2 Ideas (videos) that will blow your mind!

photo by kozumel

I’ve said it before, but we live in Interesting Times…sure there’s the downside of the economy and the constant drumbeat of all of the negative news out there, But there’s also an amazing upside – we are seeing things today that would have never been thought possible 50 years (maybe even 10 years ago).  In fact the overall progress that’s been made is nothing short of staggering.

In fact it’s mindblowing!

Want some proof?  Check out these 2 videos a couple of friends recently shared as great examples of amazing things that are going on.

200 Years, 200 Countries, 4 Minutes

First up is a fantastic video sent to me by my friend Mike Jones of the Jones Law Firm.  Mike’s a great attorney who primarily works with business owners, so if you’re looking for an attorney – I would highly recommend giving Mike a call.

Anyway, Mike passed along a fantastic 4 minute video from a guy named Hans Rosling – this is actually a clip from a longer BBC program called The Joy of Stats, but despite the nerdy title, there are a couple of really cool things to take away from this video.

If you can’t see the video – you can find it online here:  200 Years, 200 Countries

I am amazed at how he took a complex topic with a huge amount of data and boiled it down to a couple of minutes of simple, understandable video to tell an insightful story about how the world has changed in the last 200 years.  Can you imagine if that change continues over the next 200 years?

How Cognitive Surplus Will Change the World

This second video was pointed out to me by my friend Joe Tierney from Umzuzu – Umzuzu works with small business owners and helps them figure out how to leverage cloud technologies and Google Apps to make things run better, faster and cheaper.  Absolutely give them a call if you are frustrated with technology or just don’t know what’s out there.  They do a lot of teaching and educating and can help you figure out what’s possible.

This video is a bit longer (13 minutes) and it’s from TED – I’ve mentioned before what a great resource TED is.  There are so many cool things you can learn on that site.  Anyway – this video is from author Clay Shirky and it’s basically about a by product created from the disruptive technology of the internet.  He calls that by product – Cognitive Surplus:

Here’s the link to How Cognitive Surplus Will Change the World if the video doesn’t play.

One of the biggest reasons we live in amazing times is that we’re getting the chance to see the birth and evolution of the single most disruptive technology since…writing?  (I’m not sure what else to compare it to).  Think about all of the ways that the internet touches your life right now…and almost all of them didn’t exist less than 10 years ago!  And even cooler –  it’s creating unexpected outcomes like Cognitive Surplus, which really could (continue to) change everything.

I’m sticking with Mindblowing as my description!

What do you think?  Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Shawn Kinkade  Kansas City Business Coach