Technology
drives human progress. Yet it is not deterministic as believed by section of
experts and practitioners. Technology is per se neutral, it is the means
through which human ingenuity drives progress. There is of course excitement
over the emergent technologies. Individuals as well as societies desire
technology to be the catalyst in driving innovation, in making possible what
they desire to want, a mechanism that occurs through a series of steps of achieving
adjacent possible. Therefore in more ways than one, technology forecasting
becomes critical input in planning the future tactics and strategy for any
firm, individual or in aggregate terms an economy or a society. However,
technology rarely emerges in an orderly fashion. More often than not, it
emerges from the most unexpected of the places and at unexpected times. There
are more than enough occasions when technology emerged far ahead of its time
and thus failed to achieve a critical mass.
To understand
technology forecasting and thus enable a tracking mechanism for firms to enable
them to leverage, there needs to exist a model that predicts the same and with
relative accuracy. In the context, the Gartner Hype Curve has become a sort of
benchmark for all others to measure. The Gartner curve for the year 2019 is
available
here.
The first stage
is the innovation trigger. These are those innovations that have begun emerging
on the horizon. They are the infants of the innovation landscape. They track
all those discoveries and inventions that have begun taking roots and are
likely to evolve into adolescents and adults though not necessarily all will
grow and grow at the same pace. As one reads the Hype Curve for 2019, there are
numerous innovation triggers that have slowly emerged on the ascendance. The artificial
tissue is just making its way. Ahead of the same perhaps marginally are
developments in AR Cloud, adversarial generative networks among others. One
interesting elements is autonomous decentralised organization which might see an
interesting turn in fortunes in the coming years.
As with anything
new or novel, there is curious and at times healthy excitement and anticipation
about the possibilities the new innovations generate. The world, it seems, will
absorb with abundant enthusiasm the new technologies and thus lot of interest
gets diverted to these technologies. A lot of financing goes towards the
further development of these technologies. Many start-ups emerge on the
horizon. The Silicon Valleys will be full of discussion on the multiplicative
possibles on the horizon. Therefore expectations will become inflated. The next
stage in the Hype Curve is the Peak of Inflated Expectations. The peak is
reached through ascending the ‘mountain’ of innovation triggers. As one
examines the current developments, it is not surprising to see 5G at the apex
of the peak followed by bio-chips, edge analytics, etc. 5G is of course driven
by political dynamics with reference to its adoption and thus its future
directions is political rather than economic.
Yet, as with
many expectations, there will be a disappointment over many falling by the
wayside. The reasons could be manifold, yet it is undeniable very few of these
triggers that create these inflated expectations will drive towards maturity. Thus
following a peak there will emerge a Trough of Disillusionment. One very good
example is the further progress in autonomous driving. Graph computing, 3D
sensing cameras are among other innovations that seem to be sliding down the trough
with enough disillusionments. Yet these disappointments are natural. It is not possible
for each and every innovation to gather momentum and find place in the
mainstream. At times, the ones sliding down the trough might make a
reappearance in numerous forms at unexpected times.
Out of the
trough emerges a sense of enlightenment. This is the path towards the maturity.
The next two stages therefore are termed slope of enlightenment where realism
takes precedence over hype and expectations. The final stage is the drive
towards maturity. Interestingly, the 2019 edition doesn’t talk about any technologies
being in these two stages.
The Hype Curve
not just talks about technologies but gives indications on the number of years
before they hit maturity. As one observes the 2019 Hype Curve, 3D sensing
cameras despite a drop towards a trough of disillusionment, is likely to mature
in the next 2-5 years. The analysts also believe 5G will evolve to maturity
during the same time horizon. On the other hand, an artificial tissue or
decentralized web might take more than 10 years to drive towards maturity. Most of the others like light cargo delivery
drones, edge analytics, bio chips etc. are likely to mature over the next 5-10
years. There are possibilities of some become obsolete before plateau.
A deeper
analysis of the Hype curve is understanding the trends in technology as we move
along and what one can expect from these trends. These trends while indicating opportunities
for entrepreneurship also point out towards the drive for firms and societies
to plan for their adoption as they pursue progress.
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