The State of the Internet
This is a guest post from Jonathan Smith.
The purpose of this post is to make you aware of an annual report, "The State of the Internet," that was recently released for 2015. Venture capitalist Mary Meeker and her firm, Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers, publish this report annually on their website and deliver it in person throughout the tech world as a presentation to a live audience. This report serves as a deep dive into what is happening online today and trends associated with Internet usage (you can find the complete report here.) This post will outline some key takeaways from this year’s report, how some of the research in the report aligns with the work that we do here at The CP Journal, and how these trends have led to some product enhancements that we are making to continue to improve the work that we do with our clients.
The complete presentation of “The State of the Internet,” is also delivered annually by Meeker to people in the tech world. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the “State of the Internet” report, and it was delivered at Re/Code’s Code Conference this June. To learn about this annual conference and what goes on there, you can check out their site here.
This report is packed with useful information that can be helpful for anyone. In particular, people that use the Internet as a part of their everyday life will be able to put their time spent surfing the net into context, such as who is using it, how often they are using it, and to do what. Companies that rely on the Internet for their businesses will find the content useful and parents who have children that spend a significant amount of time on the Internet will have some data to help better understand what’s occupying the attention of their children. There are also trends within the report that directly correlate to the work that we do here at The CP Journal and that have shaped how we have enhanced our programs to improve the experience for our clients.
Benefits of Online Training: Meeker points out that the impact of the Internet on people and organizations has been extraordinary and broad, specifically in two areas that we at The CP Journal operate in: Security/Safety/Warfare and Education. The degree, however, to which the Internet has changed behavior and individual decisions that people make still has room to grow. We have found when working with new clients that people’s original inclination is to continue to train people by setting up an in-person training seminar. While we thoroughly enjoy delivering in-person classes, participating in our online training has enormous benefits for organizations. The e-learning capabilities that clients can utilize are opportunities that we continue to encourage clients to seize. While in-person training does deliver great results, online training does as well. Students and leaders benefit from the ability to replay modules, take the course on their own time, and not be visibly benchmarked against other people in the same room. We have noticed that once leaders embrace The CP Journal’s online program, they see the direct benefits of having a scalable way to train their team on these valuable skills that can enhance the way they do their jobs. This conversion, however, takes time, as online training has only rapidly become prominent in recent years.
Internet Usage: Meeker outlines Internet usage and its user growth over the last few years in “The State of the Internet.” Overall trends point to a steady increase in an individual’s time spent online since the advent of the Internet. Specifically, through the end of May of 2015, the average time spent online per day per person was 5.6 hours, with 2.8 of those hours spent on mobile devices. When we first launched our online program we weren’t sure how people would respond to our course length. Our online Tactical Analysis Basic course on behavioral analysis is eight hours long, and feedback often comes back that students would like even more practical application for the course content. Eight hours of online training is thorough and reasonable given the amount of time that adults are spending on the Internet daily and, in the case of our online courses, many clients are asking for even more of it even after that amount of training time.
Everyday Life: Meeker points out that the average person in America needs shelter everyday, drives 37 miles per day, and visits the grocery store twice per week. These details about everyday life are important because, although the time a person spends on the Internet has steadily risen over time, people do still continue to leave the house and encounter other people in their day-to-day lives. No matter how popular the Internet gets, it’s not going to stop people from having to interact with others in real life for a significant amount of time each day. While we do house our programs on our website and offer them online, our students learn skills and concepts that they can put to use during every moment of their daily lives.
One final trend that is present throughout “The State of the Internet” is the ever-growing ability for people to connect with others in markets all over the world. Here at the The CP Journal we have been able to reach clients through our online learning environment in the United States, Mexico, Australia, Europe, and Canada. The content that we teach is applicable across all foreign markets and, thanks to the connectivity of the Internet, we are able to provide it across the globe. The future distribution opportunities of our content to even more areas of world give us confidence that we will be able to continue to work towards our goal of preventing violence everywhere by teaching people to better understand universal human behavior and identify threats before they attack.
Take some time to go through Mary Meeker’s report, “The State of the Internet”. From our perspective at The CP Journal, the ability to connect to people online, duration of time spent online, and how people are using the Internet to enhance their lives are the most prominent topics discussed that directly apply to the work that we do. These topics just scratch the surface on the report, and there are many interesting points that can help you better understand and articulate what is happening online and how these trends are changing over time. By stepping back and seeing how these trends have and continue to develop, you will have a better understanding of the current state of the Internet and how it impacts your own life.