September 23^rd, 2003

The technology tsunami surges ahead

Gene Mage

Where were you when Hurricane Isabel came ashore? I was safely in the Finger Lakes, happy to have caught a flight out of Maryland on Wednesday evening. The storm surge had not hit yet. In this morning’s newspaper I saw the melancholy photograph of a Corvette convertible submerged to the point where only the top was visible as a lone kayaker paddled gracefully through a Baltimore neighborhood.

Today’s column, the fifth in the series “Nine trends that are going to rock your world”, takes a look at a different kind of storm surge you can expect. A former colleague once spoke about the coming “bandwidth tsunami.” Residents of the Outer Banks and Virginia Beach know all too well that a tidal wave will inevitably hit your shore. You never know exactly when, where, or how high the wave will hit. You just know that it eventually will.

Many of us who were studying the growth of broadband technology back in 1999 knew that the “Tech Bubble” was not the coming tsunami. It was just a little ripple ahead of the front. And some of us who are watching closely today believe that the recent dip was hardly a trend. The “Tech Bust” was merely an inflection point along a mathematical curve. As consulting giant Accenture reported, broadband technology could contribute $500 billion to US GDP over the next five to seven years. Tides roll in and tides roll out. If you build your business or financial sandcastle at the low water mark you had better bring along a change of clothes.

New technology spreads like a virus. Early adopters, who have weak resistance to new things, are the first to succumb. Then curious onlookers rubbing shoulders with the early adopters get the bug. A technology adoption curve can be observed for every significant new idea from gunpowder to steam engines to automobiles, microchips, and broadband internet access.

As more and more people play around with a new technology they discover new ways to use it to do things better, cheaper, and faster. People initially use new technology to “speed up” what they otherwise do manually. Once the technology becomes familiar and the benefits more apparent, users abandon crude automation for more revolutionary work processes. This dialog between inventors and users creates new applications and markets never anticipated by the designers.

Few pundits in the 1980s envisioned online mega-marketplaces for everything from books to jobs to travel. On the contrary, many predicted that Television was going to become the interactive medium of choice. Technology changed the minds of the users, and the users created novel applications and markets.

I just bought a combination Pocket PC/Phone for my business. It is a marvelous gadget.

Just a few weeks ago if I wanted to check e-mail while traveling I had to find an Ethernet hub or phone line to connect my laptop. Now I can tap a button and respond to an inquiry instantaneously. But rather than merely making email faster and more convenient, my Pocket PC/Phone is revolutionizing the way I do work. Now I can take a conference call in an airport while viewing the appropriate documents without ever opening my computer bag. Now I can “hot-sync” my Pocket PC with my laptop even if my laptop is 3000 miles away. And I honestly believe I am only scratching the surface of the smart phone’s potential.

But I am no early adopter. The technology merely improved to the point in terms of price and functionality where it made sense to try it. Now as I and millions of others learn to master the new device we will discover all sorts of applications the designers never imagined. Those new applications will create new markets. Those new markets will drive another wave of innovation. The storm surge may have taken a brief pause, but it never stopped its relentless upward cycle of progress.

Syndicated columnist Gene C. Mage is author of the book Managing for High Performance. For more information on Nine trends that will rock your world visit www.makingitwork.com.