The Web is 5,000 days old. I know this because I recently watched a TED.com video of Kevin Kelly reflecting on what the next 5,000 days might look like.
Kelly is a technology visionary, former publisher of the Whole Earth Review and an executive editor at WIRED. He knows his stuff. And when he says the impossible is possible, I’m all ears.
The machine and its consequences.
Kelly sees the Web becoming one global machine as it doubles in brainpower every 2 years. The consequences: embodiment, restructuring and codependency.
Embodiment represents interconnectivity, the idea that everything will have some “Webness” to it, from the chips in our cars and shoes to the ones in our pets. All devices serve as portals to the machine. Attention becomes the currency.
Restructuring is the idea that we’ve grown from linking computers to linking pages to now linking every idea to a specific representation of that idea. The result: a semantic Web that knows itself and creates meaningful connections and relationships on its own.
Codependency is the notion that we will be dependent on the machine in the same way that we’ve been dependent on the alphabet and writing to communicate. In many ways, we’re already there.
What this means is we need to rethink the Web. It’s going to be smarter than ever and be able to anticipate. Think of it as a big, reliable organization with zero downtime.
Agility to deal with the impossible.
Kelly says the first 5,000 days have taught that we need to get better at believing in and preparing for the impossible. As proof, he notes that anyone with the audacity to predict 5,000 days ago the cornucopia of things now available for free via the Web would have rightly been accused of being a “wowed-out Californian utopian.”
The only thing we can say with certainty now is it’s impossible to predict what’s going to happen in the next 5,000 days. In any case, the implications for marketing firms boggle the mind. We have lots of work to do.
One challenge is obvious. What do we do organizationally to deal with what the Web is becoming? We know it will be a revolutionary shift. We just don’t know how.
It’s a critical organizational challenge. At T3, our response has been to recruit and fill teams with people who have the mental agility and flexibility to deal with the changes, people who love to learn and who thrive on ambiguity.
I’m convinced that strategy will become the differentiating factor in solving the marketing challenges we face. As we attempt to deal with the changing array of choices and options available for insightful engagement with customers, we’ll need uniquely creative minds.
Sharing, transparency and small towns.
Another challenge we’re helping clients face is the growing transparency we see on the Web.
When I was growing up in small town Texas, we had no concept of privacy. Everyone knew exactly what everyone else was doing and what they were all about.
Social media has essentially led us to recreate more small towns — ones that are not constrained by geography. As people become more accustomed to the transparency in this new social environment, adoption is destined to speed up.
T3’s focus is on understanding the nuances of this new transparency. We know people have varying levels of comfort in sharing their personal information with marketers. We think the answer is to make sure that any exchange of private information is a valuable one. We want the customer to think, “If I share my information with you and I get relevant content and smart value back, I’ll be comfortable giving you more.”
On the flip side, we know if we misuse the information, customers will shut us out. Many marketers don’t yet understand how to manage that balance. It’s on agency teams to educate and show clients the segmentation models and messaging platforms that can help manage that dialog with customers.
Some researchers believe a model destined to succeed in this new age of transparency is the one where audiences allow companies to create interest groups that provide members with information in exchange for being marketed to. It’s a sharing model that is already in effect in some high-net-worth audiences.
A prime example of this model is Asmallworld.com, a private online community of entrepreneurial and business opinion makers and leaders in media, entertainment, fashion, the arts and sports. The site features forums, event listings, a personal messaging service, user ratings for travel and restaurants, and city-based resources.
Reaching into the Web and beyond.
As the Web evolves, I think physical restraints will be removed. You’ll be able to access whatever information you need at any time using your device of choice.
In effect, we’ll be able to leave our data and programs and social relationships in the Web and simply carry our “key” around to access that information.
With the growth of mobile platforms in countries not as constrained by regulations and legislation as we are, we’re moving quickly toward a very interconnected world, with huge social and geopolitical implications.
What does it all mean? If someone claims to know, call bullshit. No one really knows. But I know one thing with absolute certainty: the next 5,000 days is going to be one hell of a ride.
Lee Gaddis is chief operating officer at T3.
