CeBIT, technology innovation & attention grabbing
Earlier this year, I visited CeBIT - my second time - and was once again awed by it. The scale, the planning, the integration, the execution. There are lessons to be learned here. It’s easy to see why CeBIT is described as the world’s largest technology fair.
So, what’s new in the world of technology?
Hmm… in the part of the tech world that interests me, I saw nothing revolutionarily new. Now, that isn’t meant to take away any credit from the companies that participated - some with some great products and services. Rather it’s an over-simplified, single-line conclusion. Sort of. Let me explain.
IMO, technology innovations follow a sort of life-cycle. Fundamental technology breakthroughs are rare and far between. Undoubtedly, the time gaps in between are getting smaller. Relatively speaking, that is.
For instance, in the domain of software, which is where I am most comfortable, lets consider the invention of the world wide web. It changed the world. Still continues to do so. Without any doubt. Now that was new!
And sometimes an event acts as a catalyst for something else. Like the WWW did for email.
Email, which ranks amongst my favorite technologies and which I consider the original killer app of the Internet, was invented in the late 60’s. But it’s widespread adoption, resulting in becoming a primary means of communication (as far as the “regular” non-techie person goes), happened only after the web exploded into our lives. So not only did the WWW spark of a revolution, it also pushed an older technology to the forefront.
In a connected world, there are numerous examples of these sort of symbiotic relationships often mixing and merging into integration. Like webmail or instant messaging. The whole experience being greater than the sum of the individual parts.
Once relvolution like this begins, it moves at an astounding speed. Technology has not only shrunk the world, but also reduced the time in between innovations and enhancements; it’s given people across borders the ability to work together, to benefit from each other’s contributions, and has overall resulted in reducing the time gap between an idea and its implementation.
What happens in the time in between the big breakthroughs? Adoption of technology, user feedback, enhancements, greater clarity in terms of possibilities, systems combine to form larger solutions, systems get split into sub-systems, building blocks emerge, innovative uses, and even more innovative uses.
Yessir, these are exciting times to live in!
Coming back to CeBIT, it was fun and entertaining to see how companies vied for the visitors attention: giving informational talks, eye-catching stall do-ups, inter-participant competitions, games and just plain gimmicks. Have a look at some snapshots… :)
 There’s a truck indoors! |
 Ain’t that eye-catching? |
 Want a hairdo? |
 Charming data recovery services |