Thriving on Overload with Ross Dawson

There is no shortage of places to find information. You have social channels, news outlets, and the internet. Further, our brains are limited in the amount of information they can hold and all these combined can take an emotional toll. Ross Dawson joins Kevin to discuss information overload and how it can be perceived as a problem or an opportunity.

Key Points

Ross Dawson talks about the difference between overwhelmed and abundance. He shares 5 powers to manage information overload. These include: 

• Purpose - understanding why we want information at all, so we can understand how to use it well.
• Framing - connecting all the information we encounter to make sense of it, build knowledge, and develop expertise.
• Filtering - being able to see what is useful to us and discarding everything else.
• Attention - intentionally selecting where we direct our awareness, not just through focus, but in exploring and regenerating ourselves.
• Synthesis - the ultimate human capability of connecting the dots to understand the world, see opportunities, and make better decisions.
• He discusses practical tools we can use for filtering.

Meet Ross

• Name: Ross Dawson 
• His Story: Ross Dawson is the author of Thriving on Overload: The 5 Powers for Success in a World of Exponential Information. He is the Founding Chairman of the Advanced Human Technologies group of companies, with clients including industry leaders such as Citibank, Coca-Cola, Google, Microsoft, News Limited, Procter & Gamble, PwC, and Walmart. 
• Worth Mentioning: Dawson is in strong demand globally, having delivered keynote speeches and strategy workshops to business and government leaders in over 30 countries. He appears frequently in media such as ABC TV, BBC, The Guardian, New York Times, VICE, and many others. His previous books include the acclaimed book Living Networks, which The New York Times credits with predicting the social networking revolution, the Amazon.com bestseller Developing Knowledge-Based Client Relationships, now out in its second edition, the highly successful Implementing Enterprise 2.0, and Getting Results From Crowds.
• https://thrivingonoverload.com/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/futuristkeynotespeaker/
• https://twitter.com/rossdawson

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Book Recommendations

• Thriving on Overload: The 5 Powers for Success in a World of Exponential Information by Ross Dawson 
• The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World by David Deutsch 
• The Alignment Problem: Machine Learning and Human Values by Brian Christian 

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