Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Size Matters and Shift Happens
By Brian Christopher

This came in an e-mail attachment as a PowerPoint from the Pennsylvania Department of Education today. The statistics are amazing. Viral communications at its best . . . .

Did You Know . . .
Sometimes size does matter.
If you’re one in a million in China . . .
There are 1,300 people just like you.
In India, there are 1,100 people just like you.
The 25% of the population in China with the highest IQ’s . . .
Is greater than the total population of North America.
In India, it’s the top 28%.
Translation for teachers: They have more honors kids than we have kids.

Did you know . . .
China will soon become the number one English speaking country in the world.
If you took every single job in the U.S. today and shipped it to China . . .
China would still have a labor surplus.
During the course of this 8 minute presentation . . .
The U.S. Department of Labor estimates that today’s learner will have 10-14 jobs . . .
By the age of 38.
According to the U.S. Department of Labor . . .
1 out of 4 workers today is working for a company they have been employed by for less than one year.
More than 1 out of 2 are working for a company they have worked for less than five years.
According to former Secretary of Education Richard Riley . . .
The top 10 in-demand jobs in 2010 didn’t exist in 2004.
We are currently preparing students for jobs that don’t yet exist . . .
Using technologies that haven’t been invented . . .
In order to solve problems we don’t even know are problems yet.
Name this country . . .
England in 1900.

Did you know . . .
The U.S. is 20th in the world in broadband Internet penetration.
(Luxembourg just passed us.)
In 2002 alone Nintendo invested more than $140 million in research and development.
The U.S. Federal Government spent less than half as much on Research and Innovation.
1 out of every 8 couples married in the U.S. last year met online.
There are over 100 million registered users of MySpace. (August 2006)
The average MySpace page is visited 30 times a day.

Did you know . . .
We are living in exponential times.
There are over 2.7 billion searches performed on Google each month.
To whom were these questions addressed B.G.? (Before Google)
The number of text messages sent and received every day exceeds the population of the planet.
There are about 540,000 words in the English language . . .
About 5 times as many as during Shakespeare’s time.
More than 3,000 new books are published . . . Daily.
It’s estimated that a week’s worth of New York Times . . .
Contains more information than a person was likely to come across in a lifetime in the 18th century.
It’s estimated that 1.5 exabytes (that’s 1.5 x 1018) of unique new information will be generated worldwide this year.
That’s estimated to be more than in the previous 5,000 years.
The amount of new technical information is doubling every 2 years.
That means for a student starting a four-year technical or college degree . . .
Half of what they learn in their first year of study will be outdated by their third year of study.
It’s predicted to double every 72 hours by 2010.
Third generation fiber optics has recently been separately tested by NEC and Alcatel . . .
That pushes 10 trillion bits per second down one strand of fiber.
That’s 1,900 CDs or 150 million simultaneous phone calls every second.
It’s currently tripling about every 6 months and is expected to do so for at least the next 20 years.
The fiber is already there, they’re just improving the switches on the ends. Which means the marginal cost of these improvements is effectively $0.
Predictions are that e-paper will be cheaper than real paper.
47 million laptops were shipped worldwide last year.
The $100 laptop project is expecting to ship between 50 and 100 million laptops a year to children in underdeveloped countries.
Predictions are that by 2013 a supercomputer will be built that exceeds the computation capability of the Human Brain . . .
By 2023, a $1,000 computer will exceed the capabilities of the Human Brain . . .
First grader Abby will be just 23 years old and beginning her (first) career . . .
And while technical predictions farther out than about 15 years are hard to do . . .
Predictions are that by 2049 a $1,000 computer will exceed the computational capabilities of the human race.

What does it all mean?
Shift Happens.
Now you know . . .

Friday, January 12, 2007

Manage Your Reputation

Reputation management must be part of your company’s comprehensive business strategy. It should be planned, managed and measure regularly. Researchers conclude that the beliefs of that company’s constituents, including internal and external, is measurable and should be assessed frequently. Here are some things to consider:

Integrating institutional brand strategies will favorably influence reputation and is required to achieve the desired results with key stakeholders. Trust and other value-based characteristics are also measurable items.

The ability to cast the brand relationships in terms of metaphors, anecdotes and your company’s story all become the basis for creating the language your stakeholders use in defining their relationships with your brand.

Maintain a focus on reputation to uphold a positive relationship among all investors, analysts, customers, employees and the community at large.

Translate your achievements into language stakeholders will respond to positively. In doing so, you can build a trophy case of awards and accolades that demonstrate third-party validation of your company’s reputation.