inboxes of the no filers were definitely overloaded with a mean of 3093.5 emails.
The strategy of the no filers to reduce the size of the email box was to delete large
quantities of emails periodically. An interesting result of the study was that four of
the six no filers were managers. The email boxes of the frequent filers were relatively
small in size with a mean of 43.4 emails and the frequent filers were thus not
overloaded with emails. Again an interesting result was that of the five frequent
filers, only one was a manager. The spring cleaners had large overloaded email
boxes with a mean of 1492.3. Most of the spring cleaners did not use the folders at all
resulting in a large email box. Again four of the seven spring cleaners were
managers. One can conclude that people who use folders and who clean up their
emails on a daily basis are the least overloaded with respect to emails. However, as
concluded by the study, managers do not use this strategy. A possibility to reduce the
amount of emails which one received is to instruct the email program to filter out
email which were sent as a ‘cc’. Our recommendation to managers thus will be to
structure their personal management of incoming information to reduce the chances
of being overload with information. Another way of decreasing information
overload is by properly communicating with others. One way of doing so is by
adhering to the rules of netiquette. A simple example is to use proper subject lines
when sending emails.
Countermeasures to decrease information overload can also be pointed to increasing the quality of information which is provided by the information system. In the
literature there are numerous techniques suggested to increase the quality of information. Most of the techniques make use of the concept of an agent; therefore we
will first concentrate on this concept.
To understand intelligent search agents, we will first give a formal definition of an
agent. According to Woolridge and Jennings, ‘an agent is a (computer) system that is
situated in some environment and that is capable of autonomous action in this
environment to meet its objectives’ (Woolridge and Jennings 1995). Examples are
robots, softbots and software demons. There are three main characteristics of the
intelligent agent that make it flexible. Intelligent agents are reactive, proactive and
have a social ability. Reactive means that intelligent agents can perceive their
environment and can respond to changes in the environment to satisfy its objectives.
Proactive means that intelligent agents can take the initiative in order to satisfy its
objectives. The fact that the intelligent agent has a social ability means that he can
communicate and cooperate with other agents to satisfy its objectives. According to
Russell and Norvig (1995), “an agent is anything that can be viewed as perceiving its
environment through sensors and acting upon that environment through effectors”.
Due to the three characteristics of the agent mentioned earlier, the agent will react to
information, and it will, for instance, look for irrelevant information to filter out. In
the process of doing so, it will possibly communicate with other agents so that it
knows what exactly is irrelevant data and what exactly is relevant data. Lastly the
agents will communicate the relevant information to other agents. In this respect it is
good to note that agents can also be human individuals such as, in our case, decisionmakers. This means agents can filter our irrelevant data, they can make the data more
accurate and they can present the data in a more understandable format. There are
several agents which have been developed. The intelligent filtering agent has as its
170
G. van de Kaa
The strategy of the no filers to reduce the size of the email box was to delete large
quantities of emails periodically. An interesting result of the study was that four of
the six no filers were managers. The email boxes of the frequent filers were relatively
small in size with a mean of 43.4 emails and the frequent filers were thus not
overloaded with emails. Again an interesting result was that of the five frequent
filers, only one was a manager. The spring cleaners had large overloaded email
boxes with a mean of 1492.3. Most of the spring cleaners did not use the folders at all
resulting in a large email box. Again four of the seven spring cleaners were
managers. One can conclude that people who use folders and who clean up their
emails on a daily basis are the least overloaded with respect to emails. However, as
concluded by the study, managers do not use this strategy. A possibility to reduce the
amount of emails which one received is to instruct the email program to filter out
email which were sent as a ‘cc’. Our recommendation to managers thus will be to
structure their personal management of incoming information to reduce the chances
of being overload with information. Another way of decreasing information
overload is by properly communicating with others. One way of doing so is by
adhering to the rules of netiquette. A simple example is to use proper subject lines
when sending emails.
Countermeasures to decrease information overload can also be pointed to increasing the quality of information which is provided by the information system. In the
literature there are numerous techniques suggested to increase the quality of information. Most of the techniques make use of the concept of an agent; therefore we
will first concentrate on this concept.
To understand intelligent search agents, we will first give a formal definition of an
agent. According to Woolridge and Jennings, ‘an agent is a (computer) system that is
situated in some environment and that is capable of autonomous action in this
environment to meet its objectives’ (Woolridge and Jennings 1995). Examples are
robots, softbots and software demons. There are three main characteristics of the
intelligent agent that make it flexible. Intelligent agents are reactive, proactive and
have a social ability. Reactive means that intelligent agents can perceive their
environment and can respond to changes in the environment to satisfy its objectives.
Proactive means that intelligent agents can take the initiative in order to satisfy its
objectives. The fact that the intelligent agent has a social ability means that he can
communicate and cooperate with other agents to satisfy its objectives. According to
Russell and Norvig (1995), “an agent is anything that can be viewed as perceiving its
environment through sensors and acting upon that environment through effectors”.
Due to the three characteristics of the agent mentioned earlier, the agent will react to
information, and it will, for instance, look for irrelevant information to filter out. In
the process of doing so, it will possibly communicate with other agents so that it
knows what exactly is irrelevant data and what exactly is relevant data. Lastly the
agents will communicate the relevant information to other agents. In this respect it is
good to note that agents can also be human individuals such as, in our case, decisionmakers. This means agents can filter our irrelevant data, they can make the data more
accurate and they can present the data in a more understandable format. There are
several agents which have been developed. The intelligent filtering agent has as its
170
G. van de Kaa