How Much Change Will We See In the 21st Century?, by Daniel Burrus

If you look at the past and the near future you realize that nothing has changed and everything has changed. People are people with the same emotions and basic needs as early man. We have always laughed when we were happy and cried when we were sad. Sometimes we laugh so hard we cry and cry so hard we break out and laugh. There have always been rich and poor, tall and short, sane and crazy, good and evil, and countless other dualities throughout time.

Relationships have always been and will always be based on trust. Communities, whether small towns of the 1920s or electronic communities of the late 1990s, all had commonalties, if they were to flourish, such as a common purpose, shared values and a focus on knowledge sharing for the benefit of the community. Some things never change.

On the other hand, some things always change. Our world has always changed in both expected and unexpected ways. Think of how the global economy has changed in the past decade. Think of how it has changed in the past two years! In the 1980s and 1990s, the Japanese seemed on top of the world, with amazing levels of quality and manufacturing capabilities. Today, they struggle as the United States leads the world in the e-business revolution.

When a technology satisfies a social need a revolution is created. One of mankind`s biggest needs is to communicate with each other. Since the dawn of mankind, we have had an abundance of news to share and stories to tell. Perhaps it all started around the flickering light of a campfire. What if you needed to know some vital news, but couldn`t attend the gathering? Smoke signals, of course, and that innovation gave a huge competitive advantage to the inventors.

Whenever an innovation lifts our ability to communicate, status quo is disrupted and things change. Whether it`s a printing press or a telegraph, each time we moved to the "next level" of communication, someone had a huge new advantage and the word spread fast. But not as fast as today!

In the past, revolutionary technologies did not create a sudden revolution; they changed the direction of a relatively slow evolution. For example, one hundred years ago, at the dawn of the 20th century, advertisers talked of the hot growth in a new communication device, the telephone. But, even the spread of the telephone throughout the early 1900s was relatively slow.

The time it takes to get from invention to flash point takes time. (Flash point is a term I use to describe a point in time when a product is considered a necessity by the masses -- masses meaning 50 million people in the U.S., smaller numbers in smaller countries.) For example, fluorescent lighting took 82 years to reach its flash point, the ball-point pen took 50 years, the zipper took 32 years, radio took 30 years, and television took 13 years.

The Web reached its flash point in the U.S. in four short years! Why is this Web-enabled revolution spreading so much faster than any other technology-enabled revolution? Go back about four paragraphs in this article: when a technology satisfies a social need a revolution is created. The Web does greatly enhance our ability to communicate (a social need) by taking it to a new, powerful, global level. But that`s only part of the answer.

In the old days you couldn`t turn on a television and watch global news (like CNN) in real time. There wasn`t global competition like we have today, with each company trying to put out new products and services faster than the competition. There weren`t inexpensive, powerful computers that could be easily connected to the Internet. There wasn`t an easy way to navigate the Internet. There wasn`t IPO fever. In addition, the downsizing of the early 1990s and the merger mania of the mid and late 1990s taught young and old alike that lifelong employment was indeed an obsolete concept and that big business had no employee loyalty. The result was huge numbers of people wanting to start their own businesses.

Since the cost of starting a new global company (in the digital world) can now happen fast and without a lot of capital, the race is on and the revolution will continue. For example, in 1863, John D. Rockefeller invested $4,000 in an oil refinery and it took him 40 years to become one of the world`s first known billionaires. In 1994, Jeff Bezos took a few thousand dollars and started Amazon.com and it took him only four years to become a billionaire. The result? Millions of people are looking at the .com revolution and starting new businesses. Think of it as the great gold rush of the new century.

Wealth is being created faster than any other time in history. The early part of the new millennium will even see the world`s first trillionaire. Yet, according to the latest figures, 30% of the worldÕs population (1.3 billion people) live on less than $1.00 a day. Over half the world`s population (3 billion) live on less than $2.00 a day. The gap between the rich and the poor will grow faster, and that spells trouble. History teaches us that anytime the gap between the rich and the poor grows to a certain level, there is social and political unrest, often resulting in bloody revolution and/or war.

What will the wealthy do with their wealth? Will we, the wealthy nations (and individuals) of the world, do something to narrow the gap between the rich and the poor? This is not predictable, but a recent study points out a disturbing trend. In the 1998 tax year it was found that 45% of the highest net-worth households in Silicon Valley gave less than $2,000 to charity annually. And, in 1999 the United Way of Santa Clara County, California (the Silicon Valley branch) ran out of money. Let`s hope this is not a trend!

To See What`s Ahead, Look Behind

We have just said goodbye to the 20th century and it was filled with creativity, innovation and change. How much innovation and change will we see in the century ahead? You haven`t seen anything yet.

One way to get a feel for how dramatic the changes will be is to look at history and see how dramatic the changes were in the last century. As you look at each item and the date, think of what it was like before and after the changes each caused. Look for patterns of change that might repeat, using today`s emerging technologies. For example, it wasn`t that long ago that the first voice and music were broadcast on the net. Slightly less than 100 years ago the first voice and music were broadcast by radio. Look for patterns that might repeat in the virtual world. Look for patterns that you could create.

A Century of Innovation and Change

*1900 First escalator (Gimbel`s Dept. Store, Philadelphia)

*1901 Gramophone introduced (a way to listen to recordings on shellac disks)

*1902 Electric typewriter introduced

*1903 First powered flight by the Wright Brothers

*1906 First voice and music broadcast by radio

*1908 Ford`s Model T introduced (at $825)

*1909 First motion picture company

*1909 First plastic from synthetic materials

*1912 First diesel locomotive

*1913 Assembly line created by Ford (each worker in one place with one task)

*1913 First multi-engine plane is flown (in Russia)

*1920 First commercial radio broadcasts begin (KDKA, East Pittsburgh)

*1925 Electronic recording

*1927 First transatlantic telephone service (links London and New York)

*1927 First demonstration of a television in U.S.

*1928 First magnetic recording tape

*1936 First commercial passenger plane (Douglas DC-3)

*1937 Invention of the jet engine

*1936 First practical helicopter

*1939 First transatlantic passenger service (Pan Am)

*1939 DuPont introduces nylon

*1941 First television commercial for Bulova watches ($10 dollar ad)

*1946 First electronic digital computer (ENIAC)

*1947 First drive-in banking (Exchange National Bank, Chicago)

*1947 Transistor invented (Bell Labs)

*1947 First round-the-world airline service (Pan Am)

*1948 12-inch, 33-rpm vinyl LP album introduced (medium of choice by 1966)

*1949 First workable color TV

*1951 First planned residential community (17,447 look-alike homes in New York)

*1952 First bank credit card (Franklin National Bank, Franklin Square, NY)

*1953 First IBM computer (the IBM 701)

*1953 First commercial transcontinental flight (TWA, Lockheed L-1049C)

*1954 Solar cell invented (first used in orbit in 1968)

*1955 First nuclear submarine

*1956 First practical videotape recorder

*1957 First satellite

*1957 First production of Boeing 707 jet

*1959 Microchip invented by Texas Instruments

*1960 First laser

*1961 First color TV prime-time program (NBC`s Wonderful World Of Color)

*1964 Word processor invented

*1065 Eight-track audio tape introduced

*1967 First barcode used in supermarkets (Kroger)

*1969 Internet is created (called ARPANET)

*1969 First ATM machines

*1970 Microprocessor created by Intel

*1970 Video disk (black and white)

*1971 First pocket calculator

*1972 First stand-alone video game (Pong)

*1972 HBO begins with 500 subscribers (in Wilkes-Barre, PA)

*1975 First home video game (Atari)

*1975 First use of satellites for global television transmission (Ali/Joe Frazier fight)

*1976 RCA markets the first VHS

*1976 First commercial supersonic jet flights (FranceÕs Concorde)

*1977 First fiberoptic telephone link

*1977 U.S. space shuttle

*1977 AtlantaÕs WTCG becomes WTBS, using satellites to send its signal to cable

*1979 Sony Walkman introduced

*1979 IntelÕs 8088 Processor introduced with 29,000 transistors

*1980 First all news television starts (CNN)

*1980 IBM introduces its version of the Personal Computer

*1980 Laser video disk (color)

*1983 First compact CD introduced

*1983 Apple introduces the Macintosh computer

*1985 Nintendo introduced in the U.S.

*1992 Hypertext is developed (the words you click on to go to another site)

*1992 The language (HTTP) to make Hypertext work

*1993 First Pentium processor by Intel (3 million transistors)

The rest you know...

So, how much change will we see in the 21st century? It`s easy to predict that we will all see far more than we have ever seen in the past. Broadband wireless communications will revolutionize how we live, work and play, as will ultra-intelligent electronic agents, biometric identification systems, and wearable computers, to name a few. Soon we will have instantaneous translation of all major languages as you speak on the phone. We will be given a blood test to identify any of the 4,000 known genetic diseases and if you inherited any one of them, you will be given lifestyle counseling and, in some cases, gene therapy to correct the problem before it happens. Yet, some things will never change because human nature remains the same.