No one knows what to do with new technology
Jason Pontin, editor-in-chief and publisher of (MIT’s) Technology Review, has written an important essay titled “On the Evolution of Technology.”
The second sentence in the essay articulates the very reason I founded Rainier back in 1993: “When a technology first appears in the world, it is not understood: no one knows what to do with it.”
Pontin discusses Brian Arthur‘s book The Nature of Technology: What It Is and How It Evolves, and Arthur’s explanation of why truly new technologies are so slow to be adopted. New technology domains, he says, betray “missing pieces” that technologists must develop before useful applications can be successfully commercialized. One of these missing pieces, I believe, is the ability to clearly communicate new technologies to the market.
Pontin says the real economic value of new technologies is almost always imperfectly understood because the technologies’ markets do not yet exist. It’s been interesting for me to note over the years how true this is for so many of the technologies we are involved with bringing to market – especially those which are truly disruptive, or don’t quite fit into existing market categories.
Brian Arthur’s question, “What [does the new technology]allow people to do that could not be done before?” is one we ask our clients all the time.
The answer(s) are so crucial to successfully marketing a product, that we won’t even agree to launch a new technology until we’re satisfied the disruption, and all its necessary ecosystem components of success (what Arthur calls the “missing pieces” technologists must develop before useful applications can be successfully commercialized), has been thoroughly and defensibly defined.
