In this month’s Executive Soapbox, Colin Young argues that technological progress has little to do with any specific technology but everything to do with our ability to absorb technology as a culture

I find myself writing this column in reflective mood, recharging my batteries having recently benefited from a trip to the historic sites of Egypt and marvelling at their, mainly, lost technology. My reflective mood is also as a result of being, in the situation as some of our American friends put it, “between positions” and contemplating what or where next? This occurrence sits timely with our annual celebration of educational technology, the BETT show and affords me the same question: What progress have we made or are we shovelling water?

We are now some 30 years on from the original Government Computers in Schools initiative, perhaps now in our fourth or fifth iteration, spending billions. This in itself represent decades of successive invention and reinvention. It was therefore confusing, to read various press headlines last month like “schools must embrace technology” and “schools cannot afford technology”. The BBC coverage of BETT featuring a robot, a stand gimmick I know but it seems we have not got past these basic points.

When a technology first appears in the world it is not understood - no one knows what to do with it. So how much technology has made the transition from promising tool to widely used educational technology? Or as the software industry calls it, “the killer app”

Technologies may be adopted quickly by a small enthusiastic minority but it takes time, before useful applications can be successfully commercialised - it’s a very slow process. This is perhaps consistent with the general principle of “Cringely’s law”. Cringely’s law states that short-term adoption of technologies never occurs as quickly as we expect but their long-term impact is far greater than we realise.

One way of thinking about the protracted adoption of new technologies is to understand that the real value of new technologies is almost always never fully understood because the technology market does not yet exist. This means that the first move to commercialise a technology rarely succeeds but other organisations will succeed where the original innovator failed. IBM first commercialised the PC but Microsoft controlled the platform for its software and benefited most.  A more recent example is Google. Ten years ago there were a number of search engines with good page rank technology but Google were the first to spot the commercial value in key word advertising, the “missing bit”.

It leads me to the rationale that progress has little to do with any specific technology but everything to do with our ability to absorb technology as a culture. It’s probably why I have okay PC skills but I’m a texting idiot. It’s more difficult for an older technology generation. Of course the rub here is typically these are one and the same people influencing and taking the decisions.

And we cannot ignore the social and wider market influences that are outside our immediate control. We see the growth of cloud computing with examples such as Amazon, Yahoo and Google apps bringing processing to individuals on demand “the next utility” all without the apparent need for large single establishment infrastructure and expense. We see more advanced ways of interfacing with technology: touch screens (that work); Wii style interactive handsets, bringing a new dimension and a few bruises if your in the wrong place at the wrong time; E readers; Super 3G and 4G networks; and the further domination of social computing - Facebook (11M hits per day) and Twitter. And in 2009 we have been wowed in the cinema with 3D without the embarrassment of the cardboard glasses. This latter technology will soon hit our device hardware, phones, handhelds, PCs and will have all sort of imaging applications.

Moore’s law rules - technology performance improves and becomes less expensive. Did you know that an MP3 player contains more computing power than NASA required for its Apollo moon missions? If we apply this law to a related technology, solar energy cell production and the rule holds true, in a relatively short period of time solar cells will have parity with the Grid. A retrofit to a building will drop in price by 75% or more. Utility companies will have to change their game and this will be a massive influence in changing the business game for all of us.

Businesses that sustain new technologies influence its further development. This in itself is eventually destabilising, that is every thing gets succeeded, nothing lasts forever or even for very long in our modern age. I’ll always remember a quote from one of my former CEO’s of a software company “what's the best piece of software? The next one”

For certain the future holds a very different and challenging business model, increasingly influenced by the consumer market and the bank of mum and dad. Student owned devices, charged by flexible solar cells while walking to school and 24 hour connectivity with no need for school server hardware. A conservative vision, I’m sure, and perhaps, the only unbelievable part of that is the walking to school!

Colin Young has over 20 years experience of ICT and the education market. Until recently he was marketing and sales director at Cambridge Education. He can be contacted at colin@young87.wanadoo.co.uk