Is there such as thing as too much information?

During my time in the financial services industry I mused much about certain aspects of the business.

Specifically, how any piece of information - true or otherwise - would send the markets into a tailspin or skyrocketing. The attention given to quarterly results was especially an interesting study in human behaviour obsessed with short term results. I never could quite comprehend why companies, for example, in mature, stable industries (like banks) were slaves to this nonsense. "The banks reported .01 cents losses missing their targets by .001 cents!" Bang, $1 drop in the stock only to see it rise again a week later.

All that stress for Mable and Kurt.

Access to information without proper training has left us in fear (or impatient) with the long term and future. Patience is clearly no longer a value.

Companies seriously need to rethink their philosophical models.

Too often the perception was that workers were expendable. Duh. Humans pretty much are. The old saying in Canada is, "If Wayne Gretzky can be traded..." There's always someone in line. We're like toilet paper: Tear one and another square is available.

That's not the point. The point is how we value our workers - and I don't mean by talking about them in the company newsletter reading about what they do for downtime on the weekends.

The banks have a high turn over rate. In an industry that is predicated on stability and conservatism this fact is incongruent to its image. It's not proper to have to change financial planners (or other financial experts) on a regular basis. It sends bad vibes to the clients and investors. It also means reestablishing trust - which is very difficult these days - and more time consuming and costly training. It made little sense how the banks would let talent go.

They never figured out - thanks to indifference? - how to anchor them so to speak. Part of the reason, and this is just my best guess, is that they saw employees as an expense and not an asset. Of course, the rhetoric was just the opposite. They claimed to view workers as assets but when push came to shove - bonjour la visite. In practice workers were an entry in the accounting department.

Which brings me back - sorta - to information. If the markets are slaves to every piece of information that comes down the wire, what about political commentators and bloggers? Can it be that too much information can lead to rash conclusions? Are those not trained in handling important documents and bits of information giving them false hope or despair which inevitably affects their social and political ethos?

Here's how The Pen and the Spindle explains the art of dealing with information:

"...There are 3 basic steps (in handling information): how and where to find information; how to extract and process information (intelligently) from the sources; how to assimilate and apply information. My research in information literacy or, if you prefer, knowledge transfer (an aspect of)comes out of a childhood curiosity - and from training in ancient history source analysis and communication science."

Sweet.

I'll let the reader conclude their own thoughts.