The Change Function: Why Some Technologies Take Off and Others Crash and Burn
"Build it and they will come." Only for Kevin Costner, according to Pip Coburn, former Global Technology Strategist for investment house UBS. Dubbing all consumers "earthlings," Coburn reasons that most people will not adopt a new technology until the perceived benefits outweigh the perceived pain of trying to learn something new. Coburn has taken years of research notes and created a series of case studies about individual technologies to prove his theories of failure. Using quotes from Aristotle to Einstein, plus dozens from columnists of now defunct technology magazines, Coburn makes some interesting points about technologies that consumers, oops, sorry, "earthlings" care about, such as Internet phones, HDTV, and the iPod. But most readers will not know what an ASP is (application service provider) much less why they should care. Alpha chips, early interactive TV, picture phones from the 1960s, tablet PCs, and companies like Iridium and Webvan were probably of significant interest to Coburn's investors back in the day, but they do little now to engage any earthling's interest in why these technologies failed.Gail WhitcombCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved