The Impact of Web 2.0 on Reading
As a baby-boomer, I struggle trying to get into all the collaboration choices I have at my disposal. My company has a world-class portal that posts more material than one person could possibly read in a day. And most of it looks interesting or important. There are so many smart people blogging that I’d like to stay up with, I could spend my whole day doing that as well. There are also several books on my reading list I haven’t finished yet. Sometimes, it is overwhelming – especially since my aging eyes don’t focus like they used to. My baby-boomer buddies frequently confirm that I am not alone in this information-overload battle.
I’m still so early in this paradigm sift that it seems silly to post my theories on the subject, but I’ll list them anyway just to elicit a debate if for no other reason.
First, I think the skill of filtering is key in this new world. I got to learn how to let technology filter what I read. I also need to let go of the notion that I have to read it all. The power of a network of smart people is if I read something from one of them, they were likely influenced by many other smart people. Related to filtering is the art of scanning, something I’m really bad at. Vaughan Merlyn for example can get more out of a quick scan than most people can from a deep-dive read. I’ll never be as good at scanning, but I do think I can dramatically improve (and I must).
Second, I tend to think that the proportion of time I spend reading is going to go up – and it should! I want to be clear on this point. I don’t mean I wasn’t reading enough before. In fact, I probably read much more than the average person in my field. I also don’t mean that I should eat into any more of my personal time. I mean that out of the total number of hours I devote to my profession, I think the hours of reading and thinking about what I read should increase. How much, I don’t know yet. But there is a good analogy to consider: For decades, software development experts have encouraged that more time be devoted up front in a development cycle. A design error caught during programming is much more expensive to resolve than if the design had just been given more thought up front. The good carpenter slogan is, “measure twice, cut once”. It all comes to the same thing – think first to the best of your ability and then act. I believe the growing forms of collaboration can allow each of us to think better and act with more confidence after we learn the collaboration tricks. But I think there will be a shift in the proportion of time spent between reading and thinking versus acting. Figuring out the right proportion is the million dollar question!