Cell Phone Usage Up 4X From 2002 – Good For Collective Wisdom

Back in 1989, I was a very young man employed as a project manager at a PC company called Emerson Technology.  At that time, cell phones were rare but were growing in popularity among executives.  Because of my job, I often had a cell phone at my disposal and people used to stare at me in disbelief that a guy as young as me would be talking on a cell phone.

This morning, AP reported that now 6 in 10 people in the world have a cell phone and the subscriber base has grown from 1B in 2002 to 4.1B at the end of 2008 (http://tinyurl.com/blmege).  Surprisingly, fixed or LAN line usage only increased from 1B to 1.27B during that same time period.  Internet usage is only at 23% of the world’s population. 

In our history, the greatest technologies invented have been related to transportation, energy and communication. In reality, both transportation and energy inherently powered better communication.   Think what the combustible engine and the airplane both have done for business.  For many people who live in third world countries, this new level of communication means new power: power to call the doctor when their child is sick, power to call a neighbor for a ride to the local village, power to call a relative and ask to borrow money.  More importantly, this gives them the power to have their “say” in the world. 

Each person in the world has something to contribute in some way, shape, or form; whether it’s an experience, opinion, vision or idea.  Without proper communication systems, the rest of the world misses out on these valuable treasures.  With this new adoption rate of communication technology, we are now able to begin to harness this information as a collective wisdom.  If information is power and communication is the conduit to that power, I see this increase in a “connected” world as one of our most valuable and powerful tools.  Once this collective wisdom has been harnessed and made accessible, this tool can be applied to almost an infinite amount of problems and opportunities alike.

The Crowd is gathering………….

(The Crowd launches at the end of April 2009)