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A couple of agency folks have spoken out in the last few weeks on the subject of speed, both seem convinced that most agencies and their clients are not fast enough for "fastspace" and the new era of velocity.

First Bob Greenberg of RGA touches the subject in Adweek of June 19th.

"The powerful and flexible technology of its (the internet) underlying platform yields the key marketing insights of the new era: velocity. The speed with which news forms of experience and engagement are introduced and then become commonplace is compressed so dramatically that it defies the conventional wisdom of consumer insights that drove the pervious marketing era."

Then Jay Pattisall at Modernista.

"Agencies and marketers must develop and implement ideas for fastspace. Which means the jettison of slowspace practices. Agencies should no longer aim to create a brand campaign that is to run for 10 years with a minimal staff of under-paid account executives. Those practices don?t solve business problems. They add to them. Agencies must provide the resources necessary to quickly, nimbly generate ideas that lead accelerated culture. Over the last few years the industry has seen a resurgence of smaller, independent agencies that do just this.

Part of jettisoning slowspace ideas is throwing out established testing conventions. In an accelerated culture there is no time for copy testing. By the time you test and refine your idea the dynamics may well have changed."

Things have certainly gotten faster, but are market dynamics really changing that fast? These guys seem to believe things are changing week by week.

If you live on the web 24/7, its easy to see that conversations are changing rapidly and agencies need to be more adept at inserting their clients into these conversations. More adept in media understanding and smart enough to know how to apply their creativity to these conversations.

However, things in this world are also changing so fast in a negative way. The advertisers who paid the big dollars to use Rocketboom, are now left wondering what happened. So those that are too quick can also pay a price.

The other question worth considering is are things happening so fast, that we easily forget them?

Does last week's AOL crisis become another brands this week and in the new age of velocity do consumers have such short memories that brands mistakes quickly become forgiven? Should brands leave these type of events alone, knowing that they will soon be forgotten?

Then there are the things that are emotionally hard wired into us as human beings are taking a little longer to change than Mr. Greenberg and Mr. Pattisall would probably wish for. Some of these haven't changed for millennia.