Disruption and the Gartner's curve 2016.

As usual I apologize for my bad English. Today I like to comment the  Gartner's hype curve for 2016, comparing it to the 2015's one. This is how the "industry" and mostly the "VC" is doing their financing of startup, so I think this could be useful here. I see this is full of startuppers.

Basically, it depends by the kind of early investor you find. Some of them are taking more risk and financing you in the early stages, some of them are coming just after the Through of Disillusionment. Some of them, usually speculators, are attracted by the sharper parts of the hype, because they play financial games with the derivatives. 

Anyhow, I think is relevant to compare the two curves, to understand what is gone already (which means: already adopted in production) and what is waiting. And the strange situation we have in this year.

Here the curve for 2105:

And here is the one for 2016:

Now, the first thing you see is that some of them are "gone". "Gone" means they are adopted already, so there is no point of doing a "prediction". This is not a value you can sell if you are Gartner.

So, I mean:

1. Enterprise 3D printing.
2. Gesture control.
3. Autonomous Field Vehicles
4. Hybrid cloud computing.
5. Cryptocurrency Exchange

those are "gone". Means they are adopted. So now competition is working. Means:

1. Logistics for enterprises made easier than before. Expect prices for aircraft will decrease again, (like low cost)  , little companies doing prototypes and artisans experiencing loss.
2. New high of productivity in companies using robots. Which means, China in troubles while robots are cheaper than underpaid workers.
3. Prices of milk and grain decreasing again : lot of little farms defaulting when not subsidized.
4. Consolidation ongoing in the area of wholesale cloud computing: a few big companies gonna take all.
5. Financial services decreasing in prices, and lot of private bankers and brokers being fired from big groups.

this is not a prediction, this is happening right now. So has little value.

Is more interesting how in the new curve , we have only 2 short-term winners:

1. Software defined anything.
2. Natural language question answering.

this is very interesting. Well, SDx is "just" an evolution of clouding. It started with SDN (Software Defined Networks), which allows to define (partition, configuration, provisioning  ) virtual network elements (switches , routers, even set-top boxes, and more) and developed like "Software Defined Security", which was the capability to define security domains and firewalls,IDS, NIDs, HIDs, and more. Then it comes with Software Defined everything, where people may be able to define a virtual instance of almost everything was a part of the IT infrastructure, almost in any field.  By example, e-SIM cards, the virtual version of the SIM card for phones. 

Second, we have natural language question answering. for mainstream, this is about bots and other appliances able to interact using voice. They are going to be implemented into cars, furnitures, home machines, and more. Also self-diagnosing systems are under development, like a car telling you what is the issue , and asking you what to do. 

This is not that new, and ... now you will ask me "why so little changes?". So the question would translate like "Why Gartner's put almost everything on hold?". There is a reason: the legislator is reacting very hard to disruptive changes.

Think to Über, and the "Sharing Economy". The "Sharing Economy" for cars was the main revolution when we talk about transportation in general. How the regulator reacted? Being very close to elections, lobbies are quite strong. So that the reaction was , almost everywhere, "stop it! it hurts!". And the same happened with AirBnB. 

None of those services were really "harming": actually having more chances to find a room in a city grows the chances the city to be visited. Being easy to move makes the city efficient and creates more opportunities. But when it comes to a political campaign, budget is king. And lobbies have the budget. 

And now look the new curve: all of the new technologies are tremendously impacting. The more exotic name they have, the more they try to hide how disruptive they are. "Enterprise Taxonomy and Ontology Management" is the most devastating one. Behind of this fancy description, it lies this sentence: "90% of people working as project manager are going to lose their jobs".

"Enterprise Taxonomy" is the capability to index and know, in real time, each and every element making a corporate, from people to chairs, who is doing what, what is doing what (in case of machines or tools). Ontology Management is the ability to know what you need in terms of items, process and people to produce a certain product. 

If you put together those two kind of automation, it means if an automated system enters an enterprise-sized company, a desk manager can just create the project, assign people and resources to it, define budget and times, and then wait it is done. So that, the lower project management is almost useless, 90% of time. Maybe some of them will survive, but one of them will follow dozens of projects, where now you have almost one per time.

Now, who works into the corporate area knows how many people works as Agile gurus, Scrum Masters, Lead something, project Manager in general. This is gonna end. So better give it some exotic name to avoid panic. 

This was only the most evident example of disruptive innovation. Now, imagine you are a politician, and imagine you must get people voting for you. And Unions on your side, in Europe. And you need this kind of well paid middle-class on your side. 

So you must protect them. And there is no doubt, they will prepare a lot of killing regulations to stop this, just because they want their voters to be happy.

This was a though period for politics: brexit first, Trump. Now we have Nederlands, France, Germany, and possibly Italy. And politicians are very aware, this time it will be hard. People is losing their jobs, and people into IT was told this was a "safe" area, even when your technical skills are Powerpoint, Excel and Jira. No matters if one's management skills were "Kanban", this was making people paying their bills, and they know they have no chance to stay in the IT sector if the party is over.

If you are an investor:

• This is the moment to invest in long term projects, which may end after the election nightmare.
• This is not the moment to invest in disruptive technologies which have a short Time To Market.

If you are a startupper:

• Better to ask for a long term financial support, maybe paying with a good quality product. Plan 2 years.
• If you have disruptive ideas, keep them on hold, give them exotic names, develop them to maturity, even at the cost of time.
• If you want to deploy disruptive and viral, look for a huge player to buy you, so the lobby works for you. Still keep in mind, even big players are afraid of the regulator (think to Brexit, by example).

basically, the point is : if you go live now, and your idea is disruptive and viral, you have 100% chances the regulator will stop you. 

This will last for 1-2 years.

I am not "saying stop for 2 years".  What I suggest is a strategy to hit the market later, or hit it under the coverage of a huge player. Don't hit the market hard now: the regulator will react hard. "Forbid, forbid, forbid".

If you want your idea to succeed, now is the time to refine it, make it mature, run beta test and release early test releases in limited numbers: so you have something to show to stakeholders and shareholders, but don't terrorize them with the risk of launching a new , disruptive product. This will make them exit.

This is a very moment when "disruptive" means "bad" for politicians in Europe. Even worst if "disruptive" goes together with "viral". Also Trump needs to create jobs. He promised a lot, so he will react ferociously to anything disruptive. The G20 is not much better.

This is what strategic consultants are telling companies and finance: wait 2 years for disruption. if you know, you may manage it.

Of course, be also prepared: end-2017 and 2018 will be a very, very interesting year for technology, when the mess will finish.