What will life be like when your iPhone is the size of a blood cell?
In the last issue of The Drum I was able to quote Shakespeare. This time round it’s Crocodile Dundee: “Well, you see, Aborigines don’t own the land. They belong to it. It’s like their mother. See those rocks? Been standing there for 600 million years. Still be there when you and I are gone. So arguing over who owns them is like two fleas arguing over who owns the dog they live on.”
The quote came to mind, when I was invited to speak at the recent SAScon in Manchester. The topic was – roughly speaking – how online has impacted on media. Tackling that topic head on made me feel like one of those fleas. The fact is, we are living through a third industrial revolution. It is so far reaching that it is not only changing the way we consume media, but the very way we live our lives.
The landscape has changed so fundamentally, that the old terms of reference that helped us navigate through our professional landscapes are being swept away.
For a start is it is getting harder to define what is now meant by media. There is no doubt it extends beyond traditional newspapers. But is it also Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn? Does it include the iPhone or iPad? Or when we get into the realms of the smart fridge, car or even toilet will that count; because no doubt they will be WiFi-enabled to some extent.
In my view when the smartphone is the size of a red blood cell, when everything from a house to a hamburger is 3D printable and we view the world through Google contact lenses, then the round green and blue ball that hangs in the blackness of space – currently called Planet Earth – will effectively become Planet Media.
Admittedly, this sounds a little OTT. But there is no doubt things are changing rapidly. At a recent Admonster OPS summit, Russell Buckley, the former chairman of the Mobile Marketing Association whose views we look at on page six of the current printed version of The Drum put this down to the phenomenon of exponential growth; when something doubles in size over a set period of time.
He gave the example of two drops of water being put in the centre spot of a vast football stadium, and asked how long would it be for those way up high in the cheap seats to be drowned, if the droplets doubled in volume every minute. The answer was around 46 minutes. But how much of the stadium had filled after 42 minutes? The answer: seven per cent. So effectively, four minutes before those in the cheap seats would be overwhelmed the stadium was still 93 per cent empty.
The morale? There is a good chance your business will be overwhelmed by a threat that is not obvious until it basically overwhelms you. Normal planning provides no real defence. The companies that will prosper through this period are those who are nimble, vigilant and are prepared to change at a moment’s notice.