The crushing burden of information seeking and overload has just been reconfirmed and quantified (validating previous industry studies such as IDC's "The High Cost of Not Finding Information") by LexisNexis in its 2008 Workplace Productivity study (http://www.lexisnexis.com/literature/pdfs/LexisNexis_Workplace_Productivity_Survey_2_20_08.pdf and http://www.lexisnexis.com/media/press-release.aspx?id=1041.asp). I quote from the press release:
• Sixty-two percent of professionals report that they spend a lot of time sifting through irrelevant information to find what they need; 68 percent wish they could spend less time organizing information and more time using the information that comes their way;
• Workers admit that not being able to lay their hands on the right information at the right time impedes their ability to work efficiently; 85% agree that not being able to access the right information at the right time is a huge time-waster;
• More than 40 percent of the survey participants indicate an inability to handle future increases in information flow;
• While an average workday for white collar workers is 8.89 hours, the survey finds that on average, 7.89 working hours are used conducting research, attending meetings, and searching for previously created documents, and;
• White collar professionals spend an average of 2.3 hours daily conducting online research, with one in ten spending four hours or more on an average day.
It is no wonder knowledge workers are stressed if 89% of their time is spent hunting for information or being in meetings (another form of information work). Assistance in managing the flow of information - to free up time so they can apply their expertise in pursuit of the organization's goals - is required ... but how? Is the solution to be found in technology?
Information professionals offer to help establish a REASONABLE flow of RELEVANT information, using their tricks of the trade. With every reduction in the typical knowledge worker's time spent in unproductive information seeking, they contribute value. Managing knowledge worker information supply is a daunting challenge - get information professionals on it.
