Blog of Roger Greene, CEO

I used to look at new technologies as a way of increasing how much content I could consume. In my car, or in airplanes when I wasn’t reading, I would try to make use of every minute to listen to language lessons, podcasts or audio books. As the volume of content kept increasing, and more of my time was filled with taking it in, I found that I passed a saturation point beyond which more information became counterproductive. Just because I can spend much of my time taking in content doesn’t mean that I should, or that I would retain it if I tried.

There are very few people who can absorb and process extraordinary amounts of information. Glenn Reynolds and Robert Scoble come to mind. I no longer aspire to match them. Instead, I am more careful about whether a content source is worth the time. I know that I need time to think.

All of this reinforced a lesson I took from business school – that we were there partly to learn about accounting, finance, marketing, etc. – but more important, to get comfortable with making decisions with incomplete information. Research enough, I discovered – not too little and not too much; then make a decision and keep the business moving. Confusing bandwidth with analysis, or taking in more information than you need can actually lead to worse decisions, or no decision at all.

I lost my phone last week, and decided to take my time looking for a replacement. One that looks promising is expected in August, and perhaps another in September. So what to do in the interim?

I thought it would be interesting to see what life was like without a phone. Just how important is all of my on-the-go communication? Sometimes I feel like that technology makes it easy to fill life with tasks, leaving little time for reflection.

I found that the quality of my conversations improved when I was on a land line. I was in one place, doing one thing and could focus on listening and what I was saying. But it was just too inconvenient to not be able to make calls when out and about. My experiment lasted three days.

Next up was a basic phone – just voice and texting. No web, no e-mail, no apps. So far life without e-mail is okay; I find it more efficient to read it on my laptop anyway, which I am rarely away from for long. I almost never use a mobile web browser, so that was easy to do without. Apps are another story. I find I miss them, but not that much. At times I want GPS navigation, but I also like having to pay a bit more attention or the interaction of asking directions. I probably miss my calendar and contacts the most.

I figure I can make it a few more weeks, and then I’ll be ready for a smartphone fix. I am kind of glad for this experience, though.