Information Overload in the Cloud? Go on a Cloud Diet.

Wait a minute…is that even possible…information overload in the cloud?  I thought the cloud was an endless and infinite container of information we can click-to-get whatever data, video or images we desire, whenever and wherever we want?

Maybe so, but the challenge is the human brain—or our own “Cloud-in-the-Skull”, which has not quite kept up. Bummer.  In his book, The Information Diet:  A Case for Conscious Consumption, Clay Johnson contrasts Information Overload which is where there’s just too much information available to us from too many sources, all of the time with Information Over Consumption which is where we gorge ourselves on too much information—most of it now coming from one or more clouds onto one or more devices—anytime and anywhere we wish.  What is a human to do? Go on a cloud diet?

Companies like Nutonian help make sense of the big data overload in the Cloud using data science. And Amazon Web Services offers Amazon Machine Learning to help companies make sense of information overload in the cloud and get actionable value from the sea of information.

And then there is cloud-based software to help the cloud mimic some of our very own cloud-in-the-skull reasoning and analytics.  Check out Inter ana [PDF] for behavioral analytics. And since we use the cloud to be social on platforms like Facebook and Twitter, there are companies like Dataminr for real time information discovery based on who is tweeting what, about an event, from where and in real time!  This takes on the human functions of inference, analyzing trends and even predicting human behavior.

And check out the physically healthy side of the cloud where all sorts of quick and easy to consume videos about health are available at HealthGuru.

Wow.  Maybe we should just keep consuming all the cloud has to offer but with a just a bit more discernment and choice.  That way, we can feel contented versus stuffed and never need to go on a cloud diet!