Information velocity & hermits.
Perhaps the most profound effect of the now almost ubiquitous availability of connectivity is the move from a communication landscape that is controlled by the few who have the capital to buy the gear and produce stuff with it, to everybody with a mobile phone being a producer.
The old world, where there were two options, one to many, as in the case of a publisher of any media, or one to one, as in the case the telephone and letter, is dead. Now we have many to many, and the old way has been swamped.
It happened in the London bombings in July 2005. The news of the bombings was broken by commuters with phones, and for a while those caught inside the security cordons set up were the only source of information. The news of the earthquake in China in 2008 exploded onto the net before the US Geological service posted news that an earthquake had happened onto its information site. It now happens every day, the NSW bushfires were first reported by passersby, and the alert mechanisms for places in danger now rely on social media.
On a similar, but far more personal vein, I heard of the death of Arran Swartz over the weekend via various blog sites I follow, but did not see the first news story until about 5 minutes ago. Vale a true activist innovator, gone way too young.
Marketers who wish to remain relevant need to adjust their thinking to accommodate and leverage this revolution in the velocity of information. Indeed, the only organisations unaffected are those that contain only one person. Hermits are pretty rare these days, and they probably have a phone anyway.
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