According to research firm Basex "information overload" is the problem of the year for 2008. Didn't they think this was a problem before now? I thought this was the problem of the year back in 2005 when we launched Attensa. Maybe 2005 was the year of RSS.  In any case, every problem of the year needs a solution of the year, so let's call 2008 the Year of Attention.

There is more nuance to information overload than just too much information. There's a productivity yin to the information overload yang. There's no doubt more information is pouring in from more places. New communication and social networking tools make more information available and contribute to information overload, but these tools solve other problems and are,in their own way, efficiency drivers. While information overload cuts into productivity, the ability to access information from anywhere, the real-time delivery of information from multiple sources and the improving the quality of the information itself drives productivity.

RSS and Attention tools for the enterprise like Attensa are bringing the power of context, relevancy, urgency, organization and discovery to bear on information overload with:

• reading tools that give us the information we want, when we want to see it, the way we want to see it
• reading tools that get information out of the inbox and into contextually organized folders
• customizable reading tools that make it easy to rapidly scan through content
• automatic delivery of fresh insights and perspectives that spur innovation
• persistent search that continuously delivers up to the minute relevant information and eliminates time spent searching and surfing
• attention driven technologies that automatically sort and prioritize information based on our unique reading behaviors
• trusted community filtered information that can be easily discovered and streamlines collaboration
• attention analytics and reporting that can reveal the real value of content and information streams

For the enterprise there's an inevitability to all of this. Here's to innovative organizations that are coming to grips with information overload and attention. For these first movers, 2008 is off to a strong start.