Is Tech Becoming Boring?

I connected a couple of dots yesterday.  Jeff Nolan Tweeted:

and I'm also finding that there isn't much in the tech world that is interesting to me right now.  Weird.

Then I read an article on one of my heroes (yes I have a few), Alan Kay, in ODBMS.org. He was being interviewed on Innovation.  Alan was asked:

What do you consider are the most promising innovations of the last 3 years?

His partial response:

I can't think of any in computing (we are in a very incremental and almost moribund period in our field) but this could simply be "old-fogeyism" on my part.

Then I read a piece by Bill Buxton in BusinessWeek, entitled The Long Nose of Innovation in which Bill writes (emphasis mine):

But those looking to apply the theory [of The Long Tail] to the implementation of innovation within an organization should beware. My belief is there is a mirror-image of the long tail that is equally important to those wanting to understand the process of innovation. It states that the bulk of innovation behind the latest "wow" moment (multi-touch on the iPhone, for example) is also low-amplitude and takes place over a long period—but well before the "new" idea has become generally known, much less reached the tipping point. It is what I call The Long Nose of Innovation.

Taken together, these comments suggest what Alan Kay seems to have known for some time. That we are in a relatively stagnant period  (what I would prefer to view as a period of invention and refinement) in terms of innovation. I was struck by how forthright Alan was in saying we are in a very incremental and almost moribund period in our field.  To call the tech world stagnant seems quite dramatic coming from such an inventive mind.  Buxton, reinforces this notion that much innovation as a process is incremental and "low amplitude." We've been buzzing about SaaS and Social Networking and because these technologies (especially social networking) are so participatory, they "feel big".  But each of these have a had a Long Nose component to them.  Both Oracle and SAP have been developing their next generation solutions on SOAs through a period os invention, refinement, augmentation and now Traction (at least from SAP's perspective). SaaS is a great step forward in terms of delivery of applications but to my way of thinking, its a prime example of incremental innovation rather than revolutionary. And this is goodness, because in talking to customers, they want incremental improvement. Too much change too quickly can be destructive. 

Even some of the exciting announcements @ CES reflected a Long Nose, incremental approach. I was excited about GM's Driverless car announcement @ CES. But this seems to be a sophisticated mashup of a lot of existing technology; current state autos, GPS, Cameras, radar, software based driving etiquette etc.  Again, low-amplitude, long period innovation. 

Will something dramatic happen in Tech in 2008? 

Comments

[Howard Oliver]

1.

If you think about it - boring can be good. As tools move to the mainstream they might loose their sexiness but gain in value and cost effectiveness. Look at the online storage area. Not exciting but try to exist without it. We use http://www.storageguardian.com for online back-up and to give us a disaster recovery capability….. They provide an interesting but not so sexy service. One aspect that is cool though - they provide a DS-Client backup software on a single server that enables you to securely back up an entire network's data online.