It may be useful to reflect on the recent phenomena where the NASA Mars landing caused an immense flow of information, that by their own estimates, significantly exceeded the total printed information in the Library of Congress.

Rarely do we get a metric that translates everyday events into a meaningful set of numbers that accurately reflects the volume of information flowing over the Internet.

The exact quote from NASA reads:

"...1.3 billion hits from 10.4 million unique users, says Jeanne Holm, chief knowledge architect at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. She said the system has pushed out more than 34.8 terabytes of information — that's basically 35 trillion characters' worth. In comparison, the full textual content of the Library of Congress has been estimated at a mere 20 terabytes."

While it is impressive, NASA was one of millions of sites in operation over those four days.

What is more important, are the social implications the statistics illustrate. Consider how far and how fast we've come from Pony Express, to Telegraphy, Telephony, Television and to Internet and the number of people all acting and reacting to events occurring in today's Networked Society simultaneously.

This single event, means that over 10 million people learned about it, and through graphics and text received more information about the event, faster, than ever before.

Think about it. 10 million people instantly confronted with facts and disclosure at a level that probably exceeds the information you'd get riding in the space vehicle and then going down to Mars on the Lander. Mars was about 34.7 million miles away, and the pictures and video brought it to you as though it was happening in your front yard.

This is extraordinary.

This is unique and we have no clear indications of how it will effect society. I don't mean the Mars landing but the infrastructure and communication networks that provide a global population the opportunity to experience the same events and communicate their feelings, judgments and emotions to one another.

What will be the effects of a global encounter group?

Will we see a combination of Tiananmen Square, a Sting Concert, the Republican National Convention, and New Years Eve in Times Square? Those are large gatherings of people but hardly the experience we have sitting in our Homes and Offices conntected to Internet.

It is our guess that the effects will be much more in line with the reaction of the global audience when the realities of the Kennedy assignation, the War in Vietnam and the death of Princess Dianna came to us "close up and personal."

We reacted in a very human way and were deeply touched and reflective. People made up their own minds as to the "right" and "wrong" of what they experienced. I think it fair to say, that our group reaction muted the extremes.

At times, I am so moved by a thought that it stays with me for days and such was my reaction to it. My thought here is, that if there is a valuable take-away about the Mars event, it is that the global community is rapidly becoming interconnected in a more immediate and intimate way than ever before. Just how that plays out, will be the subject of commentary for decades.

In the mean time, there is a forum and a worldwide audience and one voice can make a difference. As always, I am optimistic about the future, the glass is half-full.

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