In Bob Seidensticker's new book, Future Hype: The Myths of Technology Change, the author takes a rather contrarian view of our love affair with new technologies. Seidensticker discusses the "birthday-present syndrome" in which "we don't soberly weigh today's developments against the technologies we already have... Too often we mistake a new technology for an important one." (via April 2006 Conference Board "Across the Board" magazine).
It reminds us all that technologies are enablers, not ends to themselves. The successful ones are those that solve real unmet needs (whether spoken or unspoken) in new and useful ways.
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