This blog is about making information more useful, so it may seem out of place to talk about sharing.  But this post is about sharing information, and the act of thoughtful and generous information sharing is fundamental to making information more useful for all of us.  Selfless sharing also has side benefits like improving the size and strength of your social networks and increasing happiness, but let’s first focus on how information sharing allows us to take control of the information that matters.

We have said it before, but consider all of the information being produced on a daily basis.  Only a very small fraction of that information is going to be relevant to any one of us.  Who has the time to find the important and relevant bits?  Individually, we don’t stand a chance.  There are lots of ways we can try (many of which are discussed on the blog), but a single person just can’t keep up.  The answer is to look at what we can do collectively.  All together, we can consume and filter a lot of information, and the act of sharing is what enables everyone to benefit.  Of course, all sharing is not equal.

Effective Sharing

The effectiveness of sharing is proportional to the level of personalization, thoughtfulness, and selflessness.  These three things are very important.

First, lets consider personalization by breaking information sharing down into three different types:

• Sharing publicly – this is sharing information in a public forum like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, or on a blog.  Sharing information this way is generally not very personal. The most effective public information sharing usually comes from people who consistently share good information on a particular topic.  By doing this, they build up followers who are like-minded and interested in the same information. In a way, this makes their public information sharing more personal.
• Sharing to a group – sharing information to a [relatively small and like-minded] group is more personal than sharing publicly, and is typically done in some sort of online forum, email distribution, or newsletter.  Groups share common characteristics, and information sharing can be personalized to be more useful to people with these same characteristics.
• Sharing to an individual - sharing one-on-one to another individual is as personal as it gets.  Emails, twitter DMs, phone calls, and face-to-face conversations are examples of individual information sharing. By knowing exactly who you are sharing information with, it can be extremely targeted and personal (and hence, more useful).

By the way, the opposite of personalized information sharing is information spamming.  Constantly spewing information can cause more harm than good.  Think of personalization as a filter, not a fire hose.

Next, let’s see how thoughtfulness and selflessness lead to effective information sharing.  Thoughtfulness implies thinking about how shared information will impact the people you are sharing with.  Randomly spamming people with information that has no relevance to them is not useful.  However, information that is carefully considered and deemed useful can be of tremendous benefit.  This is where the benefits of sharing goes into overdrive, and it requires us to constantly think about how the information we are consuming can impact others.  In addition to thoughtfulness, it is important that sharing information is a selfless act – meaning that it is an act of generosity, not for personal gain.  When you start keeping score, or you adopt a tit-for-tat mentality, you are no longer acting selflessly.

The fact is that everyone wins when we all share information that is personalized, thoughtful, and selfless.  The power of social networks is unleashed, and we become a collective group of information filters for one another.

Take Personal Action

To improve the effectiveness of your information sharing (and we all have some room for improvement), you must take personal action.  What can you, as an individual, do to enable collective information sharing?  For starters, try to do more of the following:

1. Build your social network - You can’t share information if you have nobody to share it with.  Most of us have some friends and family to share with, but there are ways to grown your network (and sharing information will help strengthen those connections).  Try to keep track of new people you meet.  What are their interests, hobbies, jobs? Keep them in mind when you are consuming information, and be sure to share when you get the chance.  It is also useful to become affiliated with groups who share common interests with you.  Share the information that you find to be important, and the community will return you the favor in spades.  Find ways to grow the number of people you interact with on a regular basis, and you will have a solid foundation for both sharing and receiving information.
2. Share information that is personalized, thoughtful, and selfless – As explained previously, make your information sharing as effective as possible by targeting it at specific people, groups, and niche areas.  Think about how information is going to benefit others before you pass it along, and most importantly, share information generously, not because you expect to get anything in return.
3. Express thanks to others who share information with you – This is important and possibly overlooked.  You want to encourage others to share effectively with you (and others).  By acknowledging the generosity of others, you will make them feel good about their act and make it more likely that they will share with you again in the future.  Don’t feel guilty when someone helps you out by sharing a particularly important tidbit of information.  Thank them, and explain how this act of sharing helped you. Allowing other people to help you is just as important as finding ways to help others.

Side Benefits

It may be enough that information sharing increases your exposure to useful, and relevant, information.  But there is more.  Sharing and generosity have a way of improving and increasing your connection to other human beings, which in turn leads to higher levels of success, fulfillment, and happiness.

The best thing about sharing and generosity is that it benefits everyone.  If you see life as a zero-sum-game, then you may view sharing really good information as a competitive disadvantage (someone else will steal some of your potential success).  But  success is unlimited, and the more we share information effectively, the more success everyone will achieve.

“Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.” – Buddha

“Humans understand how favors work. Doing and trading favors is woven into the fabric of our culture. When people are recipients of a favor, it’s in their nature to want to pay it back. Doing nice things does make people feel good, but there’s neurology behind it, too. We want to pay people back because it is in the nature of a community to do so; it keeps communities strong and protected against the outside world.” — Chris Brogan

The benefits of sharing and generosity, and the resulting increases in social connection, happiness, and success are well-documented (and won’t be rehashed here).  But if you are interested in investigating further, checkout these links:

• “The first person to get happy when deciding to do something for someone else is YOU”: Bob Thurman at TED.com
• Clay Shirky: How cognitive surplus will change the world
• The benefits of generosity, by David Philips
• The Boston Globe: How to Help (Yourself)
• A must-read eBook put together by Seth Godin
• Are you giving enough gifts?