Reaching the youth

Print Action, Feb 2003 by Robinson, Jon

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Microsoft research predicts that by year 2020 the world's information base will be doubling every 73 days. Previously it took a century to double from 1810 to 1910. The world's information base then doubled again between 1911 and 1961 (50 years), and then it only took 15 years to double form 1962 to 1977 - and so on. Unfortunately, I'm not really sure if these statistics are true.

I do remember using the correct statistics once, a while back, in a PrintAction article. I had just attended a Thad Mcllroy seminar hosted by Agfa. It was the first engaging print seminar that I had been to. Mcllroy was very up front about the state of print. He shocked a lot of people that day. He shocked me when he threw out the statistic that by year 2020 the world's information base will be doubling every 73 days. That statistic I'm certain of.

I planned to go back and check on the other statistics, but, of course, I can't remember which article I used them in because they had nothing to do with the topic I was supposed to write on. Image it though: The world's information base would be doubling every 73 days sometime in my lifetime. Maybe it will happen sooner...what does Microsoft know? Come to think of it, I think I made mention that this was, in part, going to be driven by Microsoft's Teledesic Project (It's all coming back to me now...I may remember it before this is up).

So Teledesic was to be Bill Gates' proposed internet-in-the-sky, made up of 288 satellites orbiting the Earth in a longitudinal and latitudinal grid. This was the research I did for a few weeks after hearing the world's information knowledge base would be doubling every 73 days. I wanted to know how it was possible. Well, Teledesic - and most telecommunication strategies - was a little lofty. Not even two years ago, Gates and his co-investors still planned for the satellites to be launched in 2003. Now the whole product is dead.

Of course, it will be reincarnated at some point. And for now, having the ability to hit every square inch of the Earth with wireless-accepted information seems, to me, to be the only plausible way of spreading enough information around to have the world's information base double every 73 days. When does it begin doubling every 72 days?

I can't write this 73-day sentence enough it seems, but the thing is I remember becoming engaged in the printing industry the moment I heard that statistic. I looked at things a little differently, appreciated it a little more. This month's cover story tells a more important story of how a talented 18-year-old, who of course originally wanted to be a graphic designer, ended up enraptured by the graphic arts. And although his expertise is not in orbiting satellites around the globe, it does tell a story of how information is speeding up. More importantly, it provides an example of how printers can stay up to speed.

And the story also makes me wonder if the industry is tackling the problem of attracting talented youth in the right way. The Canadian Printing Industries Association consistently ranks attracting talented youth as one of the industry's top problems.

Still no idea what that article was.

Jon Robinson - Editor