Information doesn’t fit in boxes. Once you put information in a box, it becomes less visible and its value slowly begins to depreciate. Yet, day after day, information is forced into boxes. While data usually fits into these boxes, the data is increasingly decontextualized over time and its value diminishes. Moreover, the data that doesn’t fit inside the boxes is left aside. If we are lucky it is captured in a “Notes” field that is unlikely to ever be noticed, read or truly understood by anyone else..
In the short term, information in boxes works really well for specific tasks like controlling and managing discrete transactions, but in general it is really poor at empowering collaboration and innovation.
The drive for efficiency often blocks out deep data that doesn’t quite fit into the boxes. While there are workarounds and informal systems in place for data that doesn’t quite fit, it requires manual interventions that live outside the official system.
The presentation by Dr. Iain McGilchrist explains how the brain deals with information and the fundamental disconnect in how information systems deal with managing and surfacing information.
