Do You Suffer from Information Overload?

I received a press release last week that actually caught me by surprise. It was from a company trying to raise awareness about a new medical condition. Why on earth would they send me, a small business blogger, a press release about a medical condition? While I think it’s important to make people aware of pressing health issues, they have no direct relevance to the small business community. Needless to say, I was confused.

As I read on I found that the company trying to raise awareness was Xerox, “the world’s leading document management technology and service enterprise,” and the medical condition they were referring to was Information Overload Syndrome (clearly a made-up syndrome). Basically Xerox is creating an entire campaign around this idea of information overload, and they’re doing it in a pretty creative way. They’re humorously approaching IOS as if it’s a real medical condition. In the release they cite causes and side effects.

“It is the result of trying to manage 18 Exabytes (eighteen zeros) of non-stop information that comes in the form of emails attachments, text messages, thought-starters and FYIs. As a result sufferers of IOS will find accomplishing the simplest of everyday tasks nearly impossible.”

What they’re really doing is trying to get you interested in some of their new products aimed at alleviating the pains of information overload. I imagine there’s a ton of money wrapped up in this IOS campaign, so I’m interested to see how it all works out for Xerox.

Have a great weekend!