Information overload is felt by us all.  Simply put, there is too much information and too little time.  In response to this problem, a wide range of companies are providing information searching, filtering and sorting services to help people find relevant information. 

Smart Brief is one such example.  According to their website, is "a media company with a mission to save you time and keep you well informed."  They pick, distill and disseminate what they consider the best and most important news stories on a specific topic on a daily basis.  They send these stories to their users via a nicely formatted email with roughly 8-10 story summaries and links per day. 

Smart Brief has a very clever business model.  They partner with trade associations and corporations to produce industry specific "smart briefs".  This allows them to co-market with their partners.  It also means they have smart briefs on a wide range of industries.  I subscribe to 3 of their briefs: NFIB's Small Business smart brief, IAB's advertising smart brief, and their new leadership smart brief. 

I don't think Smart Brief does a better job of scanning for stories than I do.  And I still scan the Internet for information on small business.  But they do some of the work for me, they do it for free, and they save me time.  Hard to argue with that. 


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