Anyone having an inkling of what the Second-Biggest G is about, knows about their conferences, about their ‘magic’ quadrants (despite the debunking of late; apparently one could pay oneself to the top right…), and about their infamous Hype cycle.
[What one needed to fight Siegfried King of the Netherlands of Xanten]
Bam, there’s your daily pic again, not unexpectedly I hope.
Well then. About hype cycles. You know them. And maybe have a laugh. Or not, and study them for the buzzwords you didn’t know yet.
But would you believe them; would you trust the predictions inherent in them? Probably not. And would you check on the predictions of years past ..? Probably not, also.
Turns out… Yours Truly was busy doing that, collecting data all the way back to 2008, and figuring out a way to graph the data. Which didn’t work too smoothly so I wanted to revert to first analyzing the data I had.
Turns out… Someone else already did the collection part, and the analysis part, too. As in this post; recommended reading.
After which I dropped it; no need to analyse. But to synthesize, there’s still a bit on the table:
- Why do so and how many ;-| still ‘believe’ the hype cycles, look into them, and cheer when their favourite hypes are listed, somewhat ‘faithfully’..? Probably because the visualization is so strong, capturing so much essence in one pic. And because apparently people need such guidance ..?
- How come so many of the hypes mentioned, fall flat ..? Or is it a matter of a lot of buck shot in the air, hoping a duck may fly through it ..? Which may also not be a bad thing if this would be clearer, as a caveat. Oh; I already found part of the answer in this Tim Harford post. This one on maps, too.
- Why can’t people pick up the hypes much faster, as there’s obvious business profit in many of them ..? In particular, when so many fall off the radar, one would expect vigilant companies to profit from such new developments falling off their competitors’ radars. Just find a way to make it all work, for which you could even take a couple of years in skunk works, and then reap the benefits. Oh … – of a first mover; which may be too little too short to recoup the ploughing-through-development investments. As first movers are so often outdone by second-and-(much-)improved movers.
And yet, stil I feel there’s much more left on the table than one would need or certainly want to leave there. Once progress is identified, it better be brought on as quickly as possible.
At the scale as things are on the hcycle. Because the ethical ramifications play at a bigger scale. Wouldn’t 2nd-biggest G be interested to make a cycle of those issues ..? Think self-driving cars, ubiquitous/ambient data collection & storage & analysis, Bitcoin-et-al’s subversion of geography-based governments. You name it. A lot to cover &nndash; maybe requiring much more research into what’s at play and how the discussions progress, but still, very much worthwhile I guess. Beyond the tech hype’lets that fall off the bandwagon so easily. Towards prediction proper of where society’/ie’s heading…
