The Sustainable Network

Chapter 26. Network Time

from the essay "Eureka," 1848

Space and duration are one.

— Edgar Allan Poe

Whether you are an individual, a business, or a government, the network is coming at you fast and furious. To be successful, you will have to adjust to network time. It's a major shift, a little like Einstein's spacetime,^[275] that opened people's eyes to the workings of the universe. In network time, you will have to seize upon opportunity as it quickly presents itself in the online world, you will have to find new and meaningful ways to sync the online and offline worlds together and profit from those connections, and you must be able to recognize shifts in the preferences and consumption habits being shaped by the world's online experiences. Oh, and if you're in business, you'll have to do it all before anyone else has a similar chance in order to maintain your competitive advantage.

Network time is about speed, and broadband is the key to the whole concept. Speed in accessing information, speed in understanding its value, and then, of course, speed to market is more critical than ever. We like Internet speed. It is nice to hear a song, find it, buy it, and download it while the melody is still fresh in your head. Speed has always been an advantage, but in this connected world, it is an imperative for ongoing relevancy, which is to say that if you are slow, you risk being irrelevant. ...