One of the transitions that have been taking place within myself, and in many respects this site, is a transition of moving from mobile as something novel for ministry to mobile facilitating behaviors while are more sustainable after the luster wears off. Contributing to this transition is this understanding of the waves of innovation, prosperity, statis, and decline that we see throughout generations of just living (Genesis 8:26). Technologies themselves are driven by these flows. And to see the present moment clearly, you’ve got to bend your eyes into seeing what used to happen.
Over the past couple of centuries, we have had a technology revolution every 40 – 60 years, starting with theIndustrial Revolution in 1771, which was characterized by the emergence of machines, factories and canals. This was followed by the age of steam and coal, iron and railways which started in 1829; steel and heavy engineering (electrical, chemical, civil and naval) starting in 1875; and the age of the automobile in 1908. Our present information technology and telecommunications age, whose starting point Perez pegs at 1971, is the fifth such major revolution in that span.
Each such technology revolution is composed of two very different periods, each lasting 20 – 30 years. Theinstallation period is the time of creative destruction, when new technologies emerge from the lab into the marketplace, entrepreneurs start many businesses based on these new technologies, and venture capitalists encourage experimentation with new business models and speculation in new money-making schemes.
Finance and entrepreneurs are the drivers of the installation period, whose key objectives are to leverage the technological revolution to replace or modernize the old with the new. But inevitably, unrealistic expectations in the emerging disruptive technologies lead to over-investments in new companies, unrealistic business models and speculation in all kinds of money-making schemes. These behaviors invariably lead to a financial bubble, which eventually crashes and results in a period of economic stagnation.
After the crash, comes the deployment period, the time of creative construction and institutional recomposition. The now well accepted technologies become the norm. Infrastructures and industries start getting better defined and more stable; and production capital drives long-term growth and expansion by spreading and multiplying the successful business models. New paradigms emerge for guiding innovation. Over time, these new paradigms significantly transform the economy and everything around it, as well as re-shaping social behavior and the institutions of society.
Read the rest of Unleashing the Next Age of Prosperity at Irving Wladawsky-Berger.
Really. Is easy to be caught off guard by the speed and innovations of new behavioral and technological paradigms. We can see that in some of the tone in the Gospel Collation article “The iPhone as Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy“. And yet it is through this reflective lens of what has happened that we move into doing more clearly what does happen. What surprises us, or could surprise us, is that wisdom and excitement of growing more into what it is that God has created us to be while on earth.
While on earth… Really, we see this tech and our behaviors with it as something that is only a glimpse of what is to come. What we gain in looking at it honestly, retrospectively, and even zealously, is this taste of what will be. However, the key is not getting stuck on the taste that we have now and allowing our glasses to clear with better view, a more full/empty view of what is probable. Our behaviors and perspectives then move towards this viewpoint, only to be challenged and changed again when it’s time for that glass to be refreshed.