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  Do You Believe the Hype?

  Posted by Dennis, datacom engineering - February 15, 2012

  Do you believe the hype around new technology trends?  Do you know a trend when you see it?  I’ve recently been looking at a series of charts that discuss the hype surrounding the rise in new technologies and what this truly means for future trends and the adoption of new technologies.  Check out the charts below.
  
  THE GARTNER GROUP'S HYPE CHART

  Gartner uses hype cycles to characterize the over-enthusiasm or "hype" and subsequent disappointment that typically occur as a result of the introduction of new technologies.  According to Gartner, hype cycles aim to separate the hype from the reality, enabling decision makers to figure out whether or not a particular technology is ready for adoption.
  
  

  WHAT'S HYPING NOW
  
  Gartner does more than just theorize about hype cycles.  The chart also offers insight into what’s  trending each year.   A summary chart for 2011 is shown below.

  

  
  You can argue with some of their choices, but it helps to put some emerging technology trends in perspective.
  
  Some, like quantum computing, are still a long way off.  Others, like cloud computing have gotten a lot of attention, but are on the “inflated expectation” peak.
  
  Then there are others, like speech recognition and location aware apps that are ready for prime time now.
  
  THE PRIORITY MATRIX
  
  This is a tool for prioritizing emerging technologies by forcing technology planners to look beyond the hype, and instead assess technology opportunities in terms of their relative impact on the enterprise and the timing of that impact.  In the Priority Matrix the vertical axis focuses on the potential benefit of the technology, rather than on the expectation levels presented in the Hype Cycle.  The horizontal axis groups the technologies according to the same years-to-mainstream-adoption rating used on the Hype Cycle.

  

  STEPHEN JAY GOULD'S BOOK "FULL HOUSE"
  
  Some things we think are trends may not be trends at all.  As Gould points out, while it may seem that evolution trends towards more complex forms of life, there is really no evidence to supports this.  Just because some forms of life become more complex over time doesn’t necessarily mean that there is a tendency in that direction.  Simple bacteria are still amazingly abundant and continue to evolve without becoming more complex, which is why we always need to invent new antibiotics.
   

  Many make a similar mistake of assuming that there is a trend towards a new technology, when in actuality the real trend is toward greater diversity.  To sum up, most of the old things will continue to prosper.
  
  Gould corrects the prevalent, anthropocentric view of the world with an argument for a new paradigm of progress in which variety, not complexity, is the true measure of excellence. In Full House Gould teaches us how to read trends as changes in variation within full systems, rather than as “things moving somewhere.”