Speed of Technological Trends
https://hbr.org/2013/11/the-pace-of-technology-adoption-is-speeding-up
The 2013 article “The Pace of Technology Adoption is Speeding Up,” by Rita Gunther McGrath, discusses the factors that cause the speed at which technology becomes popular. The article answers the question: is technology spreading at a faster rate now than in the past? The answer is yes. For example, today, the automotive design cycle is about 24-36 months. Just ten years ago, it was 60 months. The chart below shows these trends.
Another example are phones. While it took the classic telephone many decades for it to be in 50% of households, it took the cell phone less than five years to accomplish the same task. As we look at the data lines, it is clear that as you move forward in time, the slope of the lines are consistently increasing. This means that the speed at which new technology is adopted is increasing.
In class, we have been talking about how many rounds it takes for technology to spread throughout clusters, if the technology is able to spread (depending on the q value). In this context, technology spreads based on the percentage of one’s friends that have the item and the threshold for someone to switch to the item. This is different than this article. The article argues that the time period alone determines how fast an item spreads. I think that the time period does affect how fast technology spreads because, with modern technology, trends happen faster and faster. Though the threshold value q determines how many rounds it would take for technology to travel throughout a cluster and throughout multiple clusters, this speed is relatively small compared to how modern technology can speed up this process. This is why technological trend speeds appear to be determined by the time period alone.
