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From: weber@popvax.harvard.edu (R09400@RPWeber)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Re: Technology Forecasting
Summary: trends don't help
Message-ID: <1930@husc6.harvard.edu>
Date: 24 Feb 90 01:09:17 GMT
Sender: news@husc6.harvard.edu
Reply-To: weber@popvax.harvard.edu
Organization: Office for Information Technology, Harvard University
Lines: 29

The main problem of forecasting is uncertainty. Trends are unhelpful
in dealing with uncertainty since they lead to roadsigns or milestones
that tell you if something has or has not happened.  For example,
we all know that the cost of computing has been declining and is likely
to do so. What does knowing the trend help us to forecast or understand?
I would suggest nothing.  However, if one were to think about the
future in terms of events, then an event such as, Apple will introduce
a "throwaway mac II" for $ 600 in 1994 , is an event that reflects
the declining cost of computing.  We can then ask, did this event
happen or not? The future, then, is made of sequences of events.

These ideas are elaborated in an article that appeared last November
27 in Computerworld, authored by Jim Herman, Patricia Seybold, and me.
 
Anyone intested in forecasting or the future of computing and communications
technology should look at this article.
Regards
Bob Weber


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