The starter’s pistol was fired in 1965 with Gordon Moore’s bold prediction: The number of transistors in a given space would double each year, while the cost of each transistor would decrease, and its speed would increase. Forty years later the spirit of Moore’s Law still holds, and his company, Intel, remains at the heart of a revolution in speed that has altered our lives in ways we’ve yet to fully comprehend.
As computing power has grown, so has our access to information. For example, in 1998 Google had an index of 25 million pages. By the end of 2004 its index had grown to 8 billion pages—a 360-fold increase. And the speed? When I entered the search term “speed of business,” Google delivered 170 million citations in 0.2 seconds flat.
We now enjoy instant connectivity to our friends and business associates around the world, thanks to cell phones, instant messaging, and e-mail. We’re so connected that we risk becoming disconnected. For example, companies have cited “BlackBerrys under the table” as the biggest obstacle to coherent meetings.
We’ve learned not only to sneak our e-mails during meetings, but to talk on the phone, listen to music, read online documents, and converse with colleagues at the same time. At home we toggle between reading a magazine and listening to music, browsing the Web and watching a football game, cooking a casserole and catching up on world events. News programs no longer consider their offerings rich enough unless they cater to our multitasking habits with a continuous stream of stock quotes, late-breaking news, weather, and other items to activate the edges of our screens.
Manufacturers have a need for speed as well. The winning manufacturer is no longer the one with the best product, but the one with the fastest supply chain. Author and supply-chain expert Rob Rodin explains that companies today have no choice but to connect to the “three insatiable demands of business—free, perfect, and now.” Helping make the “now” a reality are broadband computer networks, overnight delivery, RFID tags, and just-in-time processes. Manufacturing leaders such as Dell and Toyota have capitalized on what sociologist Alvin Toffler had predicted in 1965: “As business speeds up,” he said, “each unit of time will become more valuable.”
A century ago a visit to the store might have been an all-day trek, while today most of us can do our shopping right in our neighborhood. In 1986, before the big speed-up, America had more high schools than shopping centers. Today, shopping centers outnumber high schools by two to one. Inside those shopping centers, supermarkets stock more than three times the number of products they did in 1986, and innovations in checkout systems are getting customers through the line in less than half the previous time.
SPEED GETS UNDER YOUR SKIN. MOORE’S LAW HAS UNLEASHED AN ERA OF ACCELERATION IN WHICH TINY IDENTIFICATION CHIPS WILL PLAY A LARGE PART.
Before Moore’s Law, Americans were famous non-travelers, with around three million people going to Europe each year. Now, thanks to cheaper fares and a greater choice of airlines and airports, more than 11 million people go to Europe each year. Where do they stay? Possibly at one of the 54,000 hotels listed on Expedia.com. By shopping online they can quickly compare photos, descriptions, and prices, then book their hotels on the spot with a credit card.
Travel is expanding the borders of our eating habits as well. After visiting Europe, for example, we may develop a taste for Belon oysters. A seafood restaurant can then impress us by letting us know that our entree has been flown in fresh from Brittany. The oysters sitting on your plate tonight may have boarded a plane this morning.
McDonald’s, the king of fast food, has recently reduced the average meal-delivery time to 121 seconds. They plan to shave off another 15 seconds by adding an RFID check-out system that allows customers to pay without even touching their wallets. Some of us will still be impatient.