3/19/2007

Informal learning vs. Information overload

It is amazing to me how many people don't actually know about blogs. I mention blogging and their eyes glaze over. Then you mention podcasts, wikis, my space etc and they are ready to run. I keep wondering whether this sentiment is shared by many of the corporate folks out there. Is informal learning a reality when people have day to day tasks to deal with? Will your general business user really take the time to look at blog postings to solve a problem?

I think the answer is yes and no. It depends on the type of person and the type of job/task. It also goes further than that though. I think that with sooooooooo much content being available, it is paramount that content be organized in a way that people can get to it in an easy way. This kind of goes contrary to blogs that are supposed to be free flowing/ informal thought sharing arenas. Considering the number of blogs out there, are we going to get to a point of information overload? Most blogs cover a myriad of different topics so how do you filter through all the white noise to get to the info you need?

Search engines are getting smarter and all the search engine optimization (SEO) literature is telling web builders/designer/content contributors that blogs are the best way to go. If you want your site ranked on the top search engine you better write content and you better write often. So does this mean more is better? Do we leave the content aggregation to search engines? Where does this leave your corporate user looking for info? Are we going to get to the point of information overload or are we there already?

What are your thoughts?

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