Chalk X

Summary

• Humans have limited working memory and need repetition and sleep to store memories in the long-term memory
• Communication used to be infrequent and costly, but now it’s practically free and instant
• Reduced cost and speedy delivery have led to increased frequency but reduced information in messages. The increased number of messages with low information creates a higher noise floor and shrinks the signal-to-noise ratio.
• According to Conway’s Law, product creation reflects the communication channels used to create it. Thus in modern times, we are prone to creating noisy products. 

Consider how quickly something falls out of our heads before we write it down. Studies for how much we can keep in our working memory go back to 1871 when William Stanley Jevons published an article indicating we can, at most, keep 3 to 4 pieces of information at a time. Many tests have replicated his study in the past 150+ years. Our brains are full of holes, and we need repetition and the most potent storage method we have, sleep, to lock short-term memory into long-term memory. 

Why bring up memory in an article about the cost of communication? Consider in 1871, the main form of communication was in person, face-to-face communication, or a written letter, which in 1870 would have cost $1 per half oz to send across the country or 23 dollars per letter. Communication was more infrequent and costly. 

Today, we can message a group of friends across the globe on WhatsApp, which is practically free, as a percentage of the cost of electricity, the percentage of device cost, and telecommunications costs. This message takes milliseconds to be distributed to everyone in the group. 

With cost and time so low, the actual information contained within each message has plummeted. You would have never taken out ink and quill to write most messages we send and  then spent $23 to send to a friend across the country. 

With the reduced cost and speedy delivery, we have increased the frequency but reduced the information. Let’s look at what this means in real terms. According to FaceBook, the average user posts 1.68 times a day. The average user in 2024 has 338 friends. This is 567.84 new pieces of information a day. WhatsApp data is more difficult to find, but they say the average person sends 50 messages a day, and the number of groups varies per person. For the business app Slack, they say, on average, a person sends 28 daily messages. These are the ones sent per person. Assuming a low number of 2 active groups in each category, another 156 messages are received daily. According to https://www.statista.com/, in 2024, the average business worker will receive 121 daily emails. This means the average person receives at least 844 or more new pieces of information a day. 

The problem is most of these messages are low in information partially because the cost of sending them is so low. In electronics, we measure the information in messages as a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). 

The more messages we receive without real information, the higher the noise floor. The signal-to-noise ratio shrinks, and it seems like noise when we receive a signal. 

This is where memory comes in. If we only keep 3 to 4 pieces of information at a time, but we can receive hundreds or thousands of new information daily with a low SNR, not only are we likely to miss something, but we also have a higher chance of memorizing noise. This includes personal and business information because our brains don’t know the difference. 

The highest bandwidth conversations we used to have were in person. There are way more signals in an in-person conversation: attitude, tone, body language, and more. Now, we work from home and from all around the world. The solution for the lack of these high bandwidth conversations was to increase the number of ways we can communicate electronically. We are now sending more higher-noise information at a faster rate. 

This affects not only how well employees can keep up but also the products those employees are working on. Conway’s Law states that 

Organizations that design systems (in the broad sense used here) are constrained to produce designs that are copies of the communication structures of these organizations.

Melvin Conway

The question is, how noisy are our products? What is the feature-to-noise ratio (F2N)? This could also be why small companies eat big companies when it comes to innovation and, sometimes, delivery. It also may be a reason why larger companies struggle to pivot. 

Example

Knowing about the noise problem and our limitation on retention can help large companies adapt. For example, consider goal setting. How many goals does your organization have? Can you name them all? Andy Grove, former CEO of Intel, once set, you should never have more than 3 goals at a time and no more than 3 metrics for each. He understood the maximum amount people can easily retain at one time. If you are communicating more than 3 goals, your audience likely won’t remember any of them. 

Where should the goals be posted? You may be tempted to say everywhere, but this adds to the noise. Ideally, it should be one place the audience sees all the time- a corporate website home page, for example. What are they, and where are we at in achieving them?