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No More Next Big Thing?
CthuluOverlord writes "CNET News.com is reporting that Nicholas Donofrio, Big Blue's executive vice president of innovation and technology, made a declaration on Tuesday in an interview with ZDNet Asia. 'The fact is that innovation was a little different in the 20th century. It's not easy (now) to come up with greater and different things. If you're looking for the next big thing, stop looking. There's no such thing as the next big thing.'" Donofrio goes on to explain that he sees innovation as being services or social changes nowadays, rather than simply a better moustrap. What's the verdict? Is tech innovation dead?
The idea that tech innovation is dead implies that we will now recycle the same tech in slightly modified form, because we have discovered every useful thing. I THINK NOT. What is more likely is that Mr. Donofrio suffers from failure of the imagination. Usually, when someone make a claim this outsized and this ludicrous, the next big thing is literally right around the corner. Mr. Donofrio can't see it - maybe none of us can. But it will come, and its implications may be good or may be bad - tech is like that, but it won't stop until we can control matter directly with our minds :-D
I have nothing to hide. So, why are you spying on me?
Around the turn of the last century, people used to say basically this same thing. I think this is going to be one of those quotes that people laugh about in a hundred years.
From the sound of this article, they should add another one to the list.
This is just like Albert Abraham Michelson announcing (in 1896) that physics is dead and complete with nothing left to discover. Since then, I think there have been some shocking advancements.
I tire of articles that basically say, "Look, look, we found a person who holds an important position in the corporate world and they said something without thinking (possibly just to make shock value news)! Let's all point and laugh."
My work here is dung.
Nicholas sounds rather like the legendary Charles H. Duell, former Commissioner of the U.S. House of Patents in 1899, who was reported to have urged then-President McKinley to close down the Office, saying, "everything that can be invented has been invented".
Now, I know this particular story is apocryphal, but it's interesting that we're hearing basically the same line a little over a century later. Odds are real good it will be wrong this time, too.
Nick ought to know better...but he seems to be suffering from a serious lack of imagination. Not a good thing for the 'executive vice president of innovation and technology' at IBM...
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
::cough::
BIOTECH!?!?!
What about the up and coming functional genomics?!?
E = m * c^(Hammer)
Innovation may be stifled but it's not for lack of ideas. The coporate influence in copyright and patent laws are the choke point.
UNIX/Linux Consulting
As one of my college instructor told me, the next the big thing has already been around for at least ten years before anyone bother to take notice. The Internet been around since the 1970s but no one noticed until the web browser and general access became available in 1995. The concepts for a lot of late 20th century technology (i.e., TV, radio, radar and microwave ovens) that we take for granted today was developed in the 1900s through 1940s. The next big thing may already exist right now, we just don't know about it until it appears on Slashdot. ;)
As long as innovation is crushed at the patent level, then yes, the NBT is never going to happen.
Things like planes, computers, cars and phones all happened because someone took something, and made it better. Now we have scum sucking lawyers fighting over simple lines of code, and even now our own DNA.
Everyone thinks that progress is going to come to an end, because they can't imagine what the next big thing could be, but that's their failing, not progresses.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
It's like Michael Jordan - the Chicago Bulls did not know they were drafting the greatest NBA player in history, who would create massive revenue for the business and revolutionize endorsements and salaries for players.
The Next Big Thing will happen in part because nobody really knows it's going to catch lightning in a bottle. If everyone knows about it, speculation and hype erode profitability.
IBM's comment is just ridiculous. There's the famous patent comment from the last century which others have pointed out. Then there's the Web, which both Steve Jobs and Bill Gates thought was a waste of time at one point. Video game consoles were considered a fad, and not a viable big business. So was digital music, broadband, online shopping, mobile phones and small-scale stock brokers.
There are always things which can be gigantic market and economy changers, even if they aren't The Internet or Radio or The Combustion Engine.
I can think of quite a few items that might completely change huge sections of business in the next ten-twenty years:
Wireless everywhere - 'nuff said
Hydrogen or other alternative fuel vehicles - no commodity driven marketplace for Middle East interests.
Digital Ink (e-Ink)
Droids/Automatons (we already have Roomba and Asimo - I am already preparing to be crushed by the first robot rebellion)
But just a teeny tiny bit. People who claim innovation has ended because "we've invented everything already" are inevitably wrong, because future knowledge cannot be predicted (or it would be present knowledge). However, we do need to keep in mind that people solve the easiest, most beneficial technological problems first. So you necessarily see a progression where it takes more investment to achieve "wow" technological breakthroughs. (I hear a lot of PhD students on Slashdot talk about how $PHYSICS_GREAT's dissertation was ~15 pages, while theirs is 150. This is an example of the above effect.)
We *may* have passed the point where one person working alone can come up with great ideas, but even that is far from certain. So yeah, this is just another necessarily false prediction, but it's true innovation keeps getting harder.
Rank my idea: http://www.sinceslicedbread.com/node/531
He is quoted out of context, and is hard to know what exactly he meant
by "stop looking for the next big thing" quote. As far as I know, he may be saying that his job is not to hold a crystal ball in hand and try to predict the next big thing (neither should you). And he does *not* say there is nothing new to be discovered. He only says it is harder to come by these things in the tech world today. Elsewhere in the article it stands out clear that he is busy seeking to enable innovation, instead of getting worried about what the "next big thing" will be. So clearly he does not discard the power of innovation.
One cental remark he makes, that "innovation today is more about services, process, business models or cultural innovation than just product innovation" sounds *very* well put, IMHO. Let us not forget which sort of innovation Google, eBay, Yahoo, Amazon, Orkut, LinkedIn, Napster (the original), iTunes, and even Slashdot itself, among others, brought to the world -- hint: it is not technical.
Quem a paca cara compra, paca cara pagará.
...and you'll certainly stop finding.
How did this guy get that high up in an IBM research org?
Anyone who goes looking for the Next Big Thing (tm) isn't going to find it. It's not predictable. We never know whether something is going to catch on in a big way, until after it happens. All you can do is sit back and wait to see what people are paying attention to.
Take a look at Microsoft, for example. They have a huge war chest full of monopoly money and they have been actively trying to create the Next Big Thing for nearly two decades now, and not once have they succeeded. Don't you think that if it were possible to predict the Next Big Thing, that those with the financial and political means to do Whatever They Want (tm) would have a virtual lock on it?
In technology, the innovations that change everything come from where you least expect them. That's because the big dogs have a vested interest in preserving the status quo.
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It appears that most of the Slashdot crowd agrees this is bunk and, of course, they are correct.
Our understanding of Physics alone is still so incomplete, that until we know it all (and I suspect that day may never come), there will still be tons of possibilities for the next big things coming out of that field alone.
Computer technology is still in its infancy. Anyone who thinks it's not going to change as drastically in the next 50 years as it has in the past 50, is fooling themselves.
Then there's the cool stuff we all want which, we know is possible and is only a matter of time. Cyborg type stuff, for example (and I'm not talking about the previous article on insects). I'm talking about devices implanted in our bodies to give us additional abilities. Imagine having direct internet access from your brain. There's simply NOTHING that makes this impossible and anyone who thinks it won't be a "Big Thing" simply lacks imagination.
I suspect that's the real problem right there. Mr. Donofrio simply lacks imagination.
Learn from the past man. Didn't IBM once say that there was only a market for 5 computers in the world?
This is a very sad statement. IBM still operates one of the few corporate R&D lab operations, but have been shifting theri focus to consulting. Yes it can make more predictible returns. But where will the next atomic force microscope come from?
IBM should find a PR person to babysit this guy.
flexible, inexpensive room tempaerature superconductors.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
I thought the Michelson quote had another sentence: "now, if we can only figure out why these salts fog our photographic plates..." Or was that an ad-lib by my Physics Professor? (Dr. Thomas Eck, CWRU)
The thinking was that to the room of physics knowledge in 1896, the radioactivity door led only to a small closet of additional knowledge, rather than opening out into the wide, wide world.
In 1896, noone knew what made the sun shine. Now we do.
IMHO, precision chemistry (e.g. nanotechnology) will lead to some amazing things, but not at all the ones that people expect. K. Erich Drexler's universal manipulator will not happen, and a space elevator is a lot more likely. Precision fibers and laminates will do surprising things. MEMS and biotechnology will shake things up.
As fossil fuels dwindle and become more expensive, energy conservation will become more important, as will turning plant material into liquid fuels. There will be much innovation in how to do things using less energy, or less fuel. The accelleration in processor power will slow down, as thermal and quantum effects become more and more important and harder to overcome. But storage technologies, hard disk and flash will continue improving.
All of the changing ratios of relative costs will keep innovators busy finding better solutions to the changing problems.
While everything has not been yet invented, I'd wager that virtually all technologies that could be combined in a novel way have already been patented.
Which means I'd going to have some grey or white hairs before the The Next Big Thing can emerge without a flurry of lawsuits. Until then, the only innovations will be in marketing and sales tactics.
assuming gp is right and the year of the michelson quote is in the 1890s, then likely your professor was adlibing
the first photographic image of any kind was made in either the late 1830s or early 40s (cant' remember, but the image itself is preserved at a UT library)... the first "propper" "photographs" were made nearly simultaneously in 1848 (within months of each other) by researchs working independently, J.P.L.M. Daugeurre, and William Henry Fox Talbot (note - lots of initials are needed to invent photography)
by the 1890s, silver-based photography was pretty much not significantly differnt from what we know today (although 35mm file wouldn't be invented until the 1920s)
of course, i could have totally misunderstood you and the gp entirely, and this might not actually be relevent
So, in other words, he's saying, "Don't try to create the next big thing. Just create the next thing, and let history decide if it's big."
I'm all for that. Too many people today who are in the business of creating set out from square one with the idea of changing the world. All they have to do is make a change...whether it ends up changing the world is up to too many factors that are beyond their control.
We can believe in you for 3 minutes, but beyond that, even the King of All Cosmos can't be expected to wait.
Maybe he does lack imagination as some have said but he's got a point.
Consider the field of electronics. Most of the engineering work during the past 50 years has been refining the fabrication of the transistor and it's application. Regardless of whether you're talking about TV, audio equipment, computers, defense systems, industrial controls or any other product made of electronics.
It's all been about the transistor. The nobel prize in physics was awarded to 3 engineers in 1947. It took more than a decade to get the transistor into a form that could be used in prodcution. Since then, there have been many refinements including printed circuit boards, integrated circuits and lots of miniaturization of systems. We've gotten lots of mileage out of the transistor because of it's versatility as a controlled source. It can be used as a switch or as an amplifier. The mother of it's invention was the need for a better way of performing these switching and amplification functions than vacuum tubes could provide.
Transistor technology is mature. Discrete transistor circuitry is already considered as quaint as tube circuitry. Soon, we'll regard standard ICs the same way.
But where are the glass or plastic light based circuits on Star Trek and 2001 Space Oddessy? The answer is that awaits a breakthrough in physics of the same magnitude as the transistor was.
Since most of the people reading Slashdot are programmers rather than EEs, I will point out that much of the software we develop runs on machines made of this 50 year old transistor technology. Having machines based on light or water or living tissue or whatever form they'll eventually take is bound to change this.
But this breakthrough in physics hasn't happened yet. It might be next year or it might be 30 years from now. Look at the time it took us to progress from vacuum tubes to transistors. It's hard to predict. But there will be a certain transition period between transistor technology and whatever replaces it. Only then will we have some idea what the next big thing might be. Whatever it will be, it ain't in sight yet.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
As a designer, the first thing that comes to mind is ... "errr, what do IBMs design teams look like?" And by "design" I'm not referring to a pile a of engineers dubbed "designers," or a bunch of art school kids who don't understand how a product actually functions. I'm talking about a real design team with industrial designers, graphic designers, interactive designers, engineers, social and psychological researchers all working in the same building, on the same floor, and drinking from the same water cooler.
I seriously doubt IBM does this, or does this well. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if they simply dream up garbage and ship it off to a design firm to become pretty. I don't know.
I know more then a few people who would love to, and know how to, design the "next big thing(s)," but a company such as IBM needs to accommodate an innovative environment. Moreover, they can't rely upon people in a vacuum to develop such an environment. They need to get off their butts and start hanging out in firms like IDEO. They need to see how people innovate on a daily basis.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
"No one will ever need more than 640K of RAM"
I think that this is probably going to be the most exciting 50 years ever--so many new advances and new problems facing the world. I think that this guy needs to stop letting nostalgia get to him.
When in history have: so many people had the ability to share and communicate ideas
When in history have we actually had to worry about the carrying capacity of the planet.
When in history have we had one world government coming into power?
Ok, those are all social changes. Tech? Shit, too many to list: NANOTECHNOLOGY for one, will change everything from computers to cars to carpet. GENETIC ENGINEERING/BIOTECH will probably create a drug that stops the aging process (in the next 50 years), clones, etc. SPACE, humans will again turn their eyes towards the sky once we are mostly living peacefully around the world. Mars, Venus, probes, space stations, space tourism, space elevators (see NANOTECHNOLOGY), MORE.
Yeah, it's not as "easy" to innovate, but when was it ever EASY? Edison worked for years on the light bulb and his other inventions, which is probably one of the simplest things we use each day.
I mean, sure, most innovation today is happening either at a really large scale or a really small scale and so to the "average human" it doesn't seem very cool or sexy (it's not "human sized"). But once people see that these things will create human sized changes in the world, they are going to take notice.
IBM should FIRE this guy if he's the VP of Research.
Cool! Amazing Toys.
Of course not every new idea or invention is invented in the united states. There are other countries not bound by american patent laws with the cabability of discovering new things.
I suspect that the depletion of fossil fuels will spur the development of Nuclear Fission technology so that energy will be perpetually cheap, at least for the next million or so years on Earth.
I'm not sure what the implications of this will be but I'm betting that the vast differences in Human existence in different nations today will be gone by the end of the 21st century.
We've mined less than one ten millionth of the Uranium on earth. See here and here for the implications.