The world has changed… (Part 1)

I mentioned this in my post last week. It’s a big claim and there is no shortage of articles across the internet that make the same claim. Politics, economics, covid, technology, to name a few sources, have all contributed to the sense of change that we feel as humans. I read some of the articles and understand their point of view - for the most part, they don’t cover what I am intending to discuss in this series of blog posts. So, if you are looking for what you typically find at the end of click bait - you can stop reading now. If, however, you are curious about how the change I will discuss is effecting your business - read on.

As this is a technology and business blog, you are correct to assume that we will focus on both. With technology and business as the focus, we are going to start in what may seem an unusual place - demographics. Since technology (or high technology) is really just the manifestation and support of human practices - that is, the practices that humans engage in to be productive. And, since increasing productivity is at the root of what drives software development and the rapid change that is occurring in the marketplace. I thought it best to begin with the changes in demographics and what they mean to your business.

Stick with me, I promise, this won’t take long…

Demographics is defined by Mirriam-Webster as: “the statistical characteristics of human populations (such as age or income) used especially to identify markets.” That definition is good enough for our purposes.

Our customers, vendors, employees can all be characterized using demographics - it is done all the time. It can show up in marketing analysis as the age, gender, location, income of your target market. If your target market is 5-year old boys, probably best not try to sell them automobiles. If your target market is 25-year old males, then cars is a good option. The study of demographics really just highlights the concerns that a group of people are trying to take care of, why they want to care for those concerns and how and when they will transact to acquire the type of care they choose. Let’s stay focused on that last part.

Today, 65% of the world population is of working age (United Nations / OurWorldInData). Because they are, we can imply that they are employed, they have money, and they are buying goods and services to take care of themselves. So, they must transact - and they do. It is worth noting that 65% of the population is about 5.25 billion people. That seems like a lot to me. In the US, that is about 218 million adults with money transacting for products and services.

In 1980, 59% of the world was of working age (United Nations / OurWorldInData). The percentage change between then and now doesn’t mean all that much for my purposes, but thinking about how people transacted then versus now does. In 1980, I was 16 years old. My parents recently got cable, the internet didn’t exist, the phone was hanging on the wall with a rotary dial, and Space Invaders was the hottest video game on the market. What do 16 year olds have access to now? Computing power in their pockets that is 100,000 times greater than the computing power required to land a man on the moon with 7 million times more memory…let’s just say, they may have the same or similar fundamental concerns, but exceedingly different capabilities that drive different preferences for how they want to transact for the care they require.

I think everyone would agree that the young today are digital natives - they grew up with the internet, computers, smart phones, and, because they did, they think differently than I did as a kid. Today’s 30 year old adults have never lived in a world without the internet. 23 year olds have never experienced a world that didn’t include smartphones. The world is much different and the concerns of that demographic has significantly been altered by the acceleration of technology development and adoption - they think digital first.

But, it isn’t just the “kids”.

Digital natives (those born after 1985) represent the young half of the current workforce. The older half of the work force (40-65) were working in businesses as the tech expansion happened and learned how to adapt to the technology changes as they occurred and adopted the technology that their roles required - at home and at work. These are the digital immigrants. This means most of the workforce has assimilated into this digital world. But many businesses are slow to transform their operations to keep pace with their employees and customers.

What do I mean? Checkout part 2 here.