I was invited to write something about Google and privacy earlier this week. I've already written quite a bit about online privacy in the blog. Also, fellow KMM bloggers Marshal Sponder wrote Google as Big Brother - Privacy Scores - and Google and Privacy - should we be concerned?, and Fard Johnmar wrote Google, Health Search Engines & Your Privacy, both excellent reads.It's right about here that I write something about NextStage having a different take on things, isn't it?
Here at NextStage, we take a different look at things (didn't want to disappoint you). I want to consider something I read in Looking for Google's Future? You Can Find It On EBay and Public Data Gone Wild: The Google Public Sector Initiative from an evolutionary biology perspective.
Oh...come on...did you expect something different?
An Evolutionary Biology perspective?
Yes, as Wikipedia defines it, "Evolutionary biology is a sub-field of biology concerned with the origin and descent of species, as well as their change, multiplication, and diversity over time. One who studies evolutionary biology is known as an evolutionary biologist, or less formally, an evolutionist.
Google is #241 in the Fortune 500. That's a nice place to be but not from an evolutionary biology perspective because -- if we just limit our study to humans and their organizations, what they build, what they create, what they think of as "theirs", what they own -- the human species is actually something like a Fortune 6+ billion.Yes, there's a lot of us out there and we're making more every second. At an amazing rate.
Google isn't making more googles.
In fact, Google being #241 of 6+ billion means Google is one of the largest predators on the planet. There are only 240 larger predators and lots -- I mean lots and lots and lots -- of lesser predators.
It reminds me of a song I heard as a kid. About Big Bad Short Fat Irving, the 142nd fastest gun in the west. "There were 141 faster than he but was a'gunnin' for 143."
Large predators, the ones near the top of the food chain, are very vulnerable. Look at polar bears, wolves, lions, tigers. Top of the food chain doesn't get you much because to get to the top you tend to specialize and when you specialize you lose the ability to adapt "downward" so to speak, to modify for new prey species. That kind of evolutionary adaptation takes lots -- and I mean lots and lots and lots -- of generations.
Google "preys" (we're using metaphor here) on other companies. YouTube, for example. eBay, for another.
Google also preys on us and with good reason. There's lots of us out there. About 6+ billion, in fact.
Here's another evolutionary biology fact; the larger the predator the more prey it must consume. This is why the largest creatures tend to consume the smallest creatures -- think whales and krill. The only way to satisfy their hungers is to devour massive amounts of little tiny things.
I look at my bank account and Google's and I'm...umm...tiny. I look around my neighborhood and all together, we're...umm...tiny. I don't think there's anything or anyone in my state (NH, at present) that's anywhere near #241 in the food chain.
Tiny.
Fortunately, I also know that the tiny creatures are also the most adaptive. We have to be. There's sooo many of us. And we're sooo tiny. And we breed sooo fast. By comparison. You don't see a lot of dinosaurs hanging around, do you? Nope. The smart dinosaurs turned into birds in order to survive. They got tiny (by comparison).
So I'm not worried about becoming prey in any way, shape or form. I'm too tiny in comparison. I can feel the bow wake of the whale before I become one of the many krill in its mouth and if I stay away from where the lions, wolves, tigers and bears are, I'm good.
Google is the one that's vulnerable. Their very size and position on the food chain means other creatures, able to evolve more rapidly (ie, able to respond to market forces, pressures, demands, ...hostility, ...) will eventually deal with them. It'll be like those old dinosaur movies; the two great dinosaurs will wrestle their way over the cliff or into the lava flow and we, the clever little mammals, will scurry away, chuckling all the while.
Of course, if Google wants to come along and gobble up NextStage -- I mean, if they want to come a' courtin' -- I don't mind climbing a little higher on the food chain myself.
Remember Big Bad Short Fat Irving? Look out #143. If Google comes a' courtin', I might be a' gunnin'.
Please contact NextStage for information regarding presentations and trainings on this and other topics.
I'll be speaking at the Society for New Communications Research Annual Awards Gala Summit on 5-6 Dec 07 in Boston. Come on by and say hello.
Great perspective. We look at the big companies and tend to only see 'big'. But we forget that the bigger they are, the bigger their needs. So, actually, those of us in the tiny category are better off. I feel better already.
Posted by: Carolyn Manning | June 23, 2007 8:33 AM | Permalink to Comment