The Laws
The first chapter in the upcoming The Power of Mobility book is called “Technology Sets the Stage.”
The chapter starts with this observation: “Time and time again, new technologies have been introduced and broadly adopted, resulting in dramatic impacts on society and the nature of business.”
It then goes on to review a history of technology - six different inventions over the centuries that have led up to the current Age of Mobility.
For each invention, I try to answer two questions:
- Why was the technology adopted so quickly?
- Why did the technology have such a big impact on society and business?
For each of the inventions covered, I link a fundamental “law” to the invention to answer those questions. See if you can guess the inventions that go with these laws:
Bacon’s Law: Knowledge is power.
The Second Law of Thermodynamics: (over-simplified) Heat flows from hot places to cold places.
Benjamin Franklin: Time is money.
Moore’s Law: Every couple of years, chip density doubles while costs are cut in half.
Metcalfe’s Law: The value of any network increases exponentially with the number of participants in the network.
The Law of Mobility: The value of any product or service increases with its mobility.
Okay - the last three are gimmes, but can you guess the first three?
June 5th, 2007 at 7:06 am
[...] Over the past couple of weeks I’ve tortured you with hints and more hints about six inventions. Some of them were obvious. Some were not. Thanks for all your guesses. [...]
November 17th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
[...] explaining the drivers behind these three revolutions, I will touch upon Moore’s Law, Metcalfe’s Law, and, of course, McGuire’s Law of Mobility. I wholeheartedly believe that these three forces are [...]