Information is power...Isn't it?

I couldn’t find the origins of the quote but with a brief bit of research/googling you can certainly see it coming up in history some time ago. And I mean before computers. I always believed it. I even espoused that to any colleagues or team members that cared to listen about the benefit of gathering information.

Information is defined by the English Oxford Dictionary as “Facts provided or learned about something or someone”. If you know more facts about something than someone else that gives you an advantage. It’s logical isn’t it?  And we all want an advantage.

As I said, that quote was coined way before computers. Which is probably why I believed it so whole heartedly. In my first job I didn’t have a computer, at least not for the first 2 years. There was one in the office but only one person actually knew how to use it. I did start off in the antiques industry so that can go some way to explaining it I guess. Some way. When I did finally get a computer at work it certainly wasn’t connected to the internet that’s for sure, that was only for an elite few.

These days I'm still trying to figure out how to put access restrictions on my router at home so my young children don’t have access to too much information on the internet. Go figure. Guess I’ll Google It? I think it is fair to say we are comfortably past the tipping point of having access to more information than we can possibly use. I’d also argue that now we are at the point where the amount of information accessible is more of a disadvantage if we don’t carefully control and manage our consumption of it.

Be honest, how many times do you start looking for one thing on the internet and end up getting distracted by some other ‘must read information’ that you never knew that you needed to know about?! I never knew I had such an interest in giant squid  https://www.epicadamwildlife.com/2014/06/27/1048/  .

Happens to me way too often…

To be honest I don’t think I would ever have finished an essay at school if I had as much access to information as we do know. The handful of well eared books in the library everyone used thankfully seemed to suffice!

The advent of the internet undoubtedly and has repeatedly changed the dynamics in my industry, each time hailing the demise of it as well. It meant people could find and contact each other more easily and directly, it gave rise to online job boards and enabled the spawning of a whole host of other applications, all of which provided more and more information to the consumer. Bringing us to the point where I am writing a post on one of the Top 20 global social networks to any of the 97m+ users who stumble across it.

In return I can access the information of those users and slice and dice that information in different ways if I wish. The information you can dig up is overwhelming. At times, even self-defeating quite frankly. What can you possibly do with all that information?

The startling thing is that LinkedIn is only the 20th largest global social/professional network. Facebook the largest at 1,550M users. LinkedIn has a lot more information it needs to capture before it can play with the really big boys, though I’m sure it would be argued they don’t want to be that big…until they are that big.

I guess my point is that it is wonderful to have access to have so much information, however it is relatively pointless without turning it into knowledge. Knowledge is defined as “facts, information, and skills acquired through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject”. This is only gained through the dissecting and understanding of that information. Dare I say, in my industry that involves talking/communicating with that ‘information’ to gain a practical understanding of it? That takes patience and experience to gather while understanding how to connect the dots.

Less nuanced people often suggest recruitment is just a quick search on the internet and the regurgitation of that information to whoever is willing to pay for it. I could spend time arguing otherwise but I’d be more interested to know, in what other industries does the ‘power of the internet’ and all it provides, is now potentially providing a ‘negative return’ and how do you manage it?

What other knowledge based industries are overwhelmed with the blizzard of information out there?

P.S. Any tips/links on how to establish search restrictions on your router are most welcome!