Carlotta Perez and
The Golden Age
My
good friend financial analyst Mark Stahlman pointed me to this post
by Robert Cringely
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20040527.html
in which Cringely speculates on how embedded Linux in various
wireless devices may, in fact, disintermediate the telephone
company, as we know it. It’s
a great argument. He is
simply pointing out that the next step or two of using these devices
(with simple additions, already available) could allow you to be
your neighbors’ telco.
That got me to thinking about Carlotta Perez,
a British economist, and her book Technological Revolutions and
Financial Capital: The
Dynamics of Bubbles and Golden Ages.
In it, Perez carefully documents the fact that once we have
exploited a technology (taken it up the ramp) there may be another
whole ramp waiting for it. She
calls that second opportunity “the golden age” and she means
simply that when the technology is fully exploited throughout the
society which surrounds it, the effects are likely to be much larger
and longer lasting (she estimates another 20 years of growth).
That means first we get the pop for Linux as
Open Source and Wireless for Mobile usage.
Then they get let loose into the larger world and interesting
and unpredictable things happen.
In early ages that meant cars required roads and roads
enabled suburban development and suburbs created malls.
But you couldn’t have guessed a mall looking at a car in
1912.
If you have a curiosity about the future (and
if you read this newsletter I suspect you do), read the Cringely
article and have a try at the Perez book.
It’s available at Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-form/104-0887375-3563127.
(back to top)
