emerging technologies
6 D's Frameworks
The ripple effect of the exponential technologies and global interconnectedness is a myriad of new verticals, business models and the opportunity to impact our society through for instance; increasing access to knowledge, funding, digital distribution and a reduction in time to scale. At the same time our society has been able to gradually move from a scarcity to an abundance mindset.
Technology has creating a world of abundance in almost every major arena, including energy, knowledge, transportation, computation, access to education, and access to healthcare.
A framework that can be used to assess the technological roadmap and predict where technologies are headed and when to capitalize on the opportunities is the 6 D’s Framework.
Digitization
Deception
Disruption
Anything that becomes digitized enters the same exponential growth we see in computing. It is easy to access, share and distribute. It can spread at the speed of internet. Once something can be represented in ones and zeros it becomes an information-based technology and enters exponential growth.
Exponential growth is hard to spot. At the beginning of most exponentially advancing environments, the early stages of development are almost imperceptible. Doubling .01 only gets you .02 then .04, and so on, Exponential growth really takes off after it breaks the whole-number barrier. 2 quickly becomes 32, which becomes 32.000 before you know it.
Exponential technologies can render the previous paradigm obsolete, outperforming it in both effectiveness and cost. For example: once you can stream music on your phone, why buy CD’s? If you can also snap, store and share photographs, why buy a camera and film?
Dematerialized
Demonetized
Democratized
Separate physical products are removed from the equation. Technologies that were once bulky or expensive (radio, GPS or camera) are now all in a smartphone that fits in your pocket.
Money is increasingly removed from the equation as the technology becomes cheaper, often to the point of being free. Software is less expensive to produce than hardware and copies are virtually free. You can now enjoy a multitude of services on your phone for instance at costs approaching zero.
Once digitized, products, services and information previously only available for the privileged few are now accessible by the ever increasing percentage of the world population. Anyone with a smartphone and internet connection is able to access a large amount of information and capabilities.
The only constant is change and the rate of change is increasing. Your mindset matters (a lot)….What’s yours?