From where I’m sitting it seems there’s has been a sociological wave that hit us in +/- the years between 1976/79. This wave had a little something in surprise, indeed; a second wave, which hit us round about 2004. It’s the second wave of the Information Era and it will change just about everything, from business to politics and from education to work.

I’ve started calling it the second wave due to the fact that the Industrial Revolution was divided into two parts. Part One was about the discovery of technology itself, the incredible efficiency of which humans all of a sudden seemed capable of in terms of production.

Part Two came when we started using these discoveries for exploration (physically as well as imaginary) and increasing connectivity between people and places. This resulted in developments such as railroads, the combustion engine and steamboats.

I feel the same has been happening in our Information Age. Despite the fact that it is not called a revolution (but than again maybe that’s more constructive), our world has drastically changed in the last 15 years. My parents, who have grown up with television being a new development, are now checking their email on their HTC and iPhone and are ‘friends’ of mine on Facebook. When at a party with friends, we switch seamlessly between playing someone’s own tunes (made on a music-software downloadable for free), to iTunes, to Spotify, someone’s iPhone, and on to the good old record-player, playing punk from the 70′s, skipping cd’s.

Let me elaborate on my (non-academic) theory of ‘the second wave’.

We are currently finding ourselves in a world which, through technological development, has brought us all so close together, it fits into our pockets. The start of Facebook (biography) and Hyves (Dutch, interview with founder), LinkedIn (interview with founder) in 2004 and the acceptance of Wikipedia as a trustworthy source of knowledge followed by the increased use (and importance) of social media in the media landscape. I believe this is the start of this second wave.

From the start of ARPANET to the point of acceptance of TCP/IP as the standard for ‘the internet’ (a term coined in december 1974), I think we can term this period (74-79) as the start of the Information Era.

What happened in the following decades is the kind of development one also sees when you start living with someone. Remarkable beauty, small irritations, inspiration, resistance of giving up certain boundaries, and slowly but surely a deeper integration of social structures of two entities.

With the arrival of the bigger social media platforms and the enormous flow of information we thereby started to release about ourselves, every social dynamic changes. An example thereof was my post about a guest-lecture by Hill & Knowlton, which got me in the picture with their marketing director and eventually led to being offered a traineeship with them (WPP). Or my friend Omar who after our adventure with Mr. Branson decided to start his platform for ambitious people which now scores over 10K hits a month. Or, Bas Grasmayer who before he finished his thesis became a blogger with Techdirt on future of the music industry.

We have reached a point in which media -and consequently the information-flow it creates, is now so dominant in how we live our lives that it has started to reflect in the ‘grander scheme of things’ in a way never imagined.

It started with WikiLeaks, it went on to bring over a 100,000 students to London in a protest against educational cuts and has now claimed to be the driving force behind the current uprisings in the Arabic world, whereby the happenings in Egypt were even baptised a ‘Twitter revolution’. Which is a ridiculous statement if you’d ask me. (As most of the communication took place through a muslim dating site, if I’m informed correctly.)

People, are waking up. People -quite possibly spurred by their knowledge of what is going on through the increasing amount of information and their increased ability of communication, feel more connected and are thus willing to risk more for what we here in the west consider ‘normal’.

So now what?

We have the power to re-structure and conceptualise the world. It will take a lot of bright minds, positive attitudes and the willingness to look out for others as you would for yourself. But as a civilian, consumer, parent, student, friend and lover, your every move has the potential to reach millions. What if we would rethink our use of the tools now so readily and freely available and decide to use it in a constructive, collaborative manner that enables us to take out the corrupt elements of our societies and create a more equal and honest playing field? Whereby responsibility for other human beings and the planet that gives us all this splendour, is made the highest good?

A small example is the accumulation of what we now call Wikipedia, the creation of Wikipedia cost 2,000,000 hours to build and is watched by 400,000,000 people every month. Which sounds like a lot but if you put that against the 4 hours of TV the average US citizen, day whom count about 300,000,000, watches every, it’s not that hard a sum to make.

Point being, we can together, tackle the problems of global warming, inequality, poverty and rising food-prices. All it takes is cooperation. Because whether or not we like it, and whether or not we feel it, we live on a planet that has X amount of space and X amount of resources which all of us need to sustain ourselves.