Jonathan B. Spira (born 1961) is a

researcher Research is creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge. It involves the collection, organization, and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular attentiveness to ...

and

industry analyst An industry analyst performs primary and secondary market research within an industry such as information technology, consulting or insurance. Analysts assess sector trends, create segment taxonomies, size markets, prepare forecasts, and develop in ...

known for his work in the area of collaboration and knowledge sharing and the problem of

information overload Information overload (also known as infobesity, infoxication, or information anxiety) is the difficulty in understanding an issue and Decision making, effectively making decisions when one has too much information (TMI) about that issue, and is ...

Early life

Spira was born in New York and grew up in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

and

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

, the son of photographic pioneer Fred Spira and his wife Marilyn (née Hacker). He studied Central European History at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...

where he was a member of the

Pi Lambda Phi Pi Lambda Phi (), commonly known as Pi Lam, is a social fraternity with 145 chapters (44 active chapters/colonies). The fraternity was founded in 1895 at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. History Very little is known about the early ...

fraternity and conducted his graduate studies at the

University of Munich The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (simply University of Munich, LMU or LMU Munich; ) is a public university, public research university in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. Originally established as the University of Ingolstadt in 1472 by Duke ...

(Ludwig-Maximilians Universität)

Career

Spira began his career in business and technology while still in high school when he became involved in the management of office systems at Spiratone, a company founded and run by his father, Fred Spira. After completing his studies in 1983, he founded a research and IT advisory firm,

Basex BaseX is a native and light-weight XML database management system and XQuery processor, developed as a community project on GitHub. It is specialized in storing, querying, and visualizing large XML documents and collections. BaseX is platform-i ...

(originally called The Basex Group) in 1983, that focused on helping organizations understand how

knowledge worker Knowledge workers are workers whose main capital is knowledge. Examples include ICT professionals, physicians, pharmacists, architects, engineers, scientists, designers, public accountants, lawyers, librarians, archivists, editors, and ...

s work and what they can do to manage them more effectively. He has been associated with the firm ever since.

Research

Spira's research focuses on the problems organizations are having as they migrate from the industrial age to the

knowledge economy The knowledge economy, or knowledge-based economy, is an economic system in which the production of goods and services is based principally on knowledge-intensive activities that contribute to advancement in technical and scientific innovation. ...

and what managers can do to remain competitive. According to Knowledge Management in the Public Sector, the main thrust of Spira's arguments is that software companies should develop new systems that are designed from the beginning for knowledge and information work but collaboration and knowledge sharing are "less a question of technology than of systems that facilitate people working together." Spira started researching the problem of information overload in the early 1990s and was interviewed in March 1993 by

CNBC CNBC is an American List of business news channels, business news channel owned by the NBCUniversal News Group, a unit of Comcast's NBCUniversal. The network broadcasts live business news and analysis programming during the morning, Day ...

on the topic. In 2003, he published research that assigned specific costs to components of the problem of information overload and in 2008 published an estimate of the cost of information overload to the U.S. economy ($900 billion per annum). In 2008, he helped found th
Information Overload Research Group
a business and academic consortium that is working to bring attention to the problem and potential solutions.

Books and publications

Spira is the author o
Overload! How Too Much Information Is Bad For Your Organization
published by Wiley in 2011. He is also the co-author o
The History of Photography
(Aperture, 2001), named a "best book of the year" by the New York Times
/ref> when it came out. He is the author of ''Managing the Knowledge Workforce: Understanding the Information Revolution That's Changing the Business World'' (Mercury Business Press, 2005). He has also written several major reports on

including ''Information Overload: We Have Met the Enemy and He Is Us''. He is regularly quoted by publications including the

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' (''WSJ''), also referred to simply as the ''Journal,'' is an American newspaper based in New York City. The newspaper provides extensive coverage of news, especially business and finance. It operates on a subscriptio ...

, the

Financial Times The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and also published digitally that focuses on business and economic Current affairs (news format), current affairs. Based in London, the paper is owned by a Jap ...

Business Week ''Bloomberg Businessweek'', previously known as ''BusinessWeek'' (and before that ''Business Week'' and ''The Business Week''), is an American monthly business magazine published 12 times a year. The magazine debuted in New York City in Septembe ...

, among others.

Notes

Sources

Basex Web siteThe History of PhotographyStrategic IntelligenceKnowledge worker: Do you relate?Lost knowledge: file not foundStep up to the knowledge economy
{{DEFAULTSORT:Spira, Jonathan American non-fiction writers Living people University of Pennsylvania alumni 1961 births