LECTURE L04ADJACENT POSSIBLE

The S-curveBased on the notion of the Technical Life Cycle

Improvements in performance varies throughout the life of the technology

Number of transistors onan integrated circuit will double in about 18-24 months

Moore’s Law

The Law of Accelerating ReturnsEvolution applies positive feedback in that the more capable methods resulting from one stage of evolutionary progress are used to create the next stage. As a result, the rate of progress of an evolutionary process increases exponentially over time.

Exponential World

Local and linear

Global and Exponential

Combinatorial

Ideas build upon Ideas

Every generation of technology

becomes a source for new innovations

Web of Technology

Products are made using different parts using many technologies - confection of

ideas

Gall’s Law

All complex systems that work, evolved from simpler system that worked

“I, Pencil” by Leonard E. Read

The most important single central fact about a free market is that no exchange takes place unless both

parties benefit. — Milton Friedman

Toaster

Thomas Thwaits: The Toaster Project

Source:TED.com

"Left to his own devices he couldn’t build a toaster. He could just about make a sandwich

and that was it." — Mostly Harmless, Douglas Adams, 1992

“And that was something that reoccurred throughout the project, was, the smaller the scale you want to work on, the further back in time you

have to go” — Thomas Thwaites

Layers of Technology

Technologies evolves layer by layer, from simple to complex

technologies

Combinatory Process

New technology is created by combining other existing

technology in new ways

The Law of Disappearing Technology

When some technique is mastered, it will “disappear” as something

obvious and trivial, and other more useful things that are built on top of it

That means when technology disappears

it becomes useful

The Law of Disappearing Technology

Electricity

The Law of Disappearing Technology

Internet

The Law of Disappearing Technology

The Resistance Corollary

Even outdated things that should “disappear” don’t

due to supposed importance

Phone books

Checks

Fax machines

Keys

Plastic cards

Landline phones

Printednewspapers

Lottery terminals

Adjacent Possible

Adjacent Possible

...a kind of shadow future, hovering on the edges of the present state of things,

a map of all the ways in which the present can reinvent itself

Steven Johnson

Ideas usually come at similar timeWho invented the telephone?

Enabling Technology

Existing technology that can be used to build new technologies

Why was the computer invented in the 1940s and not in the 1840s?

Think about this!

Charles Babbage worked on his difference engine and later analytical engine In 1822-1871

Ada Lovelace influenced or even conceived the concept ot programmable computer

Adjacent Possible

When all the enabling technologies are ready, new

inventions will be emerge

Adjacent Possible

The inventor must use the components that exist in his

environmentSteven Johnson

Imagesource:http://www.computersciencelab.com/ComputerHistory/HistoryPt4.htm

Vacuum tubes were used to build computers

The Second Industrial RevolutionThe period 1870-1914 shaw innovations in the chemical, electric, petroleum and steel industries

Nikolai Kondratiev

Kondratiev waves are supposedly cycle-like phenomena in the modern world economy

Source:Wikipedia,KondratievWave

Kontrativ Wave

Source:Wikipedia,KondratievWave

Wave Years

1 First Industrial Revolution 1787–1842

2 Railroad and Steam Engine Era 1842–1897

3 Age of steel, electricity and internal combustion 1897–1939

4 War and Post-war Boom: Suburbia 1939–1982

5 Post Industrial Era: Information Technology 1982? – ??

Kontrativ Wave

The Prevailing Technology Trap

Current and dominant technology will highly influence and restrict

new innovations

Technology Cramming

Technology Cramming

Two Waves of Products Development

In the first wave the product is restricted by the prevailing

technology, but in the second, there is something new

Two Waves of Products Development

Web 1.0 Web 2.0

Two Waves of Products Development

One2Many Many2Many

Timeline

Each wave creates number of new inventions

Timeline

When the time is right, new ideas will emerge

Let’s play a game

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L05 How Innovation Happens