Is Silicon Valley ready to tame the information monster it helps create with blogs, IM, and email? Information overload is costing the U.S. economy an estimated $650 billion per year in lost productivity, and $1 billion in innovation, according to Jonathan Spira, CEO and Chief Analyst, Basex, Inc. Spira will share his research and recommendations for knowledge workers, management -- and entrepreneurs looking to address information overload -- during a Churchill Club panel discussion on Wednesday evening, March 26 in Palo Alto, Calif. $15 discount for Friends of Tekrati.

According to the Churchill Club, Silicon Valley and its denizens are trying to combat a problem of their own making: information overload. The very tools intended to spur collaboration and productivity -- email, IM, blogs, wikis, mobility, collaboration, new content locations and delivery channels -- are undermining it. Some companies have started to fight back. Intel and US Cellular have launched "no email Fridays." Some managers at Genentech urge employees to check email only twice a day. Plus, new services and products are rolling out to help people manage and mute the cacophony and onslaught of information.

Joining Spira on this Churchill Club panel, entitled "Silicon Valley Fights Back Against the (Information) Monster it Created", are:

• John Poisson, CEO, Tiny Pictures
• Ellen Siminoff, Chairman, Efficient Frontier
• Tony Wright, CEO, RescueTime
• Moderator: Matt Richtel, Correspondent, New York Times

The panel will address several questions, including:

• What do we mean when we say "information overload"?
• Why is information overload a problem? How can we measure the impact?
• What do we need to understand about Information overload and knowledge worker behavior?
• Is your company really ready for the knowledge economy?
• What can workers and managers do about information overload, now and in the future?
• Can you capitalize, build, or enhance your business around helping others to regain productivity?

In addition to the panel discussion, Jonathan Spira will make two Basex reports available to attendees. The first report, "Information Overload: We Have Met the Enemy and He Is Us" (December 19, 2007), finds that as much as e-mail, instant messages, blogs and similar technologies have helped knowledge workers better collaborate, interruptions and duplications derived from these forms of digital communication and content are overwhelming workers to the point of distraction. The report estimates that interruptions from phone calls, e-mails and instant messages eat up 28% of a knowledge worker's work day, resulting in 28 billion hours of lost productivity a year. Beyond the interruptions and competitive pressure, the different modes of collaboration have created more locations through which people can store data. This makes it harder for users to find information, prompting users to "reinvent the wheel because information cannot be found," Basex said.

Basex will also make available an earlier study, "The Cost of Not Paying Attention: How Interruptions impact Knowledge Worker Productivity."

Register, Discount, More

The Churchill Club panel, entitled "Silicon Valley Fights Back Against the (Information) Monster it Created", takes place Wednesday, March 26. Registration opens at 6:00 p.m. The dinner buffet opens at 6:30 p.m., and the program begins at 7:00 p.m. The event will be held at the Crowne Plaza Cabana Hotel, 4290 El Camino Real, Palo Alto, CA, 94306.

Discount for Friends of Tekrati: For $15 off the general (non-member) rate, use promo code gtekrati08 when registering.

Tekrati is pleased to support the Churchill Club by bringing events of interest to the attention of Tekrati readers.

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