Too much Information: good or bad?

In my last post I covered the new phenomenon called Information overload.
As we know the problem today is not, that there is no information, but that there is too much information. As the situation is getting worse each day, serious questions about problem-solving and decision making are being asked.
Many bad decisions are made as a result of poor information. Decision making and problem-solving are in fact twin brothers. Decision-making can be described as a process of choosing a suitable solution to a problem from amongst a number of different solutions to a problem.
The more detailed analysis of the pros and cons of each of the aforesaid solutions is being made to get the better the decision. And one of the factors to be addressed in the decision-making process is getting right information to support these pros and cons at the right time.

But how can we reach it?

Brian H. Ross, William J. Ryan, and Patricia L. Tenpenny of the
University of Illinois addressed the issue recently:
”As the emphasis in problemsolving research has shifted to the knowledge required
to solve problems, increasing attention has been focused on questions about the access and use of such knowledge”.

Claremont Colleges library even put a very short guide to the process of getting relevant information on your subject. It includes Determining the Kinds of Information You Need and Choosing Appropriate Information Sources.

It’s interesting though, that even if you use a very organized approach to your information resources’ choice, you’ll definitely need to use a combination of different sources and your research process will take time, efforts and most likely some money.

So at this point we can agree, that the range of available information is (sometimes) too large and time consuming to find and check and delays decision making. And in this perspective it is bad.
The existing information sources are not always organized for helping you find relevant information (like news portals); but if they are, they usually charge their users – this trend is strengthening; and what’s more – they lack objectivity. Give it a thought: any piece of information can be shown in different perspectives. (A student gets a bad grade – it can be displayed as his lack of knowledge, the teacher’s lack of necessary teaching skills, etc.)
Mostly there also exists the lack of necessary capacity to analyze various pieces of information.

Not quite inspiring, is it?
Unless there is someone that does the work for you: online and for free. (What a relief :-))

In this respect I recently came over an interesting resource, that aggregates, analyzes and displays relevant and accurate information online or ad-hoc for free. It’s a United Nations – “InfoShare project”. It gives commodity producers access to the information they need to negotiate better prices and get their produce into higher-paying markets. InfoShare is partly a communal service and partly restricted to partners who have agreed to participate.

There is an initiative in the UK, named iKnow that puts together examples of training materials which will help you save time in finding, using, and organizing information at work. These can be really helpful.
You can watch it here:

I have to say that these guys are really doing a great job! It’s a pity though that these kind of projects are not common, it would help me a lot. And I think I’m not alone in my secret desire, am I?

So where do you guys use to go in order to get affordable, accurate, relevant and timely information?
Keep me posted!



Some aspects of the market opportunity evaluation of the new tech idea

Most of the entrepreneurs prefer to get opportunity evaluation of their idea before they start investing their time, money and good will in its development.  Most of them believe that their idea is the best and unbeatable, so the process of evaluation is only to strengthen their belief.

But unfortunately, professional evaluation may have more than one “happy ending” result.

To be prepared to the process, have a look at this article: http://www.venturechoice.com/articles/opportunity_evaluation.htm 

If the evaluator rejects the idea/concept, it can have different outcomes.

1. The first and the most predictable one is that the entrepreneur will leave the idea and pass to another one. This way the entrepreneur loses the idea and the world loses the opportunity to see a new technological product or service.

The entrepreneur may even take this failure very personally and consider himself a loser. This outcome is not new, and the most difficult part in it is that the entrepreneur should prepare himself to accept the verdict and the outcomes. Each entrepreneur falls in love with his idea and as a person who is in love with someone/thing he may not see the flaws in his idea. If he decides to evaluate his idea he has to bear in mind that it is the idea and not he personally is surpassing the process. In the end, there are so many other ideas that one can think of!

 2. Another entrepreneur can try to fix the idea by slightly, but constantly changing it. The process of the improvement can continue until the idea proves to be executable, accomplishable, feasible and practicable. This entrepreneur will lose some time and energy, but will gain the proven concept.

Cooper’s Stage-Gate process (Cleveland 2005) points out two major stages of idea evaluation. The first one is called Opportunity Identification. It is the original screening of the idea at the stage when the Idea is generated. The second one is called Opportunity Investigation. It provides the second screening of the idea  in between the stages of Preliminary Investigation of the Idea and its Detailed Investigation.

What one can easily learn from Cooper’s process is that the idea is nor something static. 

The site  http://www.prod-dev.com/stage-gate.php  provides statistics in the field of New Product Development. It states, that “an estimated 46% of the resources that companies devote to the conception, development and launch of new products go to projects that do not succeed – they fail in the marketplace or never make it to market”.

And if one wants to make his idea to see the world in its best form, one will have to elaborate it, widen it, bring more and more context into it, continuously estimate its market opportunity and only then carry it out and continue to evaluate and adjust it till it reaches the market.

Here is my TIP:

If you are undergoing the process of evaluation of your idea,

1. Try to look at your idea as a professional, not as the owner. Bring as much knowledge in the field of your invention as possible to have a real good value evaluation.

2. If the evaluation fails, don’t take it personally. Choose to leave the idea or elaborate it.

3. If you choose to leave the idea, make the decision consciously and not out of fear and despair.

4. If you choose to elaborate the idea, prepare yourself to an endless way of idea/concept incarnations. Sometimes you’ll be surprised to learn, that the product that reaches the market is quite different from your original idea. The only thing that matters, is  that it is yours and you made it!