In my previous career in telecommunications, I came across a book that was given to me by a fellow industry executive and I initially read it out of curiosity. "The Victorian Internet" by Tom Standage talks about technology that creates new global communities and causes societies and industries to re-think how they do business. It talks about how the new technology had its advocates who promoted and hyped the technology while the naysayers dismissed it with deep skepticism. Of course, the technology was not the Internet itself, but rather the telegraph.

I recently re-read the book and found myself drawn to Chapter 10 aptly titled, “Information Overload”. It goes on to explain how businesses in the new, wired world now had information readily available to them daily that previously they received once or twice a month. In the author’s words “The businessman of the present day must be continuously on the jump…He must use the telegraph. The information provided by the telegraph was like a drug to businessmen, who swiftly became addicted.” Crackberry anyone?

Of course, the speed of business is relative, but the speed of decisions is just as relative to the ability of the businessperson to make a decision with the information they have at their disposal. To the extent the Romans under Nero and the businessman in the 1870s had to make knowledge based decisions based on the mail dispatches and telegraph respectively, so the business leaders of today work to stay ahead of information overload to compete in today’s global economy and beyond.

Enjoy the Book!