Headline, December16, 2013

''' FREE THINKING - 

ROMANTIC INVENTIONS '''

In the dead-dog phase, one of the two things happen. The technology may become completely obsolete and defunct, in which case people rapidly forget that it ever existed    -typewriters, the telegraph.

Or, it can become so predictable and so well-understood that anyone can build it. At this point the rate of return on investment crashes, because the invention is mere commodity.

Clocks and running are technology, so are forks and roads.  But they are not romantic inventions  

Established business people have plenty of smarts, and they know their customers well. They often watch the question marks at the trade shows. They contemplate a rising star in horror. They behave as they do because that is good-business management practice.

To gamble on a question mark or buy-out the rising star, they have to kill and publicly eat their sacred cash cow. That's a terrifying prospect for an established industry. the whole structure of many companies is built around the cow, the way that the Sioux and Comanche built their home, food and clothing around the buffalo.

Every employee has been fully trained to a high pitch of efficiency in pushing and herding the cow. The promotions department has a sacred brand name to uphold. the salespeople have established channels. 

The stockholders want steady paying assets, not some dynamic outfit ready to roll the dice on their life savings.

Aviation is a classic example of an industry that's run through much of the cycle. Aviation had a very long question-mark phase    -Montgolfier hot    -air balloons, gliders, children's helicopter toys. 

The Wright brothers built bicycles for a living, and conquered the sky as a hobby. Once the rising star took flight, though, every nation wanted in. Money was no object in a technology as glamorous as manned flight.

Government subsidized research and development for military purposes. The first world was was tremendous boon to aircraft development. Almost overnight, fragile flying kites built by hobbyists turned into rugged, brutal bombing and strafing machines.

After the Great War came a glamorous barnstormer period when ex-military airplanes and pilots lived and died on pure technohype. Charles Lindbergh was a world hero. Millions of everyday people paid good money just to see an airplane, or to go aloft just for the sake of having flown for a while.

Then came the jet age, the rocket age, the space age..........and then, not a whole lot. Aviation   -had entered its cash-cow phase. The supersonic Concorde has been mothballed, after a tremendous career of unalloyed money loss.

Boeing's Sonic Cruiser fared even worse. The first major innovation in civilian aircraft in decades, the Sonic Cruiser died as a question mark and never flew off the drawing board. Deregulation added no vitality to the plodding airline industry.

The hub system, dominated by oligarchs, froze into place?! 

The Post continues:

With respectful dedication to the Students, Professors and Teachers of Brazil. See Ya all on !WOW! the World Students Society Computers-Internet-Wireless:

'''One Single Vision'''

Good Night & God Bless!

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless