Toffler: "The great, growling engine of change -- technology."

Nearly a quarter century after publishing his landmark "Future Shock," famed sociologist Alvin Toffler commented in a 1994 interview:

"...It occurred to us that big technological and social changes were occurring in the United States, but that the political system seemed totally blind to their existence. Between 1955 and 1960, the birth control pill was introduced, television became universalized [sic], commercial jet travel came into being and a whole raft of other technological events occurred.

Having spent several years watching the political process, we came away feeling that 99 per cent of what politicians do is keep systems running that were laid in place by previous generations of politicians. Our ideas came together in 1965 in an article called 'The future as a way of life', which argued that change was going to accelerate and that the speed of change could induce disorientation in lots of people.

We coined the phrase 'future shock' as an analogy to the concept of culture shock. With future shock you stay in one place but your own culture changes so rapidly that it has the same disorienting effect as going to another culture."

Disorientation ripples? Yeah, think he put his finger on it...

Now just imagine if Toffler had written "Future Shock" not in 1970 but in 2009, after watching "Social Media Revolution." The attached video is picking up more and more attention. Sure, some are skeptical about some of the factoids producer Erik Qualman blasts you with ferocity, and a whole lot of rhythm.

It nevertheless is a stark, compelling wake-up call about the nor'easter winds of change engulfing us.

"BryanSD" commented on another blog carrying this video:

"My wife and I got an unsettling reminder," he said, "of the changes happening in IT just a few weeks ago.

After trying to call teenage baby sitters, we recently found that a lot of the girls prefer us to send text messages to their cell phone and not leave voice messages. In fact some of the teens don't (or won't) use their cell phones to talk but instead only to text message. To many in that demographic...to actually use the cell phone to talk is considered uncool and not really a part of their culture.

If the tech culture of the youngest generation is changing so fast that cell phones aren't being used for vocal communication...you can imagine the impact this generation is going to have on content management...."

Point taken. Now sit back and watch the video. On your computer.


P.S. I got it from a friend.....in a big ol' village called Facebook.