The More Things Change, The More They Change

For those of you who are a bit overwhelmed by the rate of change we’re experiencing, here’s more reason to overwhelmed. Did You Know? is a short video based on a concept by Karl Fisch that lists some enlightening facts about our exponentially changing world. For example:

• 25% of India’s population with the highest IQ’s is greater than the population of the entire US. That means India has more honor students than the US has students.



• Information doubles every 2 years. That means that for a student pursuing a technical degree, what they learn will be outdated by their junior year.



• It took radio 38 years to gain 50 million users. It took television 13 years to do the same. It took the internet 4 years, iPod 3 years, and Facebook 2 years to reach the 50 million mark.

Now, I’ll assume Mr. Fisch has his facts straight. I guess I could go to http://www.snopes.com/ and check to see if it’s an urban legend. But the point is we’re in a world that is changing at a breakneck pace. The amount of information (correct and incorrect) is exploding. The way we get that information (print, online, social networks, and so forth) changes daily. The winners in this race will be those who can best distill the information into “This is what it means” and then “This is what we should do about it.”

For marketers, this translates into helping our companies or our clients articulate why we can solve a problem better than the other guy. It’s not about features and functions or speeds and feeds, it’s about results. And it’s about doing if faster than the competition.

By the way, in the time it took to read this post, 198 babies were born in India. We’d better get busy!