Introduction to Emerging Technologies

So far in this course, you’ve learned how to create a value chain map, placing the components of that value chain according to how visible (or invisible!) they are and where they fit on an evolutionary scale.

But can we just add in whatever new component we want to our maps? How do we choose which components to add? Let's see what Kary thinks:

In this concluding chapter of Part 1, we’re going to go deeper into that second axis of the Wardley map. You’ll learn how technology becomes generalized - and how to keep up with its evolution. You will also learn how to assess a new technology’s proximity to market readiness.

Discover How Technology Becomes Generalized

Kevin Kelly, the founding editor of WIRED Magazine and author of What Technology Wants, captured this effect. In that book, Kelly puts forward the idea that the development of technology shares many of the same drivers - and stages of evolution - as living organisms. 

When it first appears, any emerging technology typically has a narrow application designed to perform a particular task. So the first stage of evolution is characterized by a high degree of specialization. This tends to indicate scarcity, which is linked to high value.

Take electric power as an example. Michael Faraday created the first electric motor in 1821 - an amazing invention, but not immediately used for any specific purpose. The earliest direct-current electric motor came in the following decade. These more advanced motors powered machine tools and a printing press. These were increasingly specialized applications of electric power.

As technology is seen and used more, it begins to feed off other technology. The tech improves and starts being applied in other contexts. In other words, it becomes more diverse. Electricity, to keep with our example, moves from something that powers stand-alone motors for specific (specialized!) machinery to something that can provide light, heat, and mechanical power.

Already you can see the combination of electric power with other, more established forms of technology. And the more this happens, the more uses are identified, and the more it gets utilized. It moves toward ubiquity. The move to install electric circuits in the modern home started as long ago as 1878, when Sunderland, England inventor Joseph Swan used arc lamps to light the Picture Gallery at Cragside in Northumbland. 

That first installation would have been expensive. In other words, electrification was for the wealthy. But, as with living evolution, the next driver to think about is socialization. 

Socialization first drives awareness and demand for the technology, which then helps it spread further. It also encourages innovators to consider new ways to make use of the technology, building further with the drivers of diversity and ubiquity.

These lead to the driver of complexity. For example, electric power to drive a motor is a relatively simple use of the tech. So is the creation of electric light and heat. But as life evolves to be increasingly complex, so too does technology. The computer is a clear example of complexity at work: the electric circuits that power your computer are essentially a series of “on/off” switches that model 0s and 1s at an increasingly sophisticated scale to enable the AI (artificial intelligence) capabilities of ChatGPT - all of which we will talk more about in Part 2.

The final stage of Kelly’s tech timeline is invisibility and combinatorial rebirth.

Determine the Maturity of a Technology

The evolution axis described above tells how new technology is progressing on its path from prototype to ubiquity. But how do you assess where an emerging technology is on its journey from idea to prototype to product? Unsurprisingly, you’re not the first person to think about that question!

In the 1970s, as the U.S. space program was becoming increasingly sophisticated, NASA recognized that it needed a consistent and effective way to measure the maturity of new technology. This measurement could be a scale applied to internally-generated innovation or ideas brought to them from outside, independent innovators.

Meet their solution: the technology readiness level (TRL) methodology offers a 9-level scale to do just that. As a result, it has gained widespread recognition and adoption worldwide, including recognition as an ISO standard (ISO 16290:2013) in 2013.

The TRL scale moves from identifying the original principles behind an emerging technology, then follows progress from research to development to implementation by TRL9.

The following table sets out the nine levels, with a brief explanation:

TRL offers a clearly defined, measurable scale to judge where a new technology is in its development cycle.

Keep Up to Date With Technology’s Evolution

To conclude this chapter - and Part 1 of this course - let’s take a few moments to consider how you can stay current with the quickly changing world of new technology.

You’ve seen how to measure the progress of a specific technology on its path, so now you can zoom out and learn where to look - and how to respond - to the accelerating pace of technological change and development. The good news is you can use some techniques to do that!

Differentiate Trend Versus Trendy

Technology comes and goes; you need to know how to distinguish between fleeting fashion and longer-term changes that have a real impact. In other words, you need to tell the difference between what makes a trend versus what is merely trendy.

To do this, let’s examine the definitions of four main innovation groups: fads, micro-trends, macro-trends, and mega-trends.

• Fad - This describes something short-lived rather than something that has longer-term implications. We see fads in areas like fashion and contemporary culture. Remember the Ice Bucket Challenge from a few years ago? Or the obsession with Pokémon Go that swept the world in the late 2010s?

• Micro-trend - Where a fad might come and go in a few weeks or months, micro-trends will stick around longer, perhaps 3 - 5 years. For example, you could consider the early stages of Facebook as a micro-trend: the social network was limited to student populations for the first few years. It took a little while to graduate to ubiquity, passing into the next group.

• Macro-trend - Similar to micro-trends, macro-trends are longer-term changes that stick around for perhaps 5 - 10 years. In this category, you might include the rise of the Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence, or even social networking. In turn, these feed into the final category.

• Mega-trend - Smaller in number than the shorter-term changes outlined above, the large consultancies tend to produce lists of the five or six global shifts that define an era. For example, the Project Management Institute’s list for 2022 included: digital disruption, climate crisis, demographic shifts, economic shifts, labor shortages, and civil, civic, and equality movements.

Applying these definitions is inevitably prone to error. In the early days of social networking, many commentators dismissed it as a fad - or, at best, a micro-trend. However, it’s safe to say that it has outlasted fad status!

Build Your Reading List

Keep an eye out for other influential blogs, podcasts, and resources that can help you keep up to speed with new developments.

One helpful resource you may want to look at from time to time comes from the analyst firm Gartner, which produces its Hype Cycle annually. The Hype Cycle identifies 25 must-know emerging technologies and places them against a timeline from innovation to inflated expectations, disillusionment, and eventually effective adoption. The latest edition is below:

Gartner’s Hype Cycle for technology shows that expectations related to technology start out very high and then go through a period of disillusionment.

Also, look at the CompTIA Emerging Technology Community - they publish regular blog posts that will help you explore developments. 

Kary and the team at Capgemini Invent produce a regular podcast, Future Sight, that is well worth checking out as a guide to navigating the fast-changing world around you. 

Your Turn

Now it’s time to be curious and do some exploring.

What interesting technology can you find by exploring the Gartner Hype Cycle and the blogs from CompTIA mentioned above?

• Pick one example and create a value chain map for it.

• Then place where it sits on the TRL.

Finally, start building up your own list of blogs, publications, and podcasts to follow to create your personal reference list.

Let’s Recap!

In this chapter, you’ve explored how technology becomes generalized and learned about how to keep up to date with technology’s evolution. You’ve seen some ways to place any new technology on a measured scale to understand its current value and future potential.

• Kevin Kelly’s tech timeline traces the evolution of technology from its inception as highly specialized through diversity, ubiquity, socialization, and complexity to invisibility and combinatorial rebirth.

• Technology readiness levels offer nine phases of emergence, from an original idea through prototyping to a fully operational model.

• You can tell the difference between trends and the merely trendy to hone in on technology that will have a big impact over time.

• Gartner’s Hype Cycle looks at how a technology moves from initial concept to market adoption. 

That concludes Part 1 of our course. Over the past four chapters, you’ve understood what constitutes innovation and learned some frameworks to assess emerging technology. You’ve also seen how to identify opportunities for innovation in your working life.

Next up, you have a quiz to test your learning so far, then join me in Part 2, where we’ll start putting the theory into practice - and apply it to some core types of emerging technology!