Paradigm Shifting the Paradigm Shift

What would Thomas Kuhn say?

In his seminal work, “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions”, Thomas Kuhn coined and defined the phrase “paradigm shift”. This phrase was meant for big things. For example, the shift from the Earth being at the center to the Sun being at the center (geocentric vs. heliocentric — Copernicus), and Newtonian physics and laws of gravity to Einstein’s Relativity model. Or the conception of the cell and Mendel’s ideas of the gene — these are big transitions worthy of the label “paradigm shift”.

The term is now used frequently, loosely, when applied to technology. How about the automobile, the radio, or TV? How about the progression from mechanical switches to vacuum tubes to transistors to integrated circuits? How about mainframes to minicomputers to PCs to client-server to the Web? Are these paradigm shifts? How about selling pet food on-line, or sharing photo albums, or social networks? Looking at the business plans the VC’s have read over the past decade, everything is a paradigm shift.

Kuhn would not be pleased in this viewpoint. He would take the long view of the last century, and say that “computing” is the paradigm shift at work. Or perhaps, the Turning Machine is the crux. The thing we are facing, which makes the use of the term compelling, is what Ray Kurzweil calls the “Law of accelerating returns”. This is similar but different from Moore’s Law — not only are capacities doubling with regular frequency (such as circuit density, storage density, bandwidth, etc.), but because of this phenomena, the pace and magnitude of shifts is accelerating. It took 50 years or so for the telephone to reach a saturation point. It took the cell phone only 10. Again Kuhn’s long view would be “remote communication”.

So here we are, with next-gen web and mobile apps, SaaS, and the emergence of business networks built on app-based collaboration platforms. These things are definitely “shifts” akin to the transitions such as client-server or the cell phone. It seems the app sphere has reached conceptual saturation even before the code has been deployed.

What is next? If you aren’t running fast (like the Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland), the future will be behind you.