As Information Technology plays an outsized role in my daily life, even more so now that I am in school to study it, I find myself ingesting a lot of information on a regular basis.

For me, networking and cyber security are what I find myself studying in my spare time.

One thing I’ve learned (it took me quite a while) is that the flow of information is much like a raging river.
If you’ve ever been to Great Falls in Virginia, or on the Maryland side after a rain storm, you know exactly what I’m talking about when I use the term “raging river”.
It is always moving, always flowing, unbridled… the river refuses to be constrained. That to me is the best analogy for the rate of data flow in information technology.

And most times, I feel like I’m trying to capture as much as I can with a plastic solo cup.
It simply moves too fast, and there is too much of it to ever capture it all, certainly with only a cup in my hand.
Am I the only one who finds the rate and volume of information so overwhelming?

My approach, or roadmap for survival while navigating the IT landscape, is to ingest the information more slowly.
Each day I must walk down to the river and fill a cup or two, take them home to study them, and then return again and again for more cups.
Of course, this method always begs the question, “What did I miss?”. In my experience the answer is, the rest of the river.

There is simply too much information to ever possibly know it all. In this industry, you will flail and most likely go under if you ever try to swim in the river.
The life raft, or preserver that will keep you afloat if you do find yourself in the water, is specialization.
In order to survive the raging river of data in IT, you simply must learn to specialize, and resist the urge to try to know it all, or ever dip more than a few toes in that fast moving water.

The Internet, while being the greatest digital knowledge base humankind has ever developed, is rife with a multitude of competing ideas, approaches and philosophies, each claiming to be some form of authoritative information source.
This vast array of data is probably best approached with healthy, analytical skepticism, and if not for pure survival, a realization that not every piece of information is worth knowing or studying. We must be able to analyze and cross reference enough information for long enough, that we develop a sense for when the information is actually authoritative, and as close to the most accurate and current representation of the industry as possible.

Simply put, if you listen to enough people, read enough articles, and gain some hands on experience “applying the science” in real world scenarios, you will eventually develop a trustworthy instinct for what information has integrity and meaningful application.
With such limited time, I try to only listen to or read subject matter that will enhance my current understanding of a subject rather than reinforce what I already know. When learning or studying, I do my best not to wallow in the comfort of confirmation bias.
In scientific study, there is as much joy in being proven right, as there is in being proven wrong. I quite like being humbled by those who possess more knowledge of a subject than myself, those who realign my perspective while sharing their expertise.

It has been a long road so far – and I look forward to writing about it here and sharing my thoughts and experiences – and the things I discover along the way.