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Coping with overabundance as a scientist
We are in an era of overabundance. Many of the problems we face — spam, information overload, obesity, pollution — are actually the result of overabundance. Scientists need new strategies:
- Create fast, discard faster.
- Aim for quality. When people have too much content, they want quality.
- Focus and live in niches.
- Produce shorter papers. People want to learn a specific facts. Make it easy for them to find them.
- Use formats that are easy to index. Paper is terrible. Slides, voice and video are not very good. Digital text in simple formats is better.
- Make your work easy to find: nobody has time to mail order.
- Be agile: always be ready to change focus. There are just too many new opportunities!
Reference: Ann Blair, Reading Strategies for Coping With Information Overload ca. 1550-1700, Journal of the History of Ideas 64.1 (2003) 11-28.