Recently, I have conducted several social media workshops. Often participants express that social media seems overwhelming. The participants say that they already feel like they have information overload, and they don't know how to handle more information.
My responses are usually:
- Social media helps one keep up better with new information and ideas than current tools, like email.
- Social media, particularly reading feeds, is much more efficient than not using them and allows one to increase access to more (much more) information.
- Social media allows one to read and find information outside of one's normal colleague and knowledge circles.
- Social media allows matching tasks and tools. Email simply is not the right tool for many of tasks we use it for. For example, wikis are better for collaboration than email. I usually have participants tell me how they work on projects together. The left side of the Wikinomics graphic is indicative of their description.
Email, although useful for some uses, is not a good collaboration tool.