The Big Picture: by Frank Beacham
Beware the Muses of the Digital Future
Just when I thought the dot-com madness was dead and
buried, a new round of overheated "digital future" hype
was served piping hot at the recent round of year-end tradeshows.
It seems that failed technologies (you know what they are) die mighty
hard these days.
But then why not gamble when you have nothing else
on the table? One gets the feeling that many high-tech CEOs have
bought into the classic movie industry theory of screenwriter William
Goldman. The single most important fact in the entire film industry,
noted the celebrated scribe, is that "nobody knows anything."
In his book, Adventures in the Screen Trade, Goldman
strips away all pretense about predictability. "Not one person
in the entire motion picture field knows for a certainty what's
going to work," he wrote. "Every time out it's a
guess - and, if you're lucky, an educated one."
The same might be said for today's attempt to
recapture the spirit of the faltering digital revolution. With many
of the dot-com promises now in shambles, the visionaries are back,
trying desperately to persuade us they now know how this digital
drama will play out. (Of course, this is especially true if the
visionary is trying to sell you a "solution" to your problem.)
HISTORY REPEATING ITSELF
This time around it would best if we studied history
and started to think for ourselves about what constitutes good and
bad technology. The uncertainty we face today is not new. History
is filled with predictions about technology that were so wrong they
appear ludicrous with a little hindsight.
As we begin a new year filled with the promise of
tumultuous change, these predictions from the past might help moderate
our zeal when the tradeshow pundits bloviate with certainty about
where new technologies will take us:
•"Computers in the future may weigh no more
than 1.5 tons." -Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless
march of science, 1949;
•"I think there is a world market for maybe
five computers." -Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943;
•"I have traveled the length and breadth
of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure
you that data processing is a fad that won't last out the year."
- the editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall,
1957;
•"But what ... is it good for?" -
engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, 1968,
commenting on the microchip;
•"There is no reason anyone would want a
computer in their home." - Ken Olson, president, chairman
and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977;
•"This ‘telephone' has too many
shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication.
The device is inherently of no value to us." - Western
Union internal memo, 1876;
•"The wireless music box has no imaginable
commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in
particular?" -David Sarnoff's associates in response
to his appeal for investment in radio broadcasting in the 1920s;
•"The concept is interesting and well-formed,
but in order to earn better than a ‘C,' the idea must
be feasible." - a Yale University management professor
in response to Fred Smith's paper proposing reliable overnight
delivery service. (Smith went on to found the Federal Express Corp.);
•"Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?"
- H.M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927;
•"I'm just glad it'll be Clark
Gable who's falling on his face and not Gary Cooper."
- Gary Cooper on his decision not to take the leading role
in Gone With The Wind;
•"We don't like their sound and guitar
music is on the way out." - Decca Recording Co. rejecting
the Beatles, 1962;
•"If I had thought about it, I wouldn't
have done the experiment. The literature was full of examples that
said you can't do this." - Spencer Silver on the
work that led to the unique adhesives for 3M "Post-It"
notepads;
•"So we went to Atari and said, ‘Hey,
we've got this amazing thing, even built with some of your
parts, and what do you think about funding us? Or we'll give
it to you. We just want to do it. Pay our salary, we'll come
work for you.' And they said, ‘No.' So then we went
to Hewlett-Packard and they said, ‘Hey, we don't need
you. You haven't got through college yet.'" -
Apple Computer founder Steve Jobs on attempts to get Atari and HP
interested in his and Steve Wozniak's personal computer;
•"640K ought to be enough for anybody."
- Bill Gates, 1981;
•"Everything that can be invented has been
invented." - Charles H. Duell, commissioner, U.S. Office
of Patents, 1899.
DEVIL'S IN THE DETAILS
However, one man - writing 150 years ago in the
Massachusetts woods near Walden Pond - may have come closer
than anyone to getting it right:
"So, with a kindred ‘modern improvements;'
there is an illusion about them; there is not always a positive
advance. The devil goes on exacting compound interest to the last
for his early share and numerous succeeding investments in them.
Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention
from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved
end." - Henry David Thoreau from Walden. n
Frank Beacham is a New York City-based writer and
producer. Visit his Web site at http://www.beacham.com.
E-mail: frank@beacham.com.
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