The significance of velocity, scope, impact, and convergence

- A way to characterize the Fourth Industrial Revolution is to consider it through the lens of velocity, scope, impact, and convergence. I'll briefly explore what each of these mean. What do we mean by velocity? Velocity is the speed in which a change is taking place in terms of time. One of the ways to understand this is to observe the approximate time it took certain technologies to reach 50 million users. You'll quickly note that the adoption times of recent technologies are far shorter than in the past. Here are just a few. The telephone, 50 years, television, 22 years, the internet, seven years, Twitter, two years and Pokemon Go, just 19 days. Each one represents a different time in history. The telephone first appeared in the late 1800s, whereas the popular smartphone game Pokemon Go first appeared in 2016. In the 1950s, a TV show could be seen by just a few million and only in limited geography. Today, some popular YouTube videos are watched by billions of viewers in a short period of time and their reach is to every corner of the Earth. An idea, a joke, a misspoken word, breaking news and fake news can all travel virally around the world in seconds. A new tech product can sell millions in just a few days and be available in global markets in the same week. Next, let's look at scope. What do I mean by scope? Here we're dealing with the extent of the introduced change. Instead of a narrow, limited purview, the scope of the Fourth Industrial Revolution change will be deep, wide, and expansive. Let's use an example to explore this. Not so long ago, software was distributed in physical packaging and available to buy in electronic stores. A new popular software program might sell well but would take years to reach millions of people through relying on a complex supply chain. After all, it required us to go to a store, purchase the product, return home, or go to our business and then install the software. Today, when Apple and Microsoft release new versions of their computer operating system software, the software is seamlessly distributed over the internet to millions of people within hours all across the planet. The benefits of those new operating systems can be experienced by millions of people within just a few days and if the software includes some radically new functionality, such as health-related software, the change could be significant. By the way, a software bug that is accidentally distributed at that scale can be a challenge too. Now, let's take a look at impact. What do I mean by impact? Here I'm talking about the magnitude of the effects of change. After many years, cars began to have automatic transmission rather than manual. This was a remarkable convenience. While it cost more, drivers would no longer have to worry about clutch pedals and shifting gears constantly. It wasn't inconsequential, but the extent of the impact was relatively limited. Now, let's contrast that with another change in our cars: the emergence of autonomous cars. The impact of self-driving cars will radically reshape everything from how we spend our time traveling to how we design cities to loss of jobs for people who make their living driving vehicles. This kind of technological impact has few precedents. Finally, there's convergence. While technologies such as artificial intelligence, cloud computing and the Internet of Things are each individually important, they are even more powerful when they are combined but it's not enough just to converge complementary technologies to solve a problem. Each technology must be at the right level of maturity and market support. Coupled with an industry, this formulation is powerful. Think of it like this. Tech one plus tech two and so on plus an industry can equal some remarkable innovation. A solution such as Uber only exists because multiple technologies such as smartphones, GPS, cloud, social, AI and more converged at the right time in an industry that was in need of better solutions. Solutions in the Fourth Industrial Revolution will often be the product of convergence. With these four characteristics in mind, velocity, scope, impact, and convergence, we get a new way to anticipate the potential consequences of the changes ahead. It should be getting clearer now that the future is going to be quite different indeed