So there’s this thing called the “Hype Cycle”.
It’s a graphical representation used to explain adoption of technology coined by Gartner – one of the American IT giants. The Hype Cycle is, well, not really a cycle. More of a squiggly line that displays the path a given technology goes through before becoming widespread.
You have your inflated expectations, disillusionment period and then new applications followed by a plateau. It’s controversial whether the thing is a good tool for decision-making.
For me it’s riding the line of being a glorified marketing tool disguised as a useful business development concept. I usually dismissed it outright in my own work. Until just a couple months ago.
I met with the CEO of a prominent data science company at a conference. He is a big advocate of this idea. The guy successfully implemented it into his operations and was constantly landing opportunities with its help.
As he explained, the trick was not looking at the cycle as it’s intended. See past the labels on the squiggly line. Zoom out and view it more as a list of opportunities and stuff people talk about. Make it a buffet of hot technologies.
So in a way – it’s still a marketing tool – just more useful than I thought.