Information Overload

This is a subject that has been haunting me of late.  I see so many new technologies that look interesting or may be needed in the future.  Is this a struggle I have alone?

There have  been several great posts lately from people in the industry that I view as some of the more prominent figures in our field regarding information overload.

• Clemens Vasters
• Craig Andera – Plurasight
• Sahil Malik

Each of these gentlemen have their own individual views on the current flow of information coming in from Microsoft alone, never mind Sun, IBM and everyone else.

Now that we have Visual Studio.NET 2005 and the .NET Framework 2.0 on the horizon with their plethora of changes, this is a task all in itself to learn what’s new and how to make use of these changes.   Some of the parts of the new framework are areas of expertise that need attention all in themselves – profiles & membership, themes & master pages, ADO.NET 2.0, web parts and others.  Each aspect of the framework takes time.  I have been working with VS 2005 since last summer and I don’t feel I have even scratch the surface.

What about other technologies that was cannot avoid in our field if we plan to stay competitive:

• SQL Server 2005
• Windows Vista
• Avalon
• Indigo

There is not enough time in the day to work with all of these technologies and be proficient to any level with all of them.  One could spend all of their non-working (meaning non-money making) time, exploring new technology 7 days a week but it would lead to certain burnout.  What about family time and the work-life balance?  Forget it.

I think with more and more new technology being released,  we will need to take a step back and focus on our core competencies or interests and leave the rest to others.  As a consultant we will have to bring in other consultants to share the work load and function as a team and not as an individual.  Our network of consultants with complimentary skills will be more and more important to leverage.