IBM has released a report suggesting the evolution of the consumer as an informed and analytical agent rather than simply a passive entity looking to be chauffeured along the zipping highways of the interwebs.

Big Data has been a buzzword for several years now in a world dominated by endless streams of online information. “Information overload,” and strategies for managing it, have been very popular in the past few months: Fast Company, Wall Street Journal, and The Guardian have all approached the issue.

Yet the concept is nothing new – futurist Alvin Toffler first popularized this term in his 1970 book Future Shock, which looked forward to how technology would change individual lives and coping strategies. The term was actually introduced 6 years earlier by Bertram Gross in his book The Managing of Organizations, where he defines information overload thusly:

Read full story at: http://www.tnooz.com/2013/01/04/news/passive-no-more-all-hail-the-rise-of-the-analytical-consumer-infographic/