There’s an interesting article on the BBC website about the way we think and remember information: http://tinyurl.com/6xyya3k . It seems that we’re changing and knowing how to find information is now more important to some of us than actually remembering facts. As levels of information multiply and technology makes it easier to find then maybe it’s logical that our behaviours should adapt. What is astonishing is how quickly this seems to be manifesting itself. It may well be a generational thing. If so, then reliance on technological methods of finding information will become more prevalent.
Nearer to home, this feels sensible. More and more we find that if we don’t know something we can hop onto a pc, tablet or mobile device and within seconds that elusive fact is there at our fingertips thanks to Google. It’s astonishingly liberating. Does this make one an expert? Of course not, but it certainly enables the curious mind. Taking the same principles, as data and documents expand at a seemingly exponential rate then document and content management tools become ever more important to the way we work. If we can lay our hands on information almost at a whim outside the work environment then surely we should expect the same capability for our business needs and behaviours. In fact, maybe even more so as deadlines and time pressures grow increasingly acute. Add in a bit of competitive pressure then access to all your information whenever you need it begins to seem like a necessity not an optional extra. Information trapped in paper documents, files, folders, emails, Word docs and pdfs shouldn’t be a barrier to future success, especially if we’re increasingly wired to work by reference rather than memory.
