By Marian Salzman
JWT

What a difference a decade makes. Around ten years ago, when my co-author Ira Matathia and I wrote the original Next, the world was a very different place. The changes are worth a book in itself, but following are a few standouts.

Then
On the political front, we were watching Russia feeling its newly post-Communist way under Boris Yeltsin’s erratic leadership; Europe was pulling itself together and shaping up to introduce the euro; Britain seemed intent on a fresh start under newly elected Tony Blair; the U.S. had just reelected Bill Clinton, who was relatively popular at home and abroad. Saddam Hussein ruled Iraq with an iron hand, and CNN conducted an interview with Osama bin Laden.

On the economic front, the U.S. was moving toward a balanced budget, and the dot-com boom was gathering pace in the West. Pundits were talking about the coming “Asian century,” and China was certainly attracting a lot of interest—although 1997 went down as the year of the Asian economic crisis. Crude oil cost less than $25 a barrel.

In the technology world, we were raving about the Internet, still a slow-paced novelty, and we were having a hard time persuading corporations to take it seriously. Cellular phones were mostly black and heavy with monochrome screens, VHS cassettes ruled the video market, virtually all cameras used film, and Apple Corporation looked to be on its last legs.

Now
Politically, the world is on high alert for the sort of suicide attacks that followed the big ones of 9/11. The U.S. has ousted the Taliban’s regime in Afghanistan and invaded Iraq; Saddam has been executed, but a civil war is breaking out. Meanwhile, in neighboring Iran, the fundamentalist Islamic government is building the sort of nuclear capability that Iraq was purported to have. President Bush is unpopular at home and reviled abroad, Tony Blair is preparing to bow out, Europe is fumbling vital reforms, and an elusive bin Laden now makes high-profile appearances on Al-Jazeera.

Economically, the U.S. is in deep deficit, the world has bounced back from the dot-com bust and is heading toward dot-com boom 2.0, manufacturing has moved en masse to China, and India has become the remote back office and IT center for major Western corporations. General Motors is about to be toppled by Toyota as the world’s No. 1 carmaker, and the Internet is dominated by Google, a phrase on no one’s lips in 1997. Crude oil can cost as much as $70 a barrel.

As for technology, cell phones have become small fashion accessories and powerful media centers; DVDs have replaced VHS tapes; and film cameras are all but relics. Apple is thriving, with no small thanks to its move into music. As for the Internet, we aren’t going around telling anybody that we told them so—honestly, that’s not our style. What’s certain is that it’s fast and getting faster, that there’s big money to be made, and that free Internet telephony is now threatening the traditional telecoms and even the wireless carriers.

So?
It’s tempting to think these changes are unprecedented in their scope and scale—tempting but, perhaps, arrogant. It’s a half -blind trend watcher who thinks only of the future without observing historical patterns.

Take another ten-year time bracket, 1936–46, when the industrialized world went from economic depression through a world war and on to postwar reconstruction. Military technology raced from bombs and biplanes to supersonic jets, ballistic missiles, atomic bombs, and radar. Tens of millions of people were killed, millions more were displaced, and the world split into two hostile camps.

Nevertheless, we believe change is now amplified and accelerated at a rate that bewilders many people, and not just those over 40. That’s because most of us are now connected in real time through a global and increasingly powerful network.

A product launched in one place can be reverse-engineered, copied, and produced on the other side of the world in a matter of weeks. This hard fact sits at the heart of the U.S.-China economic relationship, with the U.S. complaining that pirated and copied technology is a disincentive to innovation. Huh? If they can build them faster and cheaper, and sell them, they win — look at Lenovo.

Ideas build on ideas—they spread instantly through the Internet, they’re quickly picked up by the mainstream media and spread further, which then triggers new ideas. Today, change is building on change, which both speeds up the pace of change and makes the direction of change very unpredictable.