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LECTURE L04ADJACENT POSSIBLE
The S-curveBased on the notion of the Technical Life Cycle
Improvements in performance varies throughout the life of the technology
Number of transistors onan integrated circuit will double in about 18-24 months
Moore’s Law
The Law of Accelerating ReturnsEvolution applies positive feedback in that the more capable methods resulting from one stage of evolutionary progress are used to create the next stage. As a result, the rate of progress of an evolutionary process increases exponentially over time.
Exponential World
Local and linear
Global and Exponential
Combinatorial
Ideas build upon Ideas
Every generation of technology
becomes a source for new innovations
Web of Technology
Products are made using different parts using many technologies - confection of
ideas
Gall’s Law
All complex systems that work, evolved from simpler system that worked
“I, Pencil” by Leonard E. Read
The most important single central fact about a free market is that no exchange takes place unless both
parties benefit. — Milton Friedman
Toaster
Thomas Thwaits: The Toaster Project
Source:TED.com
"Left to his own devices he couldn’t build a toaster. He could just about make a sandwich
and that was it." — Mostly Harmless, Douglas Adams, 1992
“And that was something that reoccurred throughout the project, was, the smaller the scale you want to work on, the further back in time you
have to go” — Thomas Thwaites
Layers of Technology
Technologies evolves layer by layer, from simple to complex
technologies
Combinatory Process
New technology is created by combining other existing
technology in new ways
The Law of Disappearing Technology
When some technique is mastered, it will “disappear” as something
obvious and trivial, and other more useful things that are built on top of it
That means when technology disappears
it becomes useful
The Law of Disappearing Technology
Electricity
The Law of Disappearing Technology
Internet
The Law of Disappearing Technology
The Resistance Corollary
Even outdated things that should “disappear” don’t
due to supposed importance
Phone books
Checks
Fax machines
Keys
Plastic cards
Landline phones
Printednewspapers
Lottery terminals
Adjacent Possible
Adjacent Possible
...a kind of shadow future, hovering on the edges of the present state of things,
a map of all the ways in which the present can reinvent itself
Steven Johnson
Ideas usually come at similar timeWho invented the telephone?
Enabling Technology
Existing technology that can be used to build new technologies
Why was the computer invented in the 1940s and not in the 1840s?
Think about this!
Charles Babbage worked on his difference engine and later analytical engine In 1822-1871
Ada Lovelace influenced or even conceived the concept ot programmable computer
Adjacent Possible
When all the enabling technologies are ready, new
inventions will be emerge
Adjacent Possible
The inventor must use the components that exist in his
environmentSteven Johnson
Imagesource:http://www.computersciencelab.com/ComputerHistory/HistoryPt4.htm
Vacuum tubes were used to build computers
The Second Industrial RevolutionThe period 1870-1914 shaw innovations in the chemical, electric, petroleum and steel industries
Nikolai Kondratiev
Kondratiev waves are supposedly cycle-like phenomena in the modern world economy
Source:Wikipedia,KondratievWave
Kontrativ Wave
Source:Wikipedia,KondratievWave
Wave Years
1 First Industrial Revolution 1787–1842
2 Railroad and Steam Engine Era 1842–1897
3 Age of steel, electricity and internal combustion 1897–1939
4 War and Post-war Boom: Suburbia 1939–1982
5 Post Industrial Era: Information Technology 1982? – ??
Kontrativ Wave
The Prevailing Technology Trap
Current and dominant technology will highly influence and restrict
new innovations
Technology Cramming
Technology Cramming
Two Waves of Products Development
In the first wave the product is restricted by the prevailing
technology, but in the second, there is something new
Two Waves of Products Development
Web 1.0 Web 2.0
Two Waves of Products Development
One2Many Many2Many
Timeline
Each wave creates number of new inventions
Timeline
When the time is right, new ideas will emerge
Let’s play a game
Next
L05 How Innovation Happens