One of my colleagues spoke recently about the long tail of
information. How capabilities around self-service and the general ability to tap
into data sources and content on-demand, that was hitherto notoriously inaccessible,
is driving enterprise and business agility.
Believe me, this is a good thing. I’ve always been a
proponent of methodical research and careful examination of the results before decision
making. Knowledge, we’ve been told is power. The trouble is we sometimes obsess
over information – reducing the clarity of the thought process and in the
process considerably degrading the quality of the decision. So in my case what could’ve
been a simple act of popping over to Curry’s to buy a new router, turned into a
quest around models (router models, that is), adsl vs cable+modem, power
consumption, historic price, gigabit connectivity, wireless attenuation,
moddability, and of course yet-to-be-released models. The result of all this is
that although I may qualify to work at my local Curry’s showroom, my internet
connection still drops every few days. I digress.
Uncertainty is a way of life. We are always on that pursuit
to reduce ambiguity and uncertainty. Sometime information can help reduce the
uncertainty and help guide the decision. All the information I’ve researched
for my router, has given me insight – but whether it influences my choice is
another.
As everyday decision makers we chase after information to
help us resolve uncertainty. What we need to ask ourselves is, just because we
now have a long tail of information, does it mean we need to pursue all that
information? How do we understand what is relevant, at the same time differentiate
what is interesting, but may bear no influence on our decision making?
