“Every day we produce as much content as was produced by all of mankind for the 20,000 years before 2003” [Eric Schmidt, former CEO, Google] (quote from Seth Godin’s book ‘we are all weird‘)
Actually this quote is wrong. This content is not only produced. It is published. And that’s what makes the difference.
Think about it.
Think about that incredible amount of information at our fingerprints.
And think about how easy it is today to access and find any kind of information from anywhere in the world.
Latest stats from Facebook: more than 250 million photos uploaded every day, 800 million users, half of which connect every day. Twitter: 300 million tweets are sent every single day. There are millions of blogs. 135 million professionals on LinkedIn.
“Every day we produce as much content as was published by all of mankind for the 20,000 years before 2003″
And you’re still not a believer of the Fourth Revolution?
Building on failure is another skill of the K.E.E.N. This interview of Seth Godin is a real eye-opener on the power of failure, and in general, the skills of the K.E.E.N.
Seth gives also deep insights on the new world that is awaiting us: remember – the concept of climbing the career ladder is bust !
The fundamental difference is about succeeding in scaling the activity.
Scalability is difficult. In the book Founders at work: stories of startups’ early days, which accounts many stories of IT and internet startups, most if not all stories revolve about the problem of physical scaling, e.g. servers and databases. When a service becomes successful, a single server is not enough; you need more, and then the scalability problems start, because you need to synchronize everything seamlessly. Those startups that succeeded managed their scaling problem quickly and efficiently enough.
Similarly, many startups need to overcome the process scalability problem: how to reproduce, or model, a successful pattern of work set by the founder.
Because scaling is indeed a very difficult problem, some people just decide it is better to avoid it. For example, in the field of consulting, Alan Weiss (author of “million dollar consulting” and many other bestsellers) is adamant that it is much better to work for one’s own rather than bother trying to manage others or trying to scale into a full-fledged consulting practice. He prefers to have alliances and subcontractors when he needs more production power.
The problem is that by avoiding the scaling issue, you will never effectively build an entity that will have a life of its own (you will never be an ‘Entrepreneur’). You will not benefit from the value of leveraging a group of diverse talents to achieve a given goal. You will not be able to spread geographically, or to touch a large number of people with your great service or message. In brief, you will fall short of your potential impact on the world.
So, scalability is a problem that should be dealt with upfront, together with the business plan or other planning considerations for the new venture. A scaling plan needs to be put in place so that the infrastructure, the organization, the processes, take into account scalability from the beginning.
Don’t shunt this step out of the preparation. Work out your scaling plan today!
Do you believe things change quickly? Facebook, today, represents the same size than the entire internet network in 2004.
Facebook-net
And remember that Facebook service was launched in… February 2004!
The internet itself has bloated dozens of times.
17 years ago, when I graduated, email was still a rare thing reserved to companies and universities.
Let’s just put that in perspective: in less than 20 years our way of communicating has changed dramatically. In less than 7 years internet has become social. Many people could not think about communicating without Facebook and Twitter.
The tools are here. The social and political consequences might take some more time. Still, they are inevitable. The Fourth Revolution is here.
The world acts today as if governments still lived in the good ol’ days of powerful national economic policy.
That’s just obsolete.
The crisis in the Euro zone shows that economies are truly interconnected, even between continents. We know that there will be soon a dollar crisis as there is currently a euro crisis (the same causes, debt, necessarily causing the same effects). The rest of the world can’t just watch doing nothing. We are too interconnected today.
This extremely interesting piece of research about how interconnected private companies really are gives another highlight. Unfortunately the “Big Brother” pitch of the article is I believe, wrong. It is not that a small number of companies would control the world; it is that a limited number of companies are central nodes in the network through the quality and density of their connections. In the terminology of Gladwell, they are ‘mavens’.
A fully interconnected world
The big economic powers of the previous century are not really economic power in the sense of imposing their will; they are well connected nodes in a worldwide economical network.
Our governments must stop behaving as if we were 50 years ago. The solutions to the 1929 crisis won’t apply today.
We are all interconnected. We not only need an economical coordination at the European level, we need one at the Global level. The Fourth Revolution will change forever the balance of power from the Industrial Age; adjustments will be difficult but necessary. Only with the right coordination of economic policy will their effects be more smooth, avoiding deep, damaging crisis.
Ladies and gentlemen in government, the Fourth Revolution is here. Be proactive. See that we are all interconnected and act in consequence. Will you?
One of the most useful discoveries of the Fourth Revolution period is our understanding of how our body and our brain are interlinked. It has huge consequences explained in the Fourth Revolution book, and also in the Fourth Revolution Manifesto part VII (p16 and following).
I have been raised in a very rational household where the brain capabilities were praised and the body was discounted as some inevitable and annoying appendix. The thing is that there are more and more proofs that our body participates significantly to our intelligence and our cognitive abilities. Our emotions (bodily reactions) do in fact influence our actions – for our good most of the time. And we know that our posture influences our mood and our receptiveness to others.
I have now the discipline of doing some easy deep breathing exercises in the morning for only 5mins – and it really changes my day. When do you start having routines acting on your body to work on your mood and your cognitive capabilities?
OCDE vs emerging countries: GDP per capita over time
It shows the evolution over time of the ratio of the GDP per capita of a choice of emerging countries (Brazil, China and India) over the OECD average. There is no doubt in this graph that a convergence starts around 1994 – around the time the Fourth Revolution started, at least for India and China. This happens at the same time than the significant shift in the value creation chain in the 1990’s (see the post “Visualizing the demise of manufacturing“).
This convergence will continue. Ultimately the GDP per capita of China and India will be close (on average) to the OECD countries.
What will be the final outcome? For Robert Branche the outcome will be necessarily, a decrease of the standard of living in the OECD countries by about 50% until 2050. The reason stated is that the standard of living in the OECD is artificially high thanks to low-cost importations from China and India – which will become more expensive. Is that so problematic? It would mean that the standard of living would be back to say, the one the OECD had in the 1980’s. Is that a big issue?
While the worldwide economic convergence will probably accelerate thanks to the Fourth Revolution, the outcome, in terms of standard of living in developed countries, is more debatable. Developed countries will see significant changes in their economy; whether they lean into them or resist them will decide on their ultimate fate. Countries can go down in terms of standard of living very quickly (as in Argentina in the 1970 to 1990’s for example). On the other hand, if developed countries adopt the Fourth Revolution early enough, there is no reason why the standard of living, and the quality of life, should be significantly lowered.
In any case the world will see more shifts of wealth and standards of living in the next 50 years than in the 20th century.
Listen to the warning: let’s lean into the Fourth Revolution. That is the only way developed countries can preserve their future.
The financial world is going through a storm. The balance of economy is shifting. What was not a problem before (sovereign debt) is a problem now. Developed economies are in turmoil. Manufacturing and utility companies suffer. Stock markets undergo shock after shock. Still, the companies that embody the Fourth Revolution, those companies of the internet, do not seem to suffer. They continue to grow.
What happens?
historical railroad stock 19th century
An interesting similar situation happened in the 19th century when the development of railroad redefined the economy and value chain for many products. Many startups were created, that contributed to a fantastic development of the railroad network.
And the stock market suffered shock after shock as the economy adjusted to the new, tremendous value brought by speedy transportation. There were regular crisis, there were regular financial panics, in all developed countries like the US, UK or France. New and old companies collapsed.
Still the railroad networks continued to develop through the successive crisis and the economy really took all the benefit of the economies of scale brought by the Industrial Age.
The fact that the stock market suffers crisis is not just the result of speculation. It is a sure sign that the economy is trying to adjust to a significant shift of the value chain creation.
financial panic in the 19th century over railroad stocks
Like it happened in the 19th century, it happens again today. The pictures of the financial crisis of the 19th century remind us of those pictures of today.
The world struggles to adjust to a new balance of value creation, the value brought by the Fourth Revolution. It removes borders; it accelerates exchange of goods and ideas; it changes significantly the value chain by diminishing the relative value of extractive and manufacturing industries.
The current economic crisis is another precursor of the Fourth Revolution. We can help minimize its impact by recognizing that it is an effect of the Fourth Revolution. By leaning into it instead of adopting defensive positions.
Are you ready to shift to the Fourth Revolution value production and diffusion system?
The Fourth Revolution book has been downloaded HUNDREDS of time already since the promotion for a FREE download has started. THANKS TO YOU, it has made it already to the #2 bestselling book on Amazon.com Kindle shop for Leadership – category Free Kindles, alongside well known books and authors (see below)!
The Fourth Revolution book #2 in Leadership bestsellers on Amazon.com! (Jan 2 at 9pm Singapore time)
It has also made it to #4 on Amazon.co.uk Kindle store “management and leadership” category, #1 in Amazon.fr Kindle store english books “Futurology” category and #2 in Amazon.fr Kindle store “Leadership” category!
Still 36 hours to get your free Kindle copy and understand the Fourth Revolution – and thrive through the world’s transformation! Don’t miss the opportunity!!
At the time where we wish good bye to 2011 and we prepare ourselves for an exciting year 2012 ahead, I thought I would list the 10 most popular blog posts of the year for the Fourth Revolution Blog for your (re-)reading pleasure:
Today Amazon sells more digital books than physical books. This is a dramatic shift in this industry and publishers struggle to adapt. The struggle of an industry – an institution – seeing its Industrial Age business model crumble should not hide the most important: the actual dissemination of information.
e-readers like Amazon's kindle make people read more books
Overall, do people read less or more books than before?
According to this MediaPost detailed article and statistics, people who have bought e-books tend to download and read more books than before. It appears to be statistically significant.
Why is that? For sure, clever marketing by Amazon makes it easy to download and consume more. When it comes to reading, my own experience is that the small, lightweight and convenient size of e-books allows to read in many places like the underground train or whenever there is a short break. And I definitely read even more since I have an entire library inside my Kindle, making a switch from a book to another easy.
So, the introduction of e-books did not kill reading. It increased it, at the same time as it made many non-mainstream or old books available to everybody. And, taking into account the vast amount of other information we read on other media, such an availability of high quality information is unprecedented. It will necessarily be the source of many creative innovations.
Think about it. I can download on my e-reader in less than 1 minute any title available worldwide without the bother of the logistics of sending physical books over (and I am living in Singapore, so this problem is particularly sensitive!). WOW.
