Coventry City's owner: 'Digital disruption is bigger than the industrial revolution' - by Dan Brain. ad:tech London 2014

Coventry City's owner: 'Digital disruption is bigger than the industrial revolution'

I recently caught up with controversial Canadian media entrepreneur Leonard Brody to discuss his ideas on why digital disruption requires a radical re-write of the planet.

"The world has not caught up with the change over the last five years that is radically transforming every part of our existence"

Could Zuckerberg, Berners-Lee and Page go down in history with the likes of Ford, Edison and Stephenson as people who changed the world for good?

According to investor and futurologist Leonard Brody, the Digital Revolution has already usurped the Industrial Revolution in terms of its impact on our individual lives, society and business.

Whilst the industry has been busy getting-to-grips with social, data and media change, Brody says that the cumulative impact of the Digital Revolution is felt far beyond the marketing department.

"The change we have experienced is a unique moment in history that calls for a radical re-write of the planet," says Brody, co-founder of NowPublic.com and probably the most influential Canadian in British football.

Dan Brain is head of content at ad:tech London (21-22 October) where Leonard Brody is a keynote speaker.

He is currently co-owner of Coventry City FC, a role in which he incurred the wrath of Sky Blues followers after suggesting that fans should be able to tweet their substitution suggestions during matches.

From print to public policy, Brody believes that the structures we have built over years of relatively modest change are no longer fit-for-purpose in a connected world:  "The world has not caught up with the change over the last five years that is radically transforming every part of our existence, from human behaviour to wealth generation to the allocation of investment. There’s a huge urgency to fix this broken model."

Brody, an advisor to the Canadian Government and once described as "a controversial leader of the new world order", says that this change shows no sign of abating.

The digital transformation of the world has happened with just 40% of the world’s population connected to the internet and the "race to 5 billion" users will catalyse further change. Innovations like driverless cars are not far off becoming a mainstream reality.

The internet of everything is predicted to drive more internet traffic than mobile by 2018. Tech companies like Google and Facebook already control 50% of digital advertising spend and their share is growing, leaving many traditional media brands behind.

Taken in the context of the disruption that digital migration and mobile had on the marketing and media industry, it’s perfectly possible that what we have experienced to date may only be the tip of the iceberg.

As individuals, an industry and society, it remains to be seen whether the history books (or e-books) will show us to be the generation that embraced digital or 21st Century Luddites.

Dan Brain is head of content at ad:tech London (21-22 October) where Leonard Brody is a keynote speaker.