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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?
"Research ! A mere excuse for idleness; it has never achieved, and will never achieve any results of the slightest value."
-- Benjamin Jowett (1817-93), British theologian.
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
The advancement of the arts, from year to year, taxes our
credulity and seems to presage the arrival of that period
when human improvement must end.
Henry Elsworth
US Patent Office, 1844
- Minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, minutus carborata descendum pantorum.
Got it exactly wrong. The curve, whether or not you like Kurzweil, is headed up. The interesting part is the next 'fracturing of the equilibrium' will, as usual, be military. It took from 1905 to 1944 for the last one to reach the common man. Now we're at the mercy of Moores' law so instead of 39 years ... 39 minutes?
(please excuse the mixed buzzwords)
Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.
And I'll even go so far as to say the reason why there will be no next big thing - it's our broken-ass patent system.
Someone, somewhere out there has part of your brilliant idea buried in a vaguely worded submarine patent. Soon as you hit the big time - wham. Some greedy patent grubbing jerk will sue you for daring to make use of "his idea" that he's been sitting on not using for the last half a dozen years or so.
Only big business has enough lawyers these days to explore uncharted waters. Which means that business will be in charge of innovation. Which means that no product/idea/whatever will get the green light without a financial analysis conducted by a committee of people who will 99.9% of the time tend to be conservative, or maybe even just plain clueless as to the new idea's implications.
The days of the solo guy in the garage coming up with the thing that changes the world are over.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
I would like to throw my weight out there and call Donofrio an idiot, at least in relation to this statement. There are still many Next Big Things that we have yet to achieve (though the ability to achieve such may or may not exist, but we won't know till we try.)
A short list:
- Hovering vehicles
- Anti gravity (which is probably related to the above)
- hand held energy weapons
- teleportation
- economical space travel (think "to mars", or, at the least, consumer viability for going to the moon)
- curing cancer
- controlling computers with our brains
- mechanical prostetics that respond either to brain waves or nerves (we're right on the edge of this one- I believe someone had a really basic, bulky unit working, it just has to become available for the common man)
- growing of artificial organs for transplants (goodbye organ donors!)
- interactive holographic interfaces
- solar energy that's +60% effecient
Okay, maybe that list isn't so short. Sure, many of those fields are being worked on, but nothing concrete and ready for mass use has been created (to my knowledge.) All of those items will help to advance the human race in terms of how we live and effect our environment, as well as populating into space.
Also, I'm still waiting for my damned hoverboard. Back to the Future Part II is full of lies, I tell you, lies! (I realize that the events in BttF2 don't occur to 2015, but we should be seeing regular hover technology by now if we are to meet the deadline of mass production for hoverboards that can be used by everyday kids.)
If I were a creative, hard-working guy at IBM, and I heard something like this, I'd be thinking that I needed to get a new job, as I'd have no future at IBM if that is the sort of thing coming down from the top.
http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/when_to_
1. Worldwide internet communication allows large numbers of international friendships, dampening public support for all geopolitical war.
2. Cheap connectivity makes government propaganda impractical in every country
3. Nearly all software becomes free, as the impracticality of selling infinitely copyable material becomes evident.
4. Pop culture dies for the same reason, and is replaced by amateur arts and culture
5. AIDS vaccine is found, triggering second sexual revolution
6. Tech advances too fast for traditional college to keep up. Other methods of training become more prominent.
7. Privacy dies. Morality becomes more utilitarian as "public face" becomes impossible
Step into a huge movement. Don't Tread In Me.
Funny and poigniant at the same time. There are theories that human imagination and ability to achieve is limited, as schooling required to reach a level of expertise in a field continues to increase... however, we're far from the end, and with space exploration being almost pre-natal, our ability to achieve is highly unrealized. It's not to say there isn't an end, but it's not in sight.
Further, human ingenuity will probably create devices (computers) that can help us overcome any limitations we might face on a human level.
Saying there will never be a big breakthrough is base, and any credibility this man has should be immediately and irrevocably removed. I wonder if at the end of the industrial revolution, anyone ever imagined the information revolution...
Excuse my speling.
Making The Bar Project
I worked for IBM when this trend started... they bought the company I worked for, and, unlike many in companies bought by IBM, I stayed around for a couple years (compare 54% attrition in a year vs. 6% attrition in a year for most Cisco acquisitions).
One really stupid thing that happened before I left was that they decided that each of the major labs would have to come up with at least one product every 6 months, instead of dedicating themselves to research. This was one of Lou Gerstner's last gasps, but it redirected the company focus from doing things that no one else could do, to doing things that made short term profit.
Then others in the company (Sam Pamisano, Bill Etherington, et. al.) decided that individual contributors compensation would be based on the overall profit more than division or personal performance, and that managers and above would still have it based on division, personal performance, then overall profit, in that order.
Either they believed the engineers working for them had never had any higher math in the area of game theory, or they were simply ignorant that the emergent property of that type of staging is to keep your boss pleased by keeping the division up at the expense of the rest of the company, so the boss is happy and cuts you in on the cake.
Finally, it was a matter of pride to IBM Global Services that they had so much consulting effort that had been sold that they had a 2 year backlog - WTF? Who could *possibly* be proud of promising something you're unable to deliver in the timeframe you promised it, or having an organization that can't meet the demands of its market?
It's really unfortunate when a large company that people have depended upon for their livelihoods starts a tumble into short term thinking, and from there, into mediocrity.
-- Terry