July 16th, 2009 by Jackie Fenn · Comments Off
We’ve seen the hype cycle used in several MBA and other graduate courses to inform the discussion on information technology adoption, but we were gratified to receive this feedback from a lecturer in regenerative medicine:
“Congratulations on an excellent book! I use the Gartner hype cycle for a number of my lectures and presentations with respect to stem cells, tissue engineering and regenerative medicine – All are emerging technologies and all are moving nicely along the hype cycle!”
If you’re running a course that uses Mastering the Hype Cycle as a text, we’d love to hear how you are incorporating it and how it’s working out.
Tags: Reviews · Uncategorized
July 16th, 2009 by Mark Raskino · Comments Off
A good project board (or innovation steering group) is valuable asset that should last a lifetime if you look after it. So treat it with respect, put effort into maintaining relationships. Innovation needs guidance, maintain your board with a variety of members with different viewpoints and experience. This will help ensure you get both the right critique and the right insights from all angles. Regularly Wax (lyrical) to them about progress in your current innovation projects.
For an overview of ‘Rules for Riders’ see previous post
Tags: Rules for riders
July 13th, 2009 by Mark Raskino · Comments Off
[this post also appears in Mark Raskino's GBN Blog]
I was asked recently by Economist correspondent Ludwig Siegele, whether Chris Anderson’s ‘Long Tail’ is following the Hype Cycle. This might sound like a contrived conjunction of two abstractions but actually, it is a very good question. The Long Tail is a new management science idea, some might say ‘management tool’. If it is a powerful insight it will be turned into business strategy method and applied to make money. It is therefore a management science innovation which, business managers can either choose to believe and adopt, or not. We think such things do follow the Hype Cycle.
For the Hype Cycle to be in play, two conditions must be met. First there must be social excitement wave surrounding a new innovation that companies are considering adopting. Second, the innovation cannot simply work first time and every time ‘out of the box’ it must require evolution through application across markets to reach its potential efficacy. Both of these do appear to be in place for the Long Tail.
Chris Anderson’s original insight and subsequent book created a surge of interest in this new way of looking at sales and inventory business model dimensions in the Internet era. His suggestion was that the value of the vast virtual-store inventory tail of e-commerce would outweigh the head – those high volume products a store based retailer has shelf space to keep in stock. Many managers have been trying out the idea and researchers have been testing it. For example in 2005 a US retail CIO told me he thought the long tail effect was impacting his business. ‘Customers come in our stores expecting that we can stock every item in every size, because that’s what they are used to on the website – but there is no store format, no matter how large, that we could build to meet their expectation’. However in 2008 other researchers claimed that Anderson’s theory was disproved by e-commerce sales data and Chris has partly accepted their analysis. So the idea may be in the Trough of Disillusionment but it is not dead.
It’s bubble has been pricked, it is deflated but not done. The concept is now being refined by the market – as a big thought hits the reality of use. For example, in the original idea the long tail of inventory was more valuable than the short head. However data appears to suggest that is not the case for some of the online businesses that should clearly demonstrate it – particularly those in music and video retailing. That does not remove all value from idea – it simply conditions it.
Perhaps the tail will never outweigh the head – that doesn’t matter if many more managers extract more business value by focusing some of their attention on that tail, as a result of bearing Anderson’s eloquent mnemonic insight in mind. Perhaps there are secondary effects too – e.g. people attracted to the tail are cross-sold items from the popular head list, so both grow in proportion.
Why does it matter? Because you need to understand how ideas move through the Trough of Disillusionment even better than you understand how to deal with Peak of Inflated Expectations. Good new management idea viruses, apparently killed off by a few well aimed attacks, usually don’t die. They simply lay dormant for a while and morph. If your competitor is learning to adapt to them, you may suffer a nasty cold later on.
Chris Anderson has a new book out – its called Free: The Future of a Radical Price. This one is already creating some controversy and it has been attacked by Malcom Gladwell (of Tipping Point and Blink fame). If you are a middle ranking leader in a large company, trying to decide which of these management ideas to apply and when to get serious about using them- it does make sense to scrutinize their progress with you cast your ‘hype cycle eye’. Don’t jump in just because it’s ‘in’, but equally – don’t stay out just because it’s ‘out’.
Tags: Business Hype Cycles · Innovation Management and the Hype Cycle
July 13th, 2009 by Mark Raskino · Comments Off
It won’t surprise you to know we are pleased about this! It makes a lot of sense for a book about IT innovation to be available as an e-book download, on the device that is really stirring up the publishing industry. Mark is sad that Kindle still doesn’t exist in Europe, Africa or APAC yet – but if you are thinking of getting the download in the USA – we sincerely hope you enjoy the read.
Get the Kindle edition
Tags: The book launch
June 17th, 2009 by Mark Raskino · Comments Off
As you rise up the slope of enlightenment to the plateau, don’t get arrogant. Your understanding is rising and so are the returns. But scaling an innovation has its kinks and bumps too. At this point, when it seems the hardest and most dangerous times are past, it is easy to loose concentration and make a silly mistake. Innovation leaders often have personality types that don’t make them strong natural ‘completer / finishers’. They start thinking about the next buzz and the next wave before the job is completely done. Don’t fall off before at the end, in front of the crowd with your face in the dirt just at the very time when you should be taking the applause. And remember to thank your support team vociferously so they will want to come with you next time; innovation adoption leaders are quiet heroes.
For an overview of ‘Rules for Riders’ see previous post
Tags: Rules for riders
June 11th, 2009 by Mark Raskino · Comments Off
In a Financial Times online article dated June 2nd, Mr. David Smith – the Chief Investment Director of GAM (part of the Swiss wealth management company Julius Baer) discusses the hedge fund bubble burst of 2008. As part of his analysis he says:
The research group Gartner tried to prove the potentially positive outcomes of bubbles in its theory of the “hype cycle”, in which mass adoption of any product begins with a “technology trigger” that generates significant interest. This leads to a “peak of inflated expectations”. When reality fails to live up to these hopes, the industry enters a “trough of disillusionment” in which many businesses leave. Those that remain continue through to a “slope of enlightenment” in which a more practical understanding of the technology’s potential is reached. The final stage is the “plateau of productivity”.
One key factor missing from Gartner’s analysis is capital. The surge to the “peak of inflated expectations” can only occur if capital is cheap and freely available. And this is a key point to remember when analysing the hedge fund bubble of 2008.
The Gartner Hype Cycle was created to analyse technology innovations progress through their markets from an adopters point of view. While we are always very happy to see its use extended to other fields, it is not a general economic theory about bubbles and we would not wish to give that impression. We are not economists.
Mr. Smith makes a good point about the availability of capital. While the hype cycle will be in play for even the simplest and cheapest of innovations, its magnitude can certainly be amplified considerably by freely available capital. The dot com bubble is the most obvious example. The Silicon Valley funding of web 2.0 is another.
Hedge funds are not a new invention; they have been around since the early 1950s. Forbes Invstopedia suggests there was a hedge fund boom peak in 1968, followed by a crash in 73-4, then another boom in the 90′s which saw a major fallout in the early 2000s. So we have just passed through a third wave. It therefore seems likely hedge funds form a repeated cyclical, or boom-bust investment market, like property, that rises and falls repeatedly. Over the medium term (perhaps 5 to 10 years) this can sometimes be mistaken for a hype cycle. We have noted the difference before in this Blog. In the Hype Cycle two underlying curves create the shape: the social excitement bell curve plus the innovation performance maturity S curve. It is not obvious that hedge funds in their current form are a new invention, maturing in their technical performance, in this decade.
So on balance, it seems unlikely that the Hype Cycle model can be applied to the current situation of the hedge fund industry. However it is possible that the hype cycle applies to some financial instruments – where they are genuinely novel innovations. For example, as we have raised in this blog previously, it is possible that the Hype Cycle applies to the instrument at the epicenter of this recession – the CDO.
I am certainly no expert in financial investment vehicles. So if anyone cares to expand on this debate, I would be very happy to hear from them.
Tags: Business Hype Cycles · Innovation Management and the Hype Cycle · Not quite hype cycles
June 5th, 2009 by Mark Raskino · Comments Off
Just sometimes the wave will breakdown and there is no way to make it work for you. If it looks like this innovation really just won’t resolve its teething troubles, take the decision, fail fast and learn. Don’t let the wave take you down and turn you over. Sometimes, when a big wave breaks a blame culture arises and individuals become casualties. It is safer for you to choose how to dive off cleanly and save your neck for another. Your practice and experience and a few key indicators will tell you if the wave is a dud – listen to your inner voice if things don’t feel right. Don’t wait for the fall and make a big ugly splash. You could get career maimed by the board crashing down on your head apportioning blame.
For an overview of ‘Rules for Riders’ see previous post
Tags: Uncategorized
May 29th, 2009 by Jackie Fenn · 2 Comments
Following Geovector’s selection as a Cool Vendor in 2006, we’re starting to see other early commercialization of augmented reality capabilities using cell phones, such as Mobilizy‘s Wikitude and Tonchidot‘s Sekai Camera.
We’re also seeing a growing body of well-informed discussion and debate around types of augmented reality and their relative maturity. In Augmented Vision and the Decade of Ubiquity, Robert Rice separates out four levels of AR, distinguishing the current batch of animation-enhanced video feedbacksystems (eg from Total Immersion) from those like Mobilitzy’s Wikitude that stay closer to the original vision of using knowledge of the user’s location and other context to superimpose relevant information. In the Augmented Reality Hype Cycle, Maarten of SPRXMobile positions the four styles and other additions on a hype cycle chart, triggering some interesting debate about capabilities such as dumb vs smart augmentation (ie does the system deliver a static piece of information linked to an object or place, or does it use context to deliver dynamic links).
This level of discourse, along with the beginnings of the commercial services, indicates that the topic is climbing higher toward the Peak of Inflated Expectations. We’ll shortly be updating the hype cycle entry for augmented reality for this summer’s Hype Cycle Special Report and we’ll move it along accordingly.
Tags: Technology Hype Cycles
May 15th, 2009 by Mark Raskino · Comments Off
Innovation adoption hype cycle surfers must stay cool at all times. This is especially true in the plunge from the peak of inflated expectations to the trough of disillusionment. Nine times out of ten the hype cycle will bottom out and start to recover, but for those coming on the ride with you it won’t feel like that – especially if they are newbies. As an innovation leader you must maintain your poise and your external confidence. Let the competitors give up – your visible tenacity, continued and assured evangelism is what will help you win. The thrill, pace and excitement at the start of the wave may slow down, but you must bring this thing all the way into the shore to reap the final reward and ultimate respect.
For an overview of ‘Rules for Riders’ see previous post
Tags: Rules for riders
May 11th, 2009 by Mark Raskino · Comments Off
It won’t surprise you to know that Jackie and I feel proud and privileged to be the co-authors of ‘Mastering the Hype Cycle’. What might be news is that it’s the sixth in a series Gartner has published with Harvard Business School Press. That collection is a very cool achievement indeed. We think it’s a major contribution to Business IT management education. The seventh, ‘The Real Business of IT’ by Richard Hunter and George Westerman, is coming this Fall.
Apart from the authors, there are a couple of Gartner people behind the scenes who made this happen. Heather Levy is our internal head of book publishing. Andrew Spender is our corporate head of communications. This collection has been a labour of love for them both over the last 5 years. Can you imagine trying to shepherd very busy and sometimes precocious analysts through the writing process and getting them to deliver a manuscript on time? They command our highest respect and gratitude.
Tags: The book launch
