Information Overload

Here's a thought provoking post from Beyond Search on Information Overload.  The post discusses Stephen Arnold's reaction to Clay Shirky’s keynote at Web 2.0 Expo in mid September. 

Mr. Arnold posits that the flow of information is large and unexpected and that scaling it is difficult at best.  Enterprise systems don't work to optimal results.  He goes on to point out the deficiencies in social media tools as a way to manage information flow.

My reaction to this ongoing debate is that social media has it's advantages.   I find many Web 2.0 applications to be entertaining but for work flow and information management, I have no faith.  For instance, today I was searching for an info pro at a specific company and tried to use Linked-In the search parameters were great for a company search but filtering to a specific job type and city for a multi-national company lacked precision to say the least.  So for now, I'll keep Web 2.0 apps as my social connector and fun space and leave my searching and information management to tools that work slightly better or at least as expected.