Moving information

How do you decide what you need to know?

Our navigator was pondering his old days in the Navy, and in particular the changing form of the Operation Order.  This was a massive printing job for any major operation, the size of a large book.  No one actually read it through.  The Communications officers on each ship and staff would go to the Communications and Signals chapter and see what radio frequencies they had to cover; the Supply officers would go to the Logistics chapter; and so forth.  When the internet became a viable means of passing large amounts of information (over secure channels), it was hailed as a breakthrough, which of course it was.  Now, it was said, subordinates would pull the information they needed, rather than having it pushed to them.  Our navigator, however, had one reservation: suppose there was some vital bit of knowledge some set of officers needed, but didn’t know existed?  There had to be some way of getting it to them, some push.  No doubt it has all be worked out by now.

Much later, one of us was working at a government agency, where much was done by email.  Even at the time, that twentieth-century technology was old.  But it was familiar and everyone knew how it worked.  Then someone came up with the idea of setting up a sort of social media application, like an internal Facebook, to handle agency communications.  Most of the employees were familiar with Facebook-like things and immediately jumped on board.  Our consultant, however, was not so thrilled.  Postings would appear and disappear in his feed for unknown reasons and at random times, so that he couldn’t use it to keep track of things.  There was no way to be sure when or if everyone would see something he needed them to know.  It’s probably best that his job at the agency was only temporary.

These examples came to mind as our tutoring consultant was going through his news magazines.  Things are happening in the world.  There are definitely things that his students should be aware of, and even know in detail; events that will affect their lives now and in the future.  He has made up files of articles that he thinks would or should interest either all students, or some particular group of them.  They rarely get read.  He found that anything over two pages long won’t even be picked up, and not many two-page articles get attention.  How can he arrange a push of this information?  He hasn’t come up with any good ideas.

[Incidentally, this is another example of the great difference in culture between him and his students.  He is frustrated by short articles and learns from books; they are daunted by reading and learn from videos.  It’s similar to the map dichotomy.]

So how does one make sure that important information gets to the right people?  On the other side, how do you find out what you need to learn?  And, of course, all this takes place amidst a cacophony of information you don’t need, much of it indeed spurious.  That is a major question for our times.