Adopting a new Technology?

Many struggle when introducing a 'bleeding edge' technology.  Doubts can creep into your mind - Am I  getting in to early? Will it catch on?  Is the bad press true?  Remember these arguments with the internet? -

Recently (at least in Australia) there has been a lot of negative press about 'Virtual Worlds' or 'Social Technologies' and there value for education or business.  So should you adopt or give up? Should we be doing this at our school?

Gartner describes Hype Cycles being a graphic representation of 'the maturity, adoption and business application of specific technologies'.  They use their model of 'Hype Cycles' to characterize the over-enthusiasm or "hype" and subsequent disappointment that typically happens with the introduction of new technologies such as Virtual Worlds.

The graphic that excited me the most is the one below: (source Gartner July 07)

As you read about the model you will find that these stages are quite normal for new technologies.  In particular look at Phases 3 and 4:

Phase 3. "Trough of Disillusionment"
Technologies enter the "trough of disillusionment" because they fail to meet expectations and quickly become unfashionable. Consequently, the press usually abandons the topic and the technology.

Phase 4. "Slope of Enlightenment"
Although the press may have stopped covering the technology, some businesses
continue through the "slope of enlightenment" and experiment to understand
the benefits and practical application of the technology.

In my opinion, from all the indicators, the adoption of Virtual Worlds is somewhere down the 'trough of Disillusionment'.  This appears to be the best time to strike. Social Technologies are similar, although a little further down the track.

Ofcourse we need to be real about what is possible, identify what it is we want to achieve and how we think we can do it, but stick to what I believe will be a transformational technology.

Recently I posted about the NMC report 'Future Horizons' that put virtual world adoption to mainstream within the next two years, social technologies within the year - certainly less than 2 years.  Keep this in mind as you glance through Gartners' work.  Let me add one more graphic from the report.

From this diagram it seems that we should be at least at the 'conservative investment' level for Virtual Worlds and 'agressive investment' for social technologies.  I hope this work helps you to plan adoption of a new technology that you are considering. Meanwhile we will give it a go at MLC.