Wharton Chapter 3 - Technology Speciation

Technology speciation: The evolutionary differentiation of a pre-existing technology into one or more distinct technologies. The chapter discusses how existing technologies evolve to create
"new domain of application".

There are two critical features of speciation:

• "Speciation is not triggered by a transformation of the population within"
• "Speciation event allows the two populations of homogenous entities to grow quite distinct as a result of their now different selection environments"

Changes are not usually a result of revolutionary occurrances in the environment but more of a evolution over time. In the process, the technology is changed to adapt to a new environment. This new environment must have the resources to support the development of this change. As this technology grows, it may displace the older technologies. These new "lineages" of technologies may emerge as a result of combinging or "fusing" other technologies that are then synthesized or "converged". Sometimes, these technologies are not ready for a broad market and are isolated to a single purpose or "island of application".

The key is to find the right context or application for the emerging technology. Some of the key concepts when finding this application is

• view markets as being hetergeneous
• focus on market contexts and not the products that will fit into markets
• expand the criteria for the market as each company and case is different
• study users of the market
• "Learn by doing"
• Accelerate the evolution

There are numerous products that have come on the market that have gone through technology speciation. The PDA was a great technology but was expernsive and really catered to a small percentage of people. As the technology evolved, the PDA became the smartphone and the blackberry. Combining the functions of a mobile phone, calendaring, email, and the web, a new product emerged. Now, the iPhone builds on the the smartphone/blackberry by incorporating more multimedia features and improved use of it's GUI (through a touch screen).

I think the key element of this entire chapter is that new technology rarely just comes about one day. It's an evolution -sometimes slow but sometimes very quick, it just depends on the support structure and the resources of the environment in which it operates.

Gartner Hype Cycle on Emerging Tech 2007

The tera architecture is interesting in that it promises to reduce the cost of computing by 10%. With virtualization emerging in businesses and computing today, I find it hard to believe that it's so far off from now. Leave it up to Google to kick this one off and change the industry! I'm curious as to how this will revolutionize how we do business, the future of application development, and the computing possibilities of the future. More Power!

The 3d printing was an interesting concept. Drawings and schema's can have new life while changing the look and feel of business presentations. The 3d cad and 3d cutting of materials has been around for awhile and I am interested to see if this technology actually catches on. I think 3d modeling using holographics would be more interesting than a 3rd print.

I like gesture recognition and this technology can be seen in Apple's new iPhone. People are becoming more lazy and prefer small, simple movements to perform complex tasks (i.e scrolling with a mouse versus a touchpad on laptop computers). Image if more functions could be performed using other gestures like eye movements, simple movements of the fingers (i.e the tap tap of the finger to double click). The Wii has changed how we play and entertain ourselves.. I'm curious to see how they make games even more interactive for us and how we interact with others.

Web 2.0 -- the changes to the web to make our experience more interactive and more inter-connected have been a wonderful addition to my life. Through the use of collaboration tools for school work, social networks to catch up with old friends, I'm interested to see how this is going to evolve in the future with Web 3.0.

Wharton Chapter 2 - The Pitfalls of Emerging Technology

How do companies avoid the pitfalls of emerging technologies? The first half of the chapter covered the 4 traps a company might encounter with emerging technology.

1. The delayed participation -"watch and wait" theory. Carefully weigh the value of the project before jumping in
2. Sticking with the familiar -dislike of ambiguity and risk averse. If this system works, why change and go down a winding path of uncertainty
3. Reluctance to fully commit - resistance from channel partners, projected low returns from an emerging technology
4. Lack of Persistence - High levels in the company might not recognize the benefit and cut the venture. Emerging tech is known for it's failure rates - an easy target when money is needed

These four traps are very common for businesses to fall into. Emerging technology is ambiguous and contains high levels of uncertainty. For many companies, a wait and see approach allows them to reap the benefits of their competitors mistakes (but also has a chance of losing market share because they do not have the 1st mover advantage). Companies become complacent and enjoy working in comfortable environments. Emerging technology is seldom comfortable because of the levels of risk involved. Comfortability over time can also mean status quo. Companies can be reluctant to commit if the culture does not support the change or if the company is not ready to move in a new direction. Some companies treat emerging tech like poker: know when to hold 'em, some know when to fold 'em. When you fold, you lose your chances of winning the pot. Other companies lack the visionaries that can push and be persistent for emerging technology. A bottom up approach is harder to sell emerging tech than top down.

The second half of the chapter outlined "crafting solutions". Viewing emerging technology with the blinders off allows companies to move in new directions and see new opportunities. These new directions are sometimes hard to see but allow companies to shift in new directions and ways of thinking. How will this emerging tech benefit our customer and does it align with the companies strategic goals? This change when coupled with a learning environment allow for an openness of differing viewpoints within the company to help challenge the mindset and emerging technology projects succeed. When companies challenge the mindset and think outside of the box, companies can begin to experiment to provide new insights and possibilities of the technology. But, companies need to be both flexible and committed (the business paradox of emerging technology) to be successful.

Human Computation

This video was fascinating.. in fact I watched it more than once. I was showing this to some others and I was anxious to create a peekaboom account. I was astounded at the fact about the amount of time people play solitaire around the world (and also players that played ESP for more than 10 hours). I guess I underestimate other peoples time.

The CAPTCHA concept was an interesting segment and I also thought the remarks about "other" industries are using them for spam was very intriguing. I'm curious to see what other games will be created to capture more information about images and tags in the future. Perhaps these games could be marketed to inmates.. they have time to solve these simple problems.

If only we could use human computation to help solve world and economic issues...

Wharton On Managing Emerging Technologies

Summary:

Emerging technologies are the future for many industries and will tranform many existing industries. As defined in the preface, "Wharton Emerging technologies Management Research Program was established in 1994 and was comprised of faculty and senior executives to analyze emerging tech and develop strategies for its success across all lines of an organization. The preface defined 7 different priorities top help managing emerging technologies.

The first chapter talked about the disruption emerging technologies can have on an organization and that a required mindset and skillset are needed to be successful in the implementation process. Emerging technologies can do great things for companies and create new opportunities and competitive advantages. But, it can also destroy a business if not carefully planned. Emerging tech can have great complexity and uncertainty which create great challenges for an organization to manage. Understanding knowledge from experiements, experience, and how a customer uses the technology can help give organizations an upper hand with deriving and implementing emerging technology. But, learning from the mistakes is an invaluable lesson. The paradox a company must accept in order to be successful - commit but be flexible. There are few simple answers in emerging technology and learning managing the ambiguity can lead to the best rewards.

Comments:
Necessity is the mother of invention - pioneers are able to identify and understand the necessities and develop strategies to exploit these ideas. But, as the book stated, many pioneers fail. Companies should understand that implementing and investing in emerging technologies are risky but the rewards can be great. Apple didn't get to be #1 in the portable music device market by waiting to see what other companies were doing. They learned quickly from projects like the Newton handheld that if it doesn't catch on, try to reinnovate the product (i.e. the new iphone). I'm interested to see how the other chapters outline the framework for managing the technology and examples of how other companies have succeeded and failed.

WSJ - Don't Fence Me In

IDS (Intrusion Detection Systems) are becoming more popular for businesess as they worry about the security of their data. These systems certainly have their place in business and the article mentioned the financial losses from cybercrime. I am sure that for the 1 company that reports cybercrime, there are 10 companies that don't. Cybercrime can destroy a business and I think coupling this technology with other technologies such as firewalls and other access controls is a must for every businesses. But, because all of these things put overhead on the network (including AV and other host based scanners) and speed will always be a tradeoff until processing capabilities can be improved.

False positives is and will always be an issue because the enviroment in which it monitors is so dynamic. I think education of users as to the dangers out on the web and how to protect yourself and the company can help eliminate many issues associated with IDS. Companies should also invest a good portion of the money for an IDS into the setup and maintenance. These systems are complicated to administer and become easily outdated without regular and routine maintenance.

WSJ - Predictions of the Past

Summary: The article evaluated technology predictions from 1998 to determine if the trends and changes in technology over the next 10 years would come true. The article looked at the following areas:

• Changes in social dymanics
• The new wave of desktop PC technology and computing power over 10 years
• Cell phone usage in US
• Obtaining electronic music
• The use of E-books and E-book technology
• Online Education versus brick-and-mortor institutions for learning
• Outsourcing and emerging countries that benefit from technology
• The banking industry and electronic transfers

It was interesting that predictors did not forsee the social impacts of online tools. Chat was very popular in the 90's and today. I find it hard to believe that they did not believe that individuals would not want to be more creative and expressive using different tools and channels to connect with friends,relatives, or colleagues.

The PC prediction was to be expected looking at trends in technology over the last 20 years and the leaps and bounds made in personal computing capacity and capability. I thought that they might actually be further ahead than they are today.

I wasn't too surprised over the increase in cell-phone usage as I see children at 5 years of age with their own cellphone these days. With the mass adoption of cellphone for both personal and professional use, it's no wonder that 81% of the pop have a cell phone (some have as many as 2 or 3).

The electronic sharing of music was in it's peak around the late 90's and early 2000 with Napster and other P2P music sharing apps. I am surprised that mini-disc didn't do more for the advances in digital music players and the sharing of music.

I've tried ebooks and reading online and I don't like it. If there was a way to decrease the contrast and make it easier on the eyes, I think more people would be utilizing this technology. I've seen the ebook kiosks in airports and I'm interested in trying that the next time I travel.

Online instutions have their place but I think it's hard to beat a brick-and-mortar classroom to share ideas and learn. Even with online courses, sharing information and concepts I find is more difficult because body language and sometimes tone are left out. Having resources online has been wonderful (i.e. library resources for doing research).

Outsourcing to emerging countries has shown to be both successful and detrimental to our economy. I'm sure this will be discussed more in class.

I contribute to the electronic banking industry and I was happy to hear that forecasters were wrong about this technology. The majority of my banking activity is done through electronic payments and transfers as this has been commonly accepted by most of the younger generations.