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Peter de Jager is a provocative Speaker,
Writer and Consultant. His primary focus in on how we manage change,
technology and the future.
In addition to speaking at conferences
worldwide, he also writes monthly columns for CIO Magazine and
Computerworld Canada.
His goal is always to question what we
think is so, and in so doing perhaps open up new opportunities.
If you'd like permission to reprint any
of Peter's articles, please contact him directly.
You can contact him at
pdejager@technobility.com
Or sign the Guest
Book and he'll get back to you.
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Here are three statements made about 37 years apart from each other.
"You could put in this room... all the radiotelephone apparatus that
the country will ever need", stated by W. W. Dean, President of Dean
Telephone Company in 1907. Next? "I think there is a world market for
about five computers" attributed in 1943 to Thomas Watson, then
Chairman of the board of International Business Machines (now IBM). And
finally the statement, "640k ought to be enough for anybody",
attributed to Bill Gates in 1981.
It's all too easy to chuckle over the obvious shortsightedness
demonstrated by these statements; But it's also unfair to laugh, when
gifted with the advantage of perfect 20-20 hindsight. Perhaps more
importantly, it's extremely foolish to laugh, when instead, we have a
perfect opportunity to learn.
It is difficult to make a case that any of these individuals, were
mentally deficient, or that they did not know enough about their field of
expertise. So? Where did they go wrong in their belief that only a limited
amount of a technological advance would be sufficient? Is there some
underlying pattern and fundamental flaw to statements that we will never
need more than 'X' of a particular advancement, where 'X' is often set to
'zero'? One need only browse through a few books of quotations to run
across dozens of similar assertions, all proven wrong in increasingly
diminished periods of time.
Naturally, there's a good reason to seek out this flaw if it exists. All
of us, when not gifted with that 20-20 hindsight, which is most of the
time, make similar statements. We're always underestimating the
proliferation of a technology, usually to the detriment of that process we
call 'Strategic Planning'. If any exploration can heighten our awareness
to a flaw we're all guilty of, then maybe we can avoid it? What is it
worth to an organization, if it's ability to avoid foolish predictions, is
increased?
Obviously, any such discussion is open to heated debate, but such debate
still serves the simple purpose of heightening our awareness to such
statements, especially when we're about to utter one.
Statements about the expected proliferation of a technology, naturally
occur while the technology is in its infancy. This is so obvious it's
hardly worth repeating, except it does point to two attributes of any
technology at this stage in the development cycle.
a) It's costly to produce, because it's just out of the prototype stage
and economies of mass production and competition have not yet reduced
costs.
b) Because it's a new technology, it's difficult to imagine how it might
be used.
High cost and insignificant applicability readily combine to produce the
statement, "We'll never need more than 'X' of these!" The flaws
in our 'logic' are based on poor memory and a stubborn lack of faith.
The most difficult flaw to erase, is our lack of faith. Just because we
can't see a widespread use for a technology, does not mean the entire
population of the world will lack that same spark of creativity. Place a
new capability into the hands of the masses and they inevitably find a use
for it.
Which of course ties us right back to the other flaw... the technology
costs so much we can't see 'the masses' buying it... especially since we
can't imagine how they might use it. A neatly packaged negative feedback
loop. We're blind to the certain, proven, knowledge that production prices
drop. Always.
There's a simple, unthinking, mechanistic way around this feedback loop,
just pretend 'it', whatever 'it' is, costs 100 times less than it does
today. Would people buy it? And find a use for it? This is not that big a
leap of faith. How much did the first telephone exchange cost? The first
computer? The first megabyte of memory? What do they cost today?
Now push the envelope and consider more than just the 'cost'. What happens
when your product becomes 100 times lighter, or smaller, or faster? What
happens when your watch can contain a GPS, computer, radio, music player,
communications centre, personal medical diagnostic tool and whatever else
you'll let yourself imagine, and you can buy it for less than $100? Or
less than $20?
Or do you believe that only a handful of people need a personal GPS... and
why would anyone want all that stuff... what would they do with it? I hear
the cries of Dean, Watson and Gates in the background.
© 2005,
Peter de Jager – Peter is passionate about change, how it affects both
individuals and organizations and allows them to grow and prosper. To contact him, and
host internal seminars on Change visit www.technobility.com
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reprint permissions click here.
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