Those of us in information technology face a daunting challenge daily: What to read? It's not as though there isn't a lot of stuff to read. In fact, it's the opposite. There's too much stuff to read--too much duplication, too much hype, too much vapor. Perhaps the question should be rephrased: What to ignore?
I find the best way to manage information overload is to ignore irrelevant, ill-timed, or over-hyped stories. By getting rid of the chaff, only kernels of truth will be left--in theory, at least. In practice, it is still very hard to develop any confidence in this method. I often wonder what I'm missing by winnowing out info-overload. And I know I miss a lot with this method, but I preserve my sanity (I hope) in the process.
Well, this year, several of my usual sources blew the chaff away for me. Many high-profile computer trade pubs changed their focus to the business audience: PC Computing became Smart Business; PC Week became eWeek, with the tag line "Building the dot-com enterprise"; InfoWorld tightened its focus on the CIO; and ComputerWorld suddenly began writing for a neophyte business audience.
Perhaps the rush to business content was driven by the success of Business 2.0--which I hailed in this space last December as my primary source for e-business information--or the Industry Standard, another stalwart of new-economy principles. Perhaps it was fueled by the mainstream business press, notably Business Week, which devotes a growing proportion of its editorial pages to technology. But whatever the cause, the effect is clear: Never before has there been such market saturation in the business press.
And this market saturation means business folks suffer from information overload even more than IT people. The difference is, business people tend to make more decisions, which take more time to consider, leaving less time for research. I suspect that most business people use some form of the crude winnowing method that I described above. The result is that much of the computer press has abandoned its primary audience in favor of often being ignored by its new target audience.
While we've always had the word "business" in our tag line and we have developed more business-related content this past year, I have purposefully avoided the stampede toward a business focus and away from a technology focus. What we do is similar to what the above competitors built their brands on: We focus on technology in a way that both business and IT people can relate to.
We strive to make our stuff accessible to those business leaders who have the time to research their IT decisions before pulling the trigger. But if business people are too busy making decisions to read our stuff, they will ask IT people for advice related to their IT budgets. And we need to have content that does not patronize IT people with platitudes.
In some cases, you can't serve both audiences. This means some of our features will be more technical than the business audience can comfortably ingest. But we don't back down from these topics simply to cater to the business audience. Smart business leaders know that IT doesn't always come in a neat package, and they accept that they won't be able to sort out the chaos without help from their IT staffs. By serving their staffs directly, we serve them indirectly.
We also realize that business and IT people have lives: families, homes, hobbies, etc. Given their information overload on the business and technology sides, they often welcome our features on computing in schools, homes, and even cars. They also welcome our range of editorials, which put the industry in perspective and remind them that we don't take ourselves too seriously.
In short, my philosophy on serving the business audience is to not overload them with information they already get from the business press. After all, smart business is not as complex as IT, despite what all those new-economy pioneers claim. It's about hiring and retaining good people; it's about developing and maintaining healthy relationships with customers; it's about managing costs and investing wisely. Sooner or later, you run out of insightful things to say about what most smart business people know in their hearts and feel in their guts. When I picture them reading business-related stuff in a technology publication, I imagine them saying to themselves, "Tell me something I don't already know."
Despite the rush to re-brand into business publications, there was still a lot of very good technology writing in the press this year. One story in particular stands out as a piece of brilliant journalism: "The Truth, the Whole Truth and Nothing But the Truth," Wired's cover story for November. John Heilemann crafted a story I simply couldn't put down. Full of excellent interviews with all the key players in the U.S. v. Microsoft case, this article is a perfect example of a technology story that has mass appeal. In recognition of this outstanding piece, I'm creating a special annual award that I would like to bestow on the best piece of technology journalism each year. And in honor of the first recipient, I will call it the John Heilemann Award for Outstanding Technology Journalism. Great job, John.
James Mathewson is editorial director of ComputerUser.com.
