Pet peeves: Chat rooms and electronic mailing lists. They're often "a repository of nutcases and ne'er-do-wells, grumblers, and people with agendas."
His secret to handling six pounds of mail each day: "I trash the company mailers and junk mail immediately."
How he uses the Internet to stay on top of breaking news: Brudnoy has a PC at his microphone and surfs to news sites like CNN and local radio and television station WBZ while he chats with guests on his show. He also answers 50 E-mail messages daily while his guests take questions from callers.
Coping strategy: "I avoid distraction on the Internet. If I need something, I know where to find it. I don't go anywhere else."
Doug Hall
CEO, Richard Saunders International
Newtown, Ohio
Why he's inundated: Hall is one of the nation's leading product-development and packaging gurus.
First source for news each day: None. "I just don't wake up in the morning looking for information."
Pet peeve: "The tendency to treat all information at the same level. There's a big difference between qualitative and quantitative information. With the Internet and E-mail, people find information that they treat as fact, without verifying the precision of that information. And people don't look too hard to see if something's an anomaly or not."
On the Internet: "The Internet is a library. Before it existed, I didn't go to the library that often. Now that it exists, I don't go there any more than I went before. It's a great place to find eclectic facts, but its practicality and functionality are limited."
Coping strategy:An affinity for numbers. "Math is our friend, but too many people are scared of math. Information overload decreases if you base your decisions on real mathematical knowledge--and this is a creativity flake who's saying all of this."
Ellen Hancock
CEO, Exodus Communications Inc.
Santa Clara, Calif.
Why she's inundated: Her company helps big clients like Hewlett-Packard Co. and National Semiconductor Corp. set up shop on the Internet.
First source for news each day: She logs on to the Exodus mail system before she goes to work each morning. "Exodus runs a global business. With all of the time differences, so much business has transpired by my 6 a.m. wake-up that I simply have to check E-mail as part of my morning routine."
Regular reading: On-line news sites, national newspapers like the Wall Street Journal, business magazines, and high-tech trade journals.
Guilty pleasure: Books on tape, which she listens to on the treadmill or while driving to work. Recent fave: Katharine Graham's Personal History.
Coping strategy: "I have a very busy schedule, so E-mail works well, since I can use it anytime and anyplace. I must admit, however, that the volume of E-mail I receive can be overwhelming. I also have a cell phone that I'm using more often now. I wear a pager when I know people want to reach me, but I'm still trying to figure out how to make the pager a tool that works for me."
Bo Peabody
Founder, Tripod Inc.
Williamstown, Mass.
Why he's inundated: Peabody, 27, founded Tripod, a company that helps people develop personal Web pages. He sold his start-up to search engine Lycos in a stock deal valued at $58 million in February 1998 and has stayed on as Tripod's CEO.
First source for news each day: E-mail. "This is where I get all my news. I subscribe to E-mail lists, get Web pages, and get news pushed to me from our PR firm, advertising agencies, and compulsive news gatherers across the whole Lycos network family."
Guilty pleasure: Magazines. "When I take the train on the weekend--like between Williamstown and New York City--I buy People, Sports Illustrated, and Newsweek and read them while sipping a few scotches--important for letting your media-snob guard down. There is no better pleasure."
Pet peeve: The stack of business plans he's accumulated. "People with bad ideas really bother me. I now know how the venture capitalists feel. The number of bad business plans that I see is stunning."
Worst plan he's seen? "My own. I can't believe it got funded. I also saw a pretty bad one for colonizing Mars."
Kay Stepp
Principal, Executive Solutions Inc.
Portland, Oreg.
Why she's inundated: Stepp, the first woman to run a public utility, was formerly president and chief operating officer of Portland General Electric Co. Today she coaches CEOs as a full-time, home-based executive adviser.
First source for news each day: National Public Radio's Morning Edition.
Guilty pleasure: Baseball scores and stats. (She's a Cubs fan.)
Pet peeve: Lengthy voice-mail messages.
Coping strategy: "I used to be someone who tried to call everyone back whether I knew them or not. Now, if I don't know someone and the message doesn't indicate its relevance right away, I might not call them back." She also admits to throwing away unopened letters and deleting E-mail from people she doesn't recognize. "I've never gotten a gem of information from an E-mail."
On being solo: "When I worked for a big utility, I had people weeding and sorting for me. I probably didn't lay out my priorities as tightly as I do now. Today I'm more focused on what I deal with and what I let enter my realm."
Barry Scheck
Professor, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University
New York City
Why he's inundated: Because former clients O.J. Simpson and Louise Woodward are not in prison.
First source for news each day: Imus in the Morning, Today, and National Public Radio.
Regular reading: "I read three daily newspapers (the New York Times, the Daily News, and sometimes the New York Post), a number of weekly magazines (the New Yorker, the New York Observer, Science, Sports Illustrated), and monthlies like Brill's Content. I use AOL for E-mail and occasional forays to the Net. I am on an E-mail list for criminal-law professors and receive a lot of other E-mail from colleagues and friends."
Sources he's dropped: "Many of the Internet services, cable-TV talking heads, and TV news-magazine shows."
Guilty pleasure: ESPN
Pet peeves: Excessive voice mail and junk snail mail.
Achilles' heel: "I just get too many calls to return each day. I deal badly with serial hard-copy junk mailers. And I don't check my E-mail and voice mail as much as I should."
More on Data Smog
- Read an except from Data Smog by David Shenk
- Data data: statistics from the front lines of the information glut
