Filtering 2.0

In continuing the reading of my classmates' blogs, the Blackboard discussion postings, and looking into the various Web 2.0 tools and links others have provided, I am running into my own version of information overload. Usually, I only post or respond to items that I think others haven't mentioned at all, or post items in response to a mistake. The idea is that if I find myself responding whenever I have a thought, I would be posting dozens of times a day.

The same problem involves other aspects of life. It happens to many people during Christmas: You wonder if you should get a gift for a particular acquaintance, but if you do you realize that there are a dozen other friends in the same friend-category. Right now I am looking for a house to buy, and if I expand my search fields in certain areas, I go from looking at a few houses a week to dozens.

With this class, and web 2.0 in particular, I am trying to find the right balance of technologies to explore. At work, I may have to knuckle down and just plain learn some computer software. I right about it, use it, find its useful tricks, and think of ways to teach others and how to best use the program for work. With the web 2.0 tools, if I try to pick up a certain tool, like Neatly Said, a program for predicting stock market results, then I mentally agree to learn just as much about everything else in the same category.

While this unrealistic and unexpected, it is how my mind works: When you start something, you must finish it all the way. I believe others can relate, when compared to Blackboard. If there is an unread post, I must read it, even if it's a cursory glance. The glaring, bolded, and unlined number that shows me what is unread mocks me.

Most likely (even as soon as tonight) I will just bite the bullet and picks some programs to learn. Maybe others will find them useful and maybe not. Maybe I will or will not. Either way, I must learn to come to terms that just because I didn't pick something up, I am not missing out on something amazing that will change my life. Like Facebook. :)