An Event of Staggering Proportions

What if I told you that you are living through one of the greatest events in human history – that you might not have noticed it – and that you are not alone? 

You are very likely familiar with these four truly pivotal events in human history - the development of the written word, Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press, the industrial revolution and the discovery of the Sony Playstation 2.

However, you might have missed something about the Internet – it’s size. “How big is the Internet?” you might say. I’m glad you asked.

If you put that question to the most popular search engines like Google, Yahoo or Ask your answer will come back to you in unique visitor statistics, jillo-bytes of data or the number of Uzbekistans with wireless connections.

Go ahead, try it if you don’t believe me.

For instance most Internet statistical experts now agree that we have passed the 1 billionth Internet user, over 3 billion residents of Hong Kong go online every year and something like 500 million people per day check the Internet simply to see if their flight has been delayed.

Honestly, they are likely doing a few other things after they check their flight, but if you do a “How Big is the Internet” search, you will almost never find information about the amount of information that has flooded onto the Web.

“Information about the amount of information.” That’s the great event that is going unnoticed. The amount of stuff that is now available at the touch of your fingertips dwarfs the amount of information that even the very best research librarian had just 10 or 15 years ago.

That’s because of hundreds of factors, but to simplify it is mainly because of old information now being digitized and completely new information now being produced every day.

In the category of old information, whole libraries of books are being digitized, decades of newspaper content are being archived and vast genealogical records are being entered, to name just a few.

In the category of new information, everyone from major corporations to best-selling authors to would-be journalists (politely called bloggers) are writing new stuff, as well as making tons of their old stuff available, much of it for free.

Expressions like “a tsunami of information” or “an explosion of material” cannot even come close to conveying the true magnitude of this gargantuan transfer of wealth. Let’s just say that to get a really good picture of how big Internet content is think of Brad Pitt’s ego – and then multiply that again by half.

There is so much information you might even feel overwhelmed. But, much of it can help you save time, some of it can help your company make more money and some of it can make a difference to your friends and family.

It comes down to this. The largest transfer of wealth in human history has been happening over the last few years of our lives. Yet, the story has been rarely documented and almost never featured on the covers of popular magazines.

Further, schools are not teaching how to mine it, entrepreneurial programs are not featuring how to harness its power and businesses are almost completely ignoring how it can empower and motivate their employees.

How is it possible for such a staggering event to go unnoticed, untaught and unappreciated? The honest answer is that we don’t know.

But, we do have some ideas – and we also have some examples that you’ll be able to put to use right away for your business and your personal life.

Come see us at the Wyospace.com Idea Expo in Casper, Wyoming September 26-28. Yes, you’ll see us, but you’ll also see a ton of other presenters and workshop leaders in this three day extravaganza of new ideas and creative thinking that is decidedly “not your ordinary business conference.”