Google's Take on Culture Today

The question was "So what really is different now?" and it was asked to Google's chief executive, Eric Schmidt, by Steve Lohr from the NYTimes. The feeling that there's an acceleration in the pace of life and in lifestyle as a whole is circling everyone I've talked to on the matter, and it seems that others have the same feeling. The most iconic example of what's it about is Google, and that is why Schmidt was the one selected to answer the question.

He highlights that Google is trying to prevent every desire of its users, in order to not get caught on the back foot and stay ahead of times. The biggest challenge there is, he says, is that of the changing nature of time. "The relentless pace of technology improvement continues to make time management more and more critical for business leaders. While this has certainly long been true, the big difference now is the immediacy of information and action. Technology's primary role has long been to speed up the transfer of information but now we increasingly contend with its unpleasant byproduct, information overload."

In other words, he's saying that everything must be available the instant it is asked for, and that there should be something that ought be able to sort through the ocean of information and deliver, instead of sinking in it. I'm not sure I'm comfortable with that, the speed and pace of the development is way too much for anyone to be able to catch its trail, and the short attention span that this has as a side effect is nothing to dream after.

The new era has several principles, made short by Greg Sterling of searchengineland.com: "1) no falsehood can last, 2) people expect an immediate answer, 3) you can measure everything, 4) managers need new ways to listen to information and uncover the gems." Add to this what I mentioned before and you'll see a bright fa�ade of continuous new findings, shadowing a decrepit and condemned human architecture. The same Greg Sterling concludes asking what comes after this era, the ADHD decade?