Mania and the Next Big Thing
by
Jeff Wacker
Looking back on the variety of things that really impacted people’s lives, there often seems to be a manic nature to their creation and adoption. It starts with a period of intense expectation and anticipation culminating with a strong (and often painful) transition to years of steady growth. Railroads in the early 1800s went through this mania. In March, 1825 the Quarterly, a London publication stated “Nothing now is heard of but railroads.” And electricity went through a similar frenzy in the late 1800s. A prescient article by David Wessel published in The Wall Street Journal in January 1999 (before the dot.com debacle) paralleled the build-up and bust of the electricity industry in London to that of the Internet. In the early 1900s the automobile also had its manic time. In 1923 there were 75 firms manufacturing automobiles with names like Hupmobile (the car on the back of the U.S. $10 bill), Hudson, and Hispano Suizaand. Few of these cars, much less the manufacturers, survive to this day. Radium was a craze at the turn of the 20th century and was put into nearly every household item possible (until its true effects and dangers became known).
These manias were a combination of lack of true understanding, unrealistic expectations and market bubbles that often burst. As Computerworld article on Offshore Mania recently put it, “it's clear that they always end (sometimes spectacularly!)” But after the mania, the impacts live on. Railroads efficiently transport millions of tons of materials inexpensively every day. We can’t even begin to imagine life without electricity. The automobile and all of the societal and industrial changes it created still drive (pun intended) the modern world. Modern diagnostic medicine would not have been possible without radium and other associated products. And the Internet lives on as a primary vehicle to change in how we live, work and play. Next big things often start with a bang, but they always finish by creating change at unprecedented levels.
Many early signs are now appearing that indicate we are on the verge of the next big thing (TNBT) in information technology. Will it will come in with hype and mania or slide in silently? Will it be the next big thing (singular) or an amalgamation of many things that combine to create the change? Is it already with us but just lacking a killer application (like the internet before Tim Berners-Lee’s browser) or yet to come? This BLOG is dedicated to the exploration of these and other questions as we pursue the identification, investigation, analysis and understanding of the “things” that will manifest themselves as the next big thing in information technology.
Welcome to EDS’ Next Big Thing Blog.
