Early Indications

Early Indications is a newsletter written by John M. Jordan since 1997. It focuses on emerging technologies and their social implications.

Early Indications - April 2008

It used to be an economic commonplace that value was added in increasing amounts the farther one moved from raw material extraction. Farms, fishing villages, and mines have often created less affluent locales and involve dangerous work, while factories paid higher wages.

Early Indications - March 2008

Any time a new technology is introduced, the market traditionally extends conventional modes of use and understanding from the new things nearest neighbor.

Early Indications - February 2008

Anyone who has been to Paris in the last six months has seen a major change to the iconic city's landscape: a plan to deploy over 20,000 rental bicycles at 1400 stations is well underway.

Early Indications - January 2008

At the start of a new year, we can assess a few areas of major uncertainty and activity. Somewhere in the next 12 to 18 months, I expect to see major news unfold in some combination of the following five domains.

Early Indications - December 2007

How did we do? Last December I wrote that "we see a collision between systems based on old and new models of regulation, remuneration, protection, privacy, and so forth.

Early Indications - November 2007

As promised last month, here are ten information-technology-related areas to watch over the next ten years.

Early Indications, Issue 2 - October 2007

Earlier this month we marked ten years of this newsletter's publication by noting ten developments that quickly permeated the market after being nonexistent or invisible in 1997. This month, I'll list ten big failures that at one time or another looked like can't-miss propositions.

Early Indications, Issue 1 - October 2007

This month, we'll look at ten developments that, while feeling routine today, still lay in the future only ten years ago. We'll also review ten can't-miss technology stories that somehow went bad. Next month, look for a list of ten trends for the next ten years.

Early Indications - September 2007

As managers of enterprise computing environments confront both perennial and emerging challenges, a new set of technologies is complicating the situation.

Early Indications - August 2007

At base, technological change and globalization cannot be cleanly distinguished, and thus will be interlinked for the foreseeable future. The shipping container is arguably one of the five great breakthroughs of the twentieth century.

Early Indications - July 2007

In the past ten to fifteen years, many barriers between traditional industries have broken down.

Early Indications - June 2007

As technologies, cultural attitudes, demographics, and economics change, people have both the opportunity and the need to reinvent organizational models.