Forget about “information overload.” Instead, reexamine your assumptions. The return on your time and attention investment will be worth it.

I recently read an interesting blog entry from Thomas Davenport, who co-authored Competing on Analytics (Harvard Business School Press, 2007) and works as a professor at Babson University.

In his blog, Davenport makes a compelling case for ignoring our universal “information overload” problem. He identifies some surprising benefits of information overload as well as one crippling obstacle: the fact that few, if any of us, are willing to regularly invest our time “to save our attention” (i.e., change our information consumption habits).

Instead, I believe that we can make greater process improvements in business, as well as in our lives, by focusing on the assumptions we make about all of the information we use. Far too often, our assumptions range from “outdated” to “dead wrong.” more

The saga involving the proposed regulation of over-the-counter derivatives, as covered in this post from last month, continues.

For several weeks, Senator Christopher Dodd (D., Conn.) has been expected to introduce a bill that addresses several of the stickier issues surrounding OTC derivatives. Over the past month, he has been working with Senator Bob Corker (R., Tenn.) to come up with a bipartisan plan. Other legislators who’ve been working on the bill are Jack Reed (D., Rhode Island) and Judd Gregg (R., New Hampshire).

The most contentious issue continues to revolve around “the end user exemptions,” says Luke Zubrod, director of U.S. public real estate advisory practice with Chatham Financial, a consulting firm specializing in managing interest rate and foreign exchange risk. That is, will businesses that use derivatives to hedge their risks be treated differently than financial institutions that participate in the market to a much greater extent? more

In its latest study, IBM dubs the CFO “the new value integrator.” Think about that the next time you bump into the CIO. Check out IBM’s full CFO study here, along with a ton of related content, including a discussion forum and video.

Here’s IBM’s rationale: Value integrators are skilled at navigating uncertainty, and on every measure that IBM examined – revenue growth, EBITDA, and return on invested capital – their enterprises outperformed their peers’. They do so in large part because they excel at integrating information company-wide, analyzing it, and converting it to a competitive asset – new intelligence.

Pretty heady stuff, until IBM adds: “Our study also shows that too many finance organizations have yet to seize this opportunity – or meet their own [or maybe IBM’s] expectations.” Let’s take a look at some of the key findings. more