Sunday, April 15, 2007

The Gartner hype cycle

One very original concept from among the IT analyst firms is the "Hype Cycle" from Gartner. It maps out the distinct stages in the adoption of new technologies -
-- Technology trigger

-- Peak of expectations
-- Trough of disillusionment
-- Slope of enlightenment
-- Plateau of productivity

Mapped out spatially, the hype cycle would look like this...


In my opinion, the hype cycle is a sexed-up well-marketed version of the following Axiom -
"Any new concept is over-hyped in the short term and under-hyped in the long term"
(Keep this in mind when you want to plan your cross-sector career moves...)


Examples of over-hyped technologies that will be big in the future -
-- RFID
-- Nanotech
-- Software offshoring
-- The mobile phone as the sole computing device for most of the world
etc etc

Examples of over-hyped concepts that have started making a huge impact (good or bad)
-- Video streaming
etc etc

Every year, Gartner places the different emerging technologies into the graph based on their understanding of where the hype is leading. The 2006 hype cycle is here (Click on image for bigger picture etc etc)...


More about the hype cycle straight from the horse's mouth.


No comments: