The Information Tsunami

Sometimes it is hard to realize just how far we have come in such a short period of time. There is an urban legend that the former commissioner for the U.S. Patent Office recommended in 1899 that the Patent Office be closed down because everything that could be invented had already been invented. We consider ourselves to be modern and sophisticated because of the gadgets we use and the technology we know, but in a way that is just as shortsighted as the 112 year old idea that we brush aside. We see this in business when it takes extraordinary effort to justify the expense of improving technology. As human resources professionals, we become complacent in our technology comfort zone of today and can easily overlook that we are losing ground in our race to be on top of the competition. Who among us will have the foresight to raise awareness, foster innovation and celebrate creativity?

One of my favorite books, an oldie today, is Odyssey: Pepsi to Apple by John Sculley, former CEO of Apple (written by Sculley and John A. Byrne in August, 1987, published by HarperCollins). When he was at Pepsi, Sculley was the marketing genius behind the “Pepsi Challenge” that moved his company into a close race with Coca Cola in the soft drink wars. Steve Jobs lured him to Apple by asking him, “Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water or do you want a chance to change the world?” In the years that followed, he took Apple from an $800 million company to an $8 billion company. (His ten year tenure also included firing the man who hired him.) Although the book is a fascinating account of a time of turmoil in a growing company and a personal account of political infighting, in the final chapter and subsequent interviews he gave us his vision of the future of computers, technology and information. He suggested that everybody would carry a “personal data assistant” device which sounds pretty much like smart phones today. He was the first to say that the technology now called CD’s and DVD’s would happen. And he predicted a time that we could find just about any information we needed online. Today he could be called the Nostradamus of his day.

Information abundance is not always a good thing. We can look up how to repair a car or build a bomb with the same amount of ease. As several people are learning the hard way, the dark side of easy access to data can be dangerous when their personal information is compromised. Once something is put on the internet it is pretty much there forever. Laws, rules and procedures about using online information can warn of restrictions on using personal data, but I am also able to look up the cases where people have lost jobs over some stupid mistake. Laws forbidding the use of personal online data as a criteria for hiring are cropping up all over the place, but there are also laws against discrimination by race, gender or age and that does not appear to be working all that well either. Security of information is big business.

In addition to the bad aspects of an omniscient internet, there is also so much positive information that it is hard to keep up. Scientific journals make access to research almost universal. In fact, before any experiments take place in the lab the research team usually begins with a data search for information. In HR and Recruiting, best practices can be gleaned from articles and blogs by key opinion leaders and legal advisors. Such information is global in scope and scalable to almost any situation. The term “reinventing the wheel” has come to be a derogatory term applied to those who ignore previous work. “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” (George Santayana). The past is only a few clicks away now so we have no excuse for not being knowledgeable.

A third and distressing aspect to the modern glut of information is that it is often inconsistent, conflicting and confusing. We live in a “wiki” generation where the truth can be modified by the next person who speaks or writes about a topic. When all sides are heard, there still is not a clear answer. Politics has taken advantage of appealing to the masses by pouring information, right or wrong, in the form of likeable sound bites to gather popularity. An obviously insidious but effective tactic is to repeat a lie so many times that it becomes believable. In our roles in HR as counselors and consultants to the people who manage the business, it is our job to measure our responses so that our expertise fits the current situation. If we are not a value-added member of the team, someone can just Google any answer that fits and we are gone.

When I reincarnated my blog I made a commitment to show up regularly and to always provide value. Part of the deal for any blogger is that you give credit for sources when you can remember them. Being a rabid reader and voracious consumer of professional blogs, I sometimes have to research deeply just to make sure I have not plagiarized one of my esteemed colleagues…or even the not-so-esteemed ones. My opinions are always my own beliefs and hopefully there is a scattering of new thought added to the information universe. Am I always right? Of course I am!