Abstract
With the rise of the internet, books, and mobile devices, there has been the rise information availability. A lot of information available for individuals in an office is not beneficial because it will take time to process. There are a lot of problems that are seen with the availability of too much information to be processed. One issue is that it is hard to go through information and separate what needs to be processed from those that should not be processed. Information overload is a significant problem that is faced by many organizations today. This is because of the availability of too much information which makes it hard for organizations to make use. Technology has been touted as the solution to this problem where tools can be used to manage and enhance the management and processing of this information. This paper will focus on how technology can be used to process information to avoid information overload. The paper will focus on management of information overload in Intel Company. The paper will use case study approach in the process so that the issues that are found in the case study will be applied to other entities.
Brief history
Intel Inc Corporation is an American manufacturer of the semiconductor computer circuits. It was founded in the year 1968 by American engineers Gordon Moore and Robert Noyce. Intel’s initial products were memory chips which include the world’s 1101 first metal oxide semiconductor, later they manufactured 1103 semiconductor which was 1 kilobit Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM) chip, this chip was able to store significant amount of information. Since DRAMs used less power and cheaper than core memory, they became worldwide standard memory devices in computers.
Following the success of DRAM, Intel in 1971 became a public company. In the same year, it introduced the erasable programmable read only memory (EPROM) chip, this product was the most successful company product line until 1985. In 1971 Intel engineers Federico Faggin, Stan Mazor and Ted Hoff invented the first single chip microprocessor and the general purpose four bit microprocessor under a contract with Japanese Calculator Manufacturer, Nippon Calculating Machine Corporation. In 1980 they produced 4004 microprocessor then 8080 microprocessor which became the processing unit for first personal computer made by IBM. In 1985 it introduced Intel386™ as its next generation microprocessor. In 1993 it manufactured the renowned Pentium microprocessor.
In January 2006 the company designed the first fully functional static random access memory (SRAM) using 45 nm logic technology. Intel is now producing more than 15 products using the new 45nm processor technology in its next generation of computer chips. With more than 800 million transistors for quad core and more than 400 million transistors for the dual core processors, Intel Core 2 chips next generation provide greater power management capabilities, grater performance, larger caches for mobile, desktop, enterprise computers, workstation and higher core speeds.
Business problem
Intel Company is facing a major problem of information overload. Since Intel moved from mainframes to PCs, it became very easy for people to send each other a lot of information.” Informania” is a state of mental overload which is caused by email backlogs and interruptions like cell phones, instant messages and email notifications. For example Zeldes and his two colleagues did a research on information overload in the Intel Corporation and presented it to the management for intervention. They found that company workers spend approximately 20 hours in a week dealing with emails, a third of that email is useless, 70 percent of emails get handled within the six minutes of arrival and also found out that the worker get interrupted every three minutes. One will incur a cognitive reorientation cost when he or she switch between tasks, according to the research Intel’s workers waste about six hours in a week .(Sward 2007).
Information overload reduced the productivity of the organization and also cause health problems to the company’s employees because of stress and psychological illness, in the long run billions is lost in productivity. Because of this problem, the company is realizing a general decrease in performance and also productivity.
High level solution
Intel Corporation can use Netscape Communicator to filter its emails. It allows the users to define some filter rules that will delete emails if the body or sender of the message contains a specified address. It will also allow the users to presort incoming emails. Users can stipulate that the emails satisfying certain criteria be moved to a designated folder, for example emails that contain IS100 in the body are automatically placed in IS100 subfolder of the inbox. Netscape Communicator lists the IS2100 subfolder in bold to notify the user that some unread emails have been stored in IS2100 folder. If email messages do not originate from the user with account on a particular server it is dropped.
Intel’s response to information overload does not only depend on technological solution but also it should involve a change in the collective behavior. According to Zeldes, combined education and technology in real time help users to achieve productive email behavior by use of software called Intel Email Effectiveness coach. So when the user clicks on send the program warns about potential email breach of etiquette and blunders before the message is transmitted. For example a ‘Reply to All’ will send the message to all people in the list of distribution, (Zeldes 2007).
Benefits of solving information overload
When the corporation eliminates information overload, it will experience many benefits. One of the biggest benefits is that the use of Netscape Communicator will increase employee’s productivity which will in turn increase the overall corporation’s productivity. Eliminating information overload will reduce employee’s health problems because they will not be having a lot of stress and psychological illnesses like before when they used to handle bulk information, this will increase their job satisfaction. The corporation will experience an increase in performance and productivity because employees will be highly innovative and their concentration enhanced. Therefore corporation’s employees will be efficient and effective in their work.
Technical approach
Intel Corporation can put in place a technical approach to reduce information overload. One approach is by enabling workers to shut down IM notifications and emails for some specified durations, for example “no email” on a specified day, “quiet time” email methods like batching email on the server and then delivering it once in an hour and moving organizational announcements and enterprise wide status report from the push email to the RSS subscription. Another approach is by use of client side program which will intervene in case a sender violates the email etiquette so as to enforce acceptable email behavior, for example if the user really wants to reply to all the people, he or she should check the boxes next to each name needed.
Business process changes
There are many changes that will be experienced in handling information overload. There are issues of concern that need to be put in place in order to manage information overload at Intel. There are business processes that will have to be changed or eliminated altogether in order to have a smooth running of the organization. One change that will have to be implemented is multitasking in the workplace. This has been encouraged in the past. There are issues that need to be taken into consideration before adapting this aspect in the workplace. The staff working at Intel will have to desist from using different channels of communicational once. This is one of the sources of getting to the problem of information overload. There is a need to manage the way this information handled with the use of this aspect of management of information overload.
Another business process change that will be effected in Intel is use of short form of writing business letters. This will reduce the amount of information that we have to go through in order to get the required information. This will help to ensure that there is important information that is passed in the messages. This is a significant change in the business process because business letters have been written with emphasis on business details and the requirements in these details. This will have to change so that the letters and emails that are being sent will not be the sources of information overload for Intel Company.
Another business process change is that technology will not be used to manage information. The use of tools that will filter information is a change in the way the normal business has been done in this field. It has been the routine and norm to use human beings to see and assess what is important. This is now being done by machines. This is an important change that is being seen.
Technology practice that is used to augment the solution
Information filtering is an important aspect that is used to manage information overload. The use of information filtering software at Intel is a technology solution. It helps in augmenting the solution. There will be the installation of this tool, from Microsoft, on the server so that it will filter the mails and messages that are not important to the company. This way, there will be a better way of undertaking the managing of information and data.
There is also the business practice of brevity. This is where the letters and memoranda will be written in brief manner. This will avoid the writing of long letters and emails. It is one practice that will be adopted by the company so that there is lack of information overload in the company. As the company strives to eliminate information overload, the practices in the company should be streamlined to adopt this practice.
Conclusions and overall recommendations
Intel Inc has been battling with information overload for a long time. Many researchers have proposed classification of systems that will automatically classify e-mails in an attempt to reduce information overload. This paper will examine the problem of information overload in the company and solutions that will help reduce this overload, also the measures that should be put in place by the company’s management, employees and stockholders in reducing the impact of this problem. The company has been facing the problem of information overload from the emails they receive for over a long period of time now. Information overload is the bulk of information that causes a lot of problems to company’s employees when handling them. The problem of information overload is inevitable in any particular organization; this is because information is a very valuable commodity in any economy. This problem is mostly seen today affecting the well being of workers within an organization because the information keeps on bombarding them from ever increasing sources.
High-level implementation plan
The procedure for the implementation will involve installing the software in the computers of all staff in the organization. This will enable the staff members to understand the need to have the filtering software in lace that will enable them to get rid of information which is not useful to them. The software will have to be purchased from Microsoft. This is done to ensure that there is support from Microsoft. After all these, there will be a need to ensure that there is proper integration of the software in the company.
Summary of project
The project is to ensure that there is elimination or reduction of information overload in the company. With the understanding of email messages as the source of the overload, this project has embarked on having software that will solve this issue. The solution is from Microsoft where there is the use of technology in form of software to be used to filter email messages. This technology solution will be installed in all the offices of the company.
References
Overby S. (2007). Intel’s E-Mail Overload Solution. Retrieved 14th June 14, 2014 from <http://www.cio.com/article/120852/Intel_rsquo_s_E_Mail_Overload_Solution>
Rosen, Sheri. (1992). Making Sense and Cents from Information Overload. Communication World, Vol. 9, p. 36.
