Collaboration Nation?

On Saturday, the New York Times ran this article: . It highlights Timothy Ferriss's less information is better principle that is discussed in his book, The Four Hour Work Week. At a time when communication tools like Twitter, Facebook, IM and collaboration software solutions are popping up on a weekly basis, does he have a point?

I think he does. Although I wouldn't a implement a four day work week at Smartsheet (let alone a four hour work week), I definitely think he has pinpointed the buried, overwhelmed feeling of today's worker. So if everyone is overwhelmed, why do people feel the need to tack on real-time collaboration technologies (like RSS platforms, chat, wikis)? Is that really going to make people more effective and feeling more productive about their work? Or will these 'collaborative solutions' just add to the information burden?

A different objective drives our decisions around the Haymaker release. We believe collaboration is a rather small percentage of the work that people perform. We're thinking exponentially - like Ferriss - by focusing an approach that reduces the effort to complete something by 90%, not a meager five or ten percent.

-Mark, CEO