Is My Filter Too Tight?

By I.J. Hudson

A frequent topic these days is TMI, too much information.  How do you cut down on the stuff coming in so you can really focus on the things that are important?

I’m going to take a slightly different position:  filtering the content coming to you is a wonderful and dangerous thing. 

          Filtering can improve the odds that you see only what you think you want to see.

          Filtering can improve the odds that you will NOT see things that are not of immediate interest, BUT could be important to your long term goals, just fun or a new, previously unknown interest.

Let’s fast backward to a time when bandwidth was slim, storage was sparse, and you were still fighting between buying the morning paper or reading online.  Services like PointCast let you choose sources within categories/topics of news to be delivered to a “ticker” on your machine.  The warning back then, as it is now, is that you shouldn’t “check” too many boxes or you’ll be flooded with information.

It’s a little like using a net to catch fish.  You catch the big ones, the fish you really want, but all the little ones get through.  Sometimes the little ones are really important – spark a new interest or mesh with a bigger objective.

I’m not saying filtering incoming stuff isn’t important, I’m just suggesting that occasionally we need to adjust the filter to let some “new” things come through.  Many important discoveries have begun with a search for a solution to problem A, only to have that search produce a great product that solves an entirely different problem.

Filter for your future.