. Over the next decade, that number rose to 40 GB, and today, capacities have grown to
more than 6 TB per disk (Hutchinson 2011). During that time, “the average cost per gigabyte fell
from $437,500 in 1980 to $0.05 in 2013” (McLellan 2014). Expectations are that these
capacities will
continue to increase as new technologies extend the life expectancy, and usefulness, of the
traditional hard disk drive. Adding to the proliferation of data within the enterprise is the
adoption of new, more affordable storage technologies such flash storage, optical disks, and
Definitions Estimations
Gigabyte: 1024
megabytes
4.7 Gigabytes: A singleDVD
Terabyte: 1024
gigabytes
1 Terabyte: About two years’worth of non-stop MP3s. (Assumes one megabyte per
minute of music)
10 Terabytes: The printed collection of the U.S. Library of Congress
Petabyte: 1024
terabytes
1 Petabyte: The amount of data stored on a stack of CDs about 2 miles high or 13
years of HD-TV video
20 Petabytes: The storage capacity of all hard disk drives created in 1995
Exabyte: 1024
petabytes
1 Exabyte: One billion gigabytes
5 Exabytes: All words ever spoken by mankind
Source: Data from Haggar 2011, table 1.

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cloud storage services. That many of the key industry leaders—such as Microsoft, Amazon, and
Google—back the growth of cloud technologies helps to hasten the adoption of those
technologies within the enterprise as well (McLellan 2014).
However, for enterprises, the problem extends beyond just sheer numbers – it also
entails the handling and management of the data. The 2011 IDC study noted that “less than 1/3
of . . . information . . . can be said to have at least minimal security or protection” (EMC 2011),
and that only one-half of the “information that should be protected is protected” (EMC 2011).
In light of several, high-profile corporate security breaches of late, the implication is that the
predicted increase in data volume over the coming decade will only exacerbate the problem.
Additionally, Mason suggests that organizations are obligated to protect the information they
process, and contends that the “ethical issues involved are many and varied” (1986). Even so,
he considers the following four items in particular as being worthy of special attention:
 Privacy: what information about one’s self or one’s associations must a person
reveal to others, under what conditions and with what safeguards? What things
can people keep to themselves and not be forced to reveal to others?
 Accuracy: who is responsible for the authenticity, fidelity and accuracy of
information? Similarly, who is to be held accountable for errors in information
and how is the injured party to be made whole?
 Property: who owns the information? What are the just and fair prices for its
exchange?
 Accessibility: what information does a person or an organization have a right or a
privilege to obtain, under what conditions and with what safeguards? (Mason et
al. 1986)
Though Mason posed those questions over twenty years ago, they are still relevant in
today’s digital universe. In the 2014 digital universe study, IDC identifies the Internet of Things
(IoT) as the fourth “major growth [area] for the digital universe in modern memory” (EMC
2014). Indeed, the advent of IoT—“the migration of analog functions monitoring and managing

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Source: Nikravan2011)
the physical world to digital functions involving communications and software telemetry” (EMC
2014)—will only increase the burden on organizations to store, analyze, and protect
information from a multitude of additional sources generated in various file formats and types.
The Issue with Too Much Information
“A majority of workers in every market — 62
percent on average — admitted that the quality
of their work suffers at times because they’re
unable to sort through the information they need
fast enough. Further, 52 percent of professionals
surveyed reported feeling demoralized when
unable to manage all the information that comes
their way at work” (Nikravan 2011). A survey of 1,700, white-collar workers from five
industrialized countries found the following:
1. A majority of those surveyed stated that the information handling demands of
their jobs had increased in recent years.
2. “Between one third and one half” of the information they processed was not
important to their jobs.
3. They lacked adequate resources to prioritize the information found via search
engines. (LexisNexis 2010)
One of the conundrums for knowledge workers today is the expectation of being informed.
Technology advancements provide us with a myriad of resources for staying abreast of new
information, while “we are simultaneously and compellingly confronted with the impossibility

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of ever being fully informed, . . . at the very moment when we are told that being informed is
more important than ever before to our livelihood, our security, and our social lives”
(Andrejevic 2013).
Another challenging factor is an observation regarding the amount of information an
individual can retain or process. In 1956, Princeton
Professor and psychologist George A. Miller
published an article in which he describes “some
limits on our capacity for processing information”
(Wikipedia 2014). Known as Miller’s Law, “it is
often interpreted to argue that the number of
objects an average human can hold in working
memory is 7 ± 2” (Wikipedia 2014). While some consider this pronouncement more of a rule of
thumb than a statement of scientific fact, what they do not dispute is that each person has a
limited capacity for processing information (BusinessDictionary.com, s.v. “Miller’s Law,”
http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/Miller-s-Law.html [accessed July 28, 2014]).
Dean and Webb (2011) contend that this is especially true for senior executives who
desperately require “uninterrupted time to synthesize information from many different
sources, reflect on its implications for the organization, apply judgment, make trade-offs, and
arrive at good decisions”. This surfeit of interruptions and distractions leads to increased
pressures, and a need to multitask, all of which are key factors that cause information overload
(Spira 2011b).
Source:JohnNosta, Forbes.com, June 13, 2013.

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Experiments conducted by Buser and Peter (2012) on multitasking found that
“multitasking significantly lowers performance as compared to a sequential execution”, and
that “the costs of switching [tasks], which include recalling the rules, details and steps executed
thus far, outweigh the benefit of a ‘fresh eye’” (652). A survey of the literature on multitasking
by Otto et al. asserts,
The research that has already been collected through experimentation was
found to have four main topics that were consistent through all the articles.
These include the capacity one has to effectively carry out tasks, multitasking can
both increase and decrease productivity, time management is more effective
than multitasking, and the higher one climbs in the management structure the
more tasks there are to complete, which leads to an increase in multitasking.
(Otto et al. 2012)
The above references exemplify the impact that information overload can have on
individuals, and on the organizations for which they work. Failure to assimilate all of the
information needed to function manifests within the organization in poor decisions, a lack of
innovation, missed opportunities, and errors, which can influence an organization’s bottom
line.
Analysis Approach and Results
The Analysis
Determining the impact of information overload on the organization requires that one
first understand what information overload really means, its symptoms, and the effect it has on
the individual. This is pertinent to the organization because anything that affects the well-being
and productivity of the individual will have a direct impact on the business. A survey of
academic and popular sources resulted in a wealth of discourse on all three topics, however
what was less evident were documented case studies detailing how effective information

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overload remedies were at mitigating the problem within the enterprise. One speculation for
this is that, even though the impact of information overload on the individual is well researched
and documented, the affect it has on the enterprise varies depending on a number of disparate
factors. Hence, the specific technique for alleviating the problem must remain unique to each
individual organization and situation. However, such techniques must be grounded in a set of
generalized options applicable to all organizations.
Becker proposes another possibility for the paucity of solutions for managing
information overload in the enterprise. One conclusion she drew from her research was that,
“while Information, computer and communication technology companies (IC3T) advertise we
are just one product away from nirvana; . . . [her] study shows some technology based
solutions have actually exacerbated the problem, driving us deeper into the information
overload abyss” (Becker 2009). In addition, she considers the problem from a systems theory
approach, and suggests that Russell Ackoff—an organization theorist and a pioneer in
management education—was correct in believing that “the key is not in finding the right
solution, [but rather] in uncovering the real problem” (Becker 2009). Nonetheless, this paper
presents a few examples of empirical data that provide some insight into the role that
management has in mitigating the impacts of information overload within the organization.
The Results
The Problem of Information Overload
Information overload—or more accurately, the inability to process all of the information
from an over-abundance of information sources—is not a new problem, but rather one that
dates back to Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press. Burke (2002) goes into detail about

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the problem, quoting Tennant’s description of the aftermath of Gutenberg’s invention, noting
how information would spread “in unprecedented amounts and at unprecedented speed”.
Edmunds and Morris (2000) describe how the invention of the telegraph and the telephone
changed the way business was conducted. Moreover, the Schumpeter Blog, in a 2011 issue of
The Economist, noted,
The Victorians fussed that the telegraph meant that “the businessman of the present
day must be continually on the jump.” And businesspeople have always had to deal with
constant pressure and interruptions—hence the word “business”. (Schumpeter 2011)
Numerous references exist about the problems that stem from having to cope with too
much information. The Schumpeter Blog further describes three main worries caused by
information overload “at a time when companies are trying to squeeze ever more out of their
workers” (Schumpeter 2011):
 Information overload can make people feel anxious and powerless.
 Overload can reduce creativity.
 Overload can make workers less productive (Schumpeter 2011).
In addition to the detriments that information overload can cause, the situation is even
more insidious because it does not manifest as a single problem. Spira states, “it must be seen
as an amalgam of multiple problems and issues”, which he outlined as email overload,
unnecessary interruptions, the need for instant gratification, and the perception that
everything is urgent (Spira 2011b).
Hemp (2009) reports, “Researchers say that the stress of not being able to process
information as fast as it arrives—combined with the personal and social expectation that, say,
you will answer every e-mail message—can deplete and demoralize you”. In addition, he
further notes that interruptions—such as responding to a new email or an instant message—

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took most workers an average of “24 minutes to return to the suspended task”, a situation Intel
researchers say cost that company $1 billion annually (Hemp 2009). Research by Spira supports
Hemp’s claims regarding the financial impact of information overload, and he presents these
additional statistics:
 A minimum of 28 billion hours is lost each year to information overload in the
U.S.
 Processing 100 emails can occupy more than half of a worker's day.
 58 percent of government workers spend half the workday filing, deleting or
sorting information, at an annual cost of almost $31 billion dollars.
 66 percent of knowledge workers feel they don't have enough time to get all of
their work done.
 94 percent of those surveyed at some point have felt overwhelmed by
information to the point of incapacitation. (Spira 2011a)
Eppler and Mengis (2004) surveyed the topic of information overload across the
disciplines of organization science, accounting, marketing, MIS, and consumer research with the
intent of identifying “similarities and differences among the various management perspectives
and show to what extent they have discussed information overload”. Their research did not find
much evidence of interdisciplinary work on the subject, and their conclusion was that such
collaborations would result in better coping solutions for both individuals and organizations.
Nonetheless, they determined that the primary causes of information overload resulted from
two main factors: “information processing capacity (IPC)—which is . . . influenced by personal
characteristics—and the information processing requirements (IPR)—which are often
determined by the nature of the task or process” (Eppler and Mengis 2004).
Dealing with Information Overload
Much of the existing literature on information overload contains suggestions for how to
cope with this ever-increasing problem. However, most of those suggestions offer corrective

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actions that pertain to the individual rather than the enterprise. One documented approach
suggests that one should
 decide what is most important for themselves;
 restrict oneself to a minimum set of resources that are effective;
 disconnect from information sources when feasible;
 allow oneself to delete information that is of no value;
 use time management principles to control one’s connectivity (Managing
Information Overload 2009).
From Savolainen’s perspective, there are two main strategies for coping with
information overload: filtering and withdrawal (2007). Savolainen described filtering as the
process of systematically weeding out useless information sources from those that have merit,
and withdrawal as a way to keep “the number of daily information sources at a minimum”
(Savolainen 2007). McCafferty suggests practicing “information triage” – that is, sort
information by importance rather than the medium, being explicit about how others should
best communicate with you, and by making sure that one’s own communications are short and
non-trivial (McCafferty 1998). Pijpers argues that the key to managing the influx of information
begins with self-evaluation—in knowing one’s own predilection for handling information
(Pijpers 2010). Eppler and Mengis, in their survey of the literature on information overload,
compiled a list of tools for dealing with the problem that “range from general suggestions
concerning attitude to very specific software tools (such as filtering agents, automatic
summarizers, or visualization algorithms)” (Eppler and Mengis 2004). Beath et al. (2012) places
the onus of resolution on senior management, and claimthat management must identify

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“sacred data”, understand the specific tasks required to process unstructured data, and
champion the implementation of data analysis functions to enhance business processes.
Case Studies
Intel
In 1995, Intel began an initiative to investigate the “impact that interruptions and
distractions [were] having on their bottom line” (Spira and Burke 2009). In their research, they
equate information overload with interruptions because the overabundance of information
from multiple sources—“e-mail, instant messages, text messages, Web pages, discussion
forums, RSS feeds, wikis, blogs, phone calls, letters, magazines, and newspapers” (3)—resulted
in interruptions that led to a loss of worker productivity.
Intel’s earliest efforts at managing information overload, initiated by IT staff member
Nathan Zeldes, revolved around managing email effectively (8). Began in Israel, the success of
the program led to the development of a corporate-wide program called YourTime that was
“comprised of three components; awareness training for e-mail etiquette; discussion sessions
within teams to improve communication and reduce overload; and . . . training for the efficient
use of e-mail software” (9). Recent initiatives by the company revolve around three pilot
programs:
 Quiet Time—“a weekly four-hour block of uninterrupted time with minimal
distractions”
 No E-mail Day (NED)—which mandated that groups would have one [day] in
which they were required to communicate without email
 E-mail Service Level Agreement—“a policy agreement that extended the
acceptable time frame for replying to e-mails to 24 hours, instead of the
ingrained expectation of an almost instantaneous response that required
constant monitoring in inboxes” (10-11)

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Spira and Burke reported that, though the early results were encouraging, survey results
ranging from “the feeling that such rules were unnecessary to the belief that they were
fundamentally flawed” could affect the long-term effectiveness of the experiment (28).
Morgan Stanley
Max Christoff, executive director of information technology at Morgan Stanley, is also
aware of the impact of information overload, and considers finding a solution a means to
gaining a competitive advantage (Spira and Goldes 2007). Taking a groundbreaking approach,
the company is attempting to measure the workload of knowledge workers (16), which some
(Drucker 1991; GSA 2011) have reported as being a difficult and not-well-understood task. One
example of this effort is a study Christoff conducted of five senior bankers to determine their
“mean time to reply to a client, associate, managing director”, or others (16). Another company
initiative used a team of developers to create a software tool to distinguish “urgent messages
from those that may be important but don’t require immediate attention” (Hemp 2009). At the
Information Overload Awareness Day conference in October 2010, Christoff spoke about the
ongoing programs at Morgan Stanley. Cody Burke, a Basex senior analyst, made this
observation on the conference blog regarding the success of those programs: “While some
workers were lukewarm to the automatic filtering system (they did not quite trust it to capture
all important messages), they liked the redesigned interface for managing alerts”
(http://www.basexblog.com
/2010/10/28/what-we-learnt/).

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Motorola
One novel approach to the problem of information overload investigated at Motorola
involved the use of social media. Tasked with determining “the amount of communication
overload Motorola was experiencing”, Lucic used online surveys and interview questions to
“gather insights about Motorola’s internal communication channels and their effectiveness
from the point of view of the employees” (Lucic 2010). Her findings were consistent with other
views, which she summarized as follows:
 On any given day, more than 30 percent of respondents had at least 30 unread
e-mails, while more than 40 percent of respondents spent more than half their
day on e-mail.
 25 percent of participants were aware of the internal proprietary social
networking tool (similar to Facebook), while only 9 percent of participants
indicated that they were familiar with the internal microblogging tool.
 Employees are open to using new technologies but need help to understand
them better.
 Some employees are satisfied with updates sent via mass distribution (e-mail) as
they appreciate the push, but there are those who find it too much to deal with
in addition to all other communications with which they must contend.
 More than 70 percent of participants strongly agreed that they would be able to
manage their communication overload if fellow colleagues followed sensible
rules for communicating (e.g., applying e-mail etiquette).
 To adopt social media tools as primary communication channels, the company
would need to encourage more self-service in terms of finding and pulling the
communication that employees need themselves.
 To make specific tools such as microblogging successful, leaders who use them
need to have an authentic voice. (Lucic 2010)
These results led Lucic to conclude that most Motorola employees were unfamiliar with many
of the social networking tools available, but they were not opposed to trying them. In
conclusion, Lucic believes that Motorola management needs to explicitly support the use of
social networking paradigms, foster more effective training programs to promote tool use
among a wider number of employees, and implement steps to “help reduce inbox clutter”

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(Lucic 2010). Spira (2011b) seems to support this approach, and posits that business-focused
social software could potentially eradicate some of email’s shortcomings through the linking of
“communications with relevant background material”.
The Government
Spira proclaims,
. . . the problem of information overload in government is distinct from the
problem in the private sector in two ways, namely the cost (which is footed by
the taxpayer) and the potential for Information Overload to adversely impact
military, counterterrorism, and law enforcement operations, which in turn can
result in the loss of life and the erosion of national security. (2011b)
Canton ( 2014) reports, in Emergency Management, that large amounts of data, while having
“improved government’s situational awareness, . . . has paradoxically created a situation where
there is so much information available that a clear picture of a crisis can sometimes be difficult
to obtain”. In InformationWeek, Thomas Claburn comments on the information overload
challenges facing the U.S. military based on a report written by JASON, a defense advisory
panel. He reports on how the “massive amount of sensor and imagery data being gathered” is
putting a heavy burden on defense systems to store and analyze that data (Claburn 2009).
Further, he quotes Pete Rustan, an MIT defense research scientist and member of the JASON
panel, who claims in that report that “seventy percent of the data we collect is falling on the
floor” (Claburn 2009).
Art Kramer, from the Beckman Institute, made this comment in a New York Times
article: “There is information overload at every level of the military – from the general to the
soldier on the ground” (Shanker and Richtel 2011). In the article, Shanker and Richtel report on
an incident that occurred in Afghanistan in February 2010. The report documents an event in

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which 23 Afghan civilians died as a result of a Predator drone operator who “had failed to pass
along crucial information about the makeup of a gathering crowed of villagers” (Shanker and
Richtel 2011). The authors blamed this horrendous incident on information overload, and
wrote,
“Information overload — an accurate description,” said one senior military
officer, who was briefed on the inquiry and spoke on the condition of anonymity
because the case might yet result in a court martial. The deaths would have been
prevented, he said, “if we had just slowed things down and thought
deliberately.” (Shanker and Richtel 2011)
Spira expounds further on the seriousness of information overload in government
agencies. He attributes such incidents to the reality that many government agencies must
“compete for resources, mindshare, and prestige” which leads to “poor information and
knowledge sharing” (2011b). Interagency knowledge sharing is “hamstrung by outdated and
somewhat nonsensical classification systems, incompatible tools, and a culture that promotes
extreme siloing of information” (Spira 2001b) which, coupled with the increase in the “sheer
volume of content” (Spira 2001b), aggravates the problem. Spira goes on to give several other
disturbing examples of how information overload—or the failure to process the information at-
hand properly—could have led to other cases involving the loss of life, and concludes that
“quantity does not trump quality” (Spira 2011b).
Healthcare
One industry in which information overload is more treacherous than others is
healthcare. Thomas and Rosenman (2006) point out how “physicians have struggled with the
management of patient data for a long time, [which] intensifies as we attempt to juggle
increasingly large and complicated volumes of information during a 24-hour day”. The reason

24. Reese-21
why this has become such a troubling issue for healthcare providers is because the “ability to
gather information [has become] more sophisticated” (Thomas and Rosenman 2006), as has
the quantity and quality of the data that clinicians have to ingest. According to Zeldes and Baum
(2011), “most practices are inundated with an excess of information” which “results in
distractions and a loss of productivity”. Their assessment is that the leading causes of
information overload in healthcare are consistent with similar views found in business, but
contend that the situation is aggravated “by the arrival of professional literature that needs to
be read and digested” (Zeldes and Baum 2011). To illustrate the severity of the problem for
physicians, Zeldes and Baum cite the following statistics from The Checklist Manifesto: How to
Get Things Right by Atul Gawande:
 The total number of medical informatics MeSH-indexed publications in 2003
(8859) was more than twice that of 1994 (3768).
 The number of unique journals represented among those publishing 25 or more
articles totaled 44 in 2003 as opposed to 26 in 1994.
 There are almost 700,000 medical journal articles per year that clinicians have to
contend with. (Zeldes and Baum 2011)
Hinman (1996), reporting for CNN, paraphrases Dr. John Kostis, from the Robert Wood Johnson
University Hospital: “Many patients aren’t receiving the care they should be”. Hinman also
makes note of the work performed by Dr. Clifton Lacy, also of the Robert Wood Johnson
University Hospital: “Some doctors are missing the latest medical news [causing them to]
respond too slowly—if at all—to new research developments” (Hinman 1996). More recently,
Dowling exclaimed,
While sophisticated electronic health record capabilities hold great promise for
improving patient care, it is becoming increasingly clear that our ability to collect
data is far surpassing our ability to absorb and understand it. In the not-too-
distant future, health care organizations may be drowning in the seemingly

25. Reese-22
endless volume of data that will give them the capacity to deliver the highest
level of care to patients. (Dowling 2014)
Dowling further contends, “the marvels of medical technology that promise to enrich the
quality of our lives even further cannot take precedence over the human interactions between
patients and caregivers” (2014). This is a sentiment echoed by Dr. Jesse Hoey, an AI expert and
researcher in health analytics, when speaking about IBM’s supercomputer Watson. Hoey is
quoted in CMAJ saying, “Doctors are not just data-processing machines, they’re humans that
talk to other humans and they operate on gut feeling some of the time. . . . The way people
want to be cared for in hospital, their sort of emotional needs, is incredibly important and I
don’t think Watson’s [sic] able to do that” (Miller 2013).
Discussion and Recommendations
Discussion
Pick any point in human history since the advent of communication, and one will likely
find evidence of information overload. Seminal inventions have intensified the problem, and
the more capable technological developments of recent years have made it more prevalent
within the masses. The explosive rate at which the volume of data is increasing raises questions
about what, if anything, people, organizations, and governments can do to mitigate the
problem. Left to their own devices, people will do what they have always done – learn to cope.
However, given the importance of information to the success of the business, can the
enterprise merely rely on the habits of individuals, be they knowledge workers or senior
managers, to handle critical information in ways that are both ethical, and supportive of
organizational strategies? What strategies should organizations consider, and what are the key
initiatives available to the enterprise that will offer the best chance of success? From their

26. Reese-23
research, Edmunds and Morris conclude, “it is unlikely that one perfect answer can be found to
reduce or eradicate the problem of information overload” (2000), thereby increasing the scope
of the problem. Nonetheless, organizations that fail to take a proactive approach to information
management are playing Russian roulette with their futures.
Therefore, it
behooves an organization to
consider a multi-faceted
solution that addresses the
various aspects of
information overload by
encapsulating those
remedies, policies, and
procedures into a data
governance plan. Studies
have shown that a
comprehensive information management systemcan:
 improve operational efficiency
 enable corporate performance management
 maintain IT cost control and increased revenues
 improve customer satisfaction (Bhatt and Thirunavukkarasu 2010)
According to Bhansali, “effective data governance . . . facilitate[s] high-quality data” which
“improves data safety and security, improves data quality, and ensures compliance with data-
focused regulations [while helping] an organization manage and use its data effectively”
(Bhansali 2013). Zhang further supports this idea, and states “When enterprise information is
Causes of informationoverload
Source: T.D. Wilson, HealthInformatics Journal, June 1, 2001

27. Reese-24
complete, accurate, and accessible, it can empower users to make better decisions, drive
operational excellence, ensure regulatory compliance, and minimize IT costs” (Bhansali 2013,
71).
One important element in an organization’s data governance plan is determining what
information is most critical to the business. Sewell and Alhaji propose considering the following
factors when determining what information to capture:
 the type of information required;
 the quality of that information;
 the quantity of information;
 the time involved in collecting, storing, retrieving and disseminating the
information;
 the accuracy of information;
 the cost of collecting, storing, retrieving and disseminating the information.
(Sewell and Alhaji 1989)
Additionally, the organization’s data governance program should
 “be able to demonstrate business value” (Smallwood 2014);
 ensure that the data is the responsibility of, and owned by, the various business
units, not IT;
 be managed differently from other business assets based upon “its unique
qualities” (Smallwood 2014);
 focus on future data to avoid spending cycles on old data that exhibits “bad
behavior, mismanagement, and [a] lack of governance” (Smallwood 2014);
 incorporate a program to ensure employees have adequate training on the
implementation and benefit of the data governance program (Smallwood 2014).

28. Reese-25
In laying out the above guidelines, Smallwood first describes the relationship between data
governance and information governance (IG) as, “a newer, hybrid quality control discipline that
includes elements of data quality, data management, IG policy development, business process
improvement, and compliance and risk management” (Smallwood 2014). As this explanation
implies, data governance is not a simple undertaking. Nor is it something that can be “knocked
out” in a couple of days. However, the value it affords the organization is widely discussed by
academic and popular media sources, and as such, demands that management view it with the
level of importance it requires.
On the other hand, governance alone may not be sufficient. Peter Drucker, in 1946,
wrote, “The great challenge to management today is to make productive the tremendous new
resource, the knowledge worker. This, rather than the productivity of the manual worker, is the
key to economic growth and economic performance in today’s society” (Drucker 1993). That
premise is as true today as it was then. Today, information processing is the cornerstone of
many organizations, and according to Mason (1986), we live in an information society in which
“more people are employed in collecting, handling and distributing information than in any
other occupation”. Further, given the importance of information to business success, the rapid
growth of the volume of information and the increased debilitating effects of information
overload on the knowledge worker, the need for action by the enterprise is becoming ever
more critical.
Hemp suggests that the solution to information overload will require a combination of
technology and a change in corporate behavior. He states that the solution for enterprises
begins with education, supported by the establishment of “organizational norms for electronic

29. Reese-26
communication, either explicit or implicit” (2009). He adds the following suggestions for how
organizations can accomplish this:
 Set aside uninterrupted work periods such as a weekly “e-mail—free morning[s]”
(Hemp 2009).
 Specify what types of information employees should not share via email as a way
to “speed [up] decision making” (Hemp 2009).
 Having IT shutdown email services after a specific time.
 Disabling the ‘Reply All’ function.
Symantec offers some additional suggestions for managing the information explosion:
 Give security practices high visibility – Reinforcing company security policies
around mobile devices.
 Prepare infrastructure – Implementing solutions that are able to de-duplicate
and archive appropriately, automate processes and monitor and report on
system status across a number of different platforms is critical.
 Understand business users – When and how employees are accessing their
information will dictate how data is both indexed and categorised.
 Prepare staff – Streamlined IT policies that educate people on company
policies will ensure that they can take charge of information control and
maintain productivity and efficiency.
 Encourage staff to switch off as well as on – Although it’s possible to be
always-on, the pressure to maintain this can be damaging. It’s vital for
employee welfare that they have some downtime in order to avoid overload.
(SC Magazine 2012)
Recommendations
From the abundance of information on the topic, information overload—by any of the
various names by which it is known—is a real problem in today’s society. If the predictions by
IDC regarding the rapid growth of information today, and over the next decade, are true, the
problem will continue to worsen. Granted, this issue is not new, and has existed (most likely)
since the evolution of modern man. Even so, the world lives on. However, like most things in

30. Reese-27
Nature, there are limits. To assume that this situation can continue in this way ad infinitum
seems foolish in the extreme.
Moreover, individuals—and the corporate entities that emulate them in many ways—
will continue to gather every modicum of data available in the unending search for knowledge.
For businesses, that search is intended to provide a strategic, and competitive, advantage over
competitors, and to maximize profits. For that to continue as the wealth of information grows,
and the pace of business quickens, enterprises must be proactive in creating an environment
built to maximize the value of that information for themselves and their customers. Therefore,
organizations must consider developing a data governance model that defines policies and
procedures for data and information management that addresses the various ways in which
information overload can occur.
Edmunds and Moore suggest that additional research is required “to determine the
extent of information overload currently being experienced and what strategies are being
used” (Edmunds and Moore 2000). To that end, the Information Overload Research Group
(IORG)—a non-profit organization founded in 2007 by Microsoft, Intel, Google, and IBM—seeks
to examine the flood of data regarding information overload, and search for methods of dealing
with it. Their mission is to “bring together research, solutions, and people to help reduce the
impact of information overload” (IORG 2014). Their website contains research resources and a
blog, and each year they host a conference to bring together industry leaders, and interested
parties, to discuss the problem, and potential solutions. Ideally, future research into the
syndrome of information overload will encapsulate the data gathered in multiple disciplines so
that the outcomes will be broad reaching and comprehensive. In addition, the analysis must

31. Reese-28
evaluate viable solutions not just for individuals, as the complex nature of the problem
demands an extensive, more consistently measurable solution that offers remedies on a
corporate scale.
Data governance, while not a panacea has proven to be effective, and most
organizations, regardless of size, would benefit from such a plan. Tallon (2013) provided a
succinct summarization of this premise when he stated “finding data governance practices that
maintain a balance between value creation and risk exposure is the new organizational
imperative for unlocking competitive advantage and maximizing value”.

32. Reese-29
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