Source: Zulu Delta 45

Ahh! remember when…

• Phones were fixed-line only and had dials not buttons?
• You had to place a needle on a spinning vinyl disk to play music?
• Cameras recorded images on film not microchips?
• A terabyte of data required a mainframe rather than a pocket-sized external drive?

We’re living in an era when the pace of change is exponential. Advances in technology are of course the driver and this affects everything – the way we work, our domestic lives, the way we learn, the way we relax. And we’re getting used to change. In the past people often resisted change; now more often we welcome it! The pace of adoption for new technologies is far more rapid than it was a few decades ago – and the pace at which technology becomes out-of-date is also more rapid. What was big news two years ago seems ordinary now.

Source: Toonpool

What we’re witnessing all around us are events which mathematicians would call “discontinuity”. What this means is quite literally a break in a continuum. A game changer. And the mathematical analogy gives us a neat visual to express it.

Source: Amnesia Razorfish

Here we have time on the horizontal axis and “utility” or usefulness of a technology on the vertical. Utility climbs steadily until substitutes emerge, and every so often the advance in technology is so dramatic that utility for the old technology doesn’t just slow down, it comes to a shuddering halt and the processes which rely on the old technology undergo a complete revolution. The new process or technology represents a “curve jumper”.

So what’s this got to do with marketing?

Well quite a lot actually. In just one decade marketers have been grappling with a series of technological changes which have dramatically altered the business landscape. Three key technology drivers working simultaneously have brought this about:

• The dramatic rise in availability, and popularity of the internet.
• The phenomenal changes in the power, speed and cost of data processing.
• The creativity and innovation in technological devices and applications.

You will see and learn about these changes as you progress through this course, but one example of discontinuity stands out perhaps more than any other in terms of its impact both on our lives as individuals, and in our working lives as marketers: The arrival of the smart phone.

Source: Amnesia Razorfish

The earlier step changes from landlines to mobile phones were dramatic, but limited to changes in telephony. The smart phone is so much more. It encapsulates all three of the major technological advances referred to earlier – internet, data processing and innovation in devices and applications.

You don’t just talk or text on the phone, you take pictures, you surf the internet, you play games, watch videos, read the news, share stuff on social media, monitor your heart-rate and fitness, find your way from A to B, check the weather forecast, tell the time and thousands of other useful functions.

Here is some interesting research from Di Marzio Research who have been monitoring changes in telephony behaviour since 2011. You can see that 79% of people now own a smart phone – more than the percentage of people who have a landline (73%) – and the trend will only continue. In the US, the number of households without a landline is almost 50% according to government data.

Source: Di Marzio Research

But before we move on – just pause for a moment and reflect on whether your business has been subjected to similar step-changes?

Has your market experienced discontinuity? What brought it about? How did it affect the way you do things? Is there a “new order” in place now? How have you had to change?