In the early ’90’s Arsenio Hall’s Late Night TV show had a segment called “Things that make you go Hmmm.” Last week at our company awards luncheon our Marketing Director presented a video that made us all go WOW!! It was filled with some amazing statistics and global information. I thought I’d do more searching and found some more interesting stuff. I’ve concluded, if you are a young person learn all you can about technology, learn to speak Chinese, and buy real estate.

In China, if you are 1 in a million, there are 1300 others just like you. China will soon be the #1 English speaking country in the world. 25% of India’s population with the highest IQ’s is greater than the entire population of the U.S. They have more Honors kids than we have kids. We’re preparing students for jobs that don’t yet exist, using technologies that haven’t been invented to solve problems we don’t even know are problems yet.  Technological information doubles every 2 years. For students beginning a 4 year degree program, 1/2 of what they learn in their first year will be outdated in their 3rd year. There are over 200 million registered users on MySpace. If MySpace were a country it would be the 5th largest in the world, just ahead of Japan. One week worth of the NY Times contains more information than a person would likely come across in a lifetime in the 18th century. By 2013 a supercomputer will be built that exceeds the computation capabilities of the human brain. By 2049 a $1000 computer will exceed the computation capabilities of the entire human species. In the time it took you to read this 67 babies were born in the U.S.; 274 in China; and 395 in India. 694,000 songs were illegally downloaded.

If you’re on Facebook you can find the aforementioned video on my wall. If this stuff doesn’t make your head spin you’re not paying attention. Don’t be left behind.