We live in an information age. Google, Twitter, MSNBC, Face Book, TV, Radio, and Newspapers are all online. Blogs are creating global conversations and with Skype, I now have to actually wash my face and brush my hair before sitting down before my computer at 5AM. It only takes one video call while in your bathrobe and curlers to wipe our your smooth and savvy image. (;-)
I can find out almost anything through my computer. All it takes is some search creativity and a bit of persistence. The challenge is getting the information you need and filtering out all the noise.
It’s getting louder. Can you hear it?
Whether it’s the volume of spam attacking your email folders, the tweet of a friend who has just found Twitter and has to share their EVERY action all day long, or the three-year-old, bogus email warning or ‘favorite blessing’ that is again making the chain letter circuit. Sometimes the noise is so loud you can’t hear or find the important stuff.
The point of all these information and communications tools is to share information…and at times – spark a conversation. But at times, it feels more like whoever makes the most noise is winning.
A good example is the annual Time100 Most Influential People List. For decades this has been the true A list of people shaping our world. Now Time has posted the ballots on-line. If you can wade though the over 200 profiles to vote on, you probably have too much time on your hands. I visited the site this morning and after a few minutes realized that it could take hours to go through them all. Later today from Twitter, I got the news of how the voting was going and that Moot was in the lead. Huh? Who or what is a Moot? I guess I was not the only one so out of touch. They created a video to explain it.
Today was my day to do my part in updating RiboMed‘s business plan so that it was ready to present to potential investors after we exhibit at AACR’s 100th Annual Meeting next week. (The team’s work in the lab is taking us closer to a breakthrough in early cancer detection daily. We need to raise more capital to take it to the marketplace.) Unfortunately, I can only spend so much time running financial models, analyzing future markets and writing about epigenetic theory, bio-markers, and all that stuff before I start to go cross eyed. I guess I’m getting old.
So I took a break to check in on my social media pages at AllTop and HootSuite to see what was up in the world. And then braved my email to see if the note I was waiting for from New York had come in. After sifting though my inbox and not finding it, I checked my junk box scanning through 500+ spam messages just in case it was there . Did not find it – but there were two emails from my parents. Hoping for some happy family news, I opened them. My folks sent me important emails they people send to them. One was on the horrific dangers of Aspartame (the sweetener found in Diet Coke) and the other was quoting the LA Times on 10 disturbing ‘facts’ about illegal immigration. Dashed off a couple of quick emails to Mom and Dad explaining that neither of these emails were accurate or even recent – the LA Times hoax started in 2006. Attached a couple of tinyurls with links to the actual facts, added an “I love You” and got back to work.
We’ll wipe out cancer in my lifetime..I’m not so sure about spam.
Stay tuned…
– Joan Koerber-Walker
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