Tech hype cycles: do they deserve your attention?

Hype cycles are an integral aspect of modern technology. They tell us the story of a specific technology and how it fits into a given context. This context is usually professional, but it is sometimes social and cultural. They are also are able to show us how the use of something has changed. They illustrate when something was adopted, when it grew, and perhaps when it began to decline. True, this might seem superfluous or superficial. But that explains while we often fail to pay that much attention to them. Instead of focusing on the cycle, and the wider context of how and why something is being used, we get distracted in the details of whatever is being hyped.

"Hype cycles allow us to see past hype."

But hype cycles, or hype curves, can help us to make better sense of the technology at our disposal. They allow you to see past the hype. That means rather than following the trends or buzzwords that fashion places on a pedestal at any given moment, you're always able to see those trends and buzzwords in a context. For example, instead of simply moving from big data to to AI, or from cloud to edge, you can see how different technologies and trends fit together. You can begin to observe how things are impacting one another. Hype cycles allow you to see how software changes trends, and then how trends change industries. It's not always easy to see how the code you're writing fits into the big picture - but hype cycles are a good way of allowing you to get a better sense of it.

The history of the tech hype cycle

According to this Wired article from 2012, the term 'hype cycle' has been around since 1995. But the idea of a hype cycle was taken by research organization Gartner and became central to the way they presented changes across the tech landscape. The first Gartner hype cycle report was released in 1999. Written by Alexander Drobik, the report predicted the end of the dot com bubble at the beginning of the new millennium. However, it's important to note that what Drobnik hadn't simply predicted the end of a trend - it was instead what's called a period of disillusionment within the 'hype cycle' of, well, the internet (perhaps the ultimate hype cycle).

Let's look at what the cycle looks like in detail.

What does the tech hype cycle look like?

Of course, Gartner are the organization that popularized the concept of the hype cycle, but we've created our own example of what it looks like:



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Let's break down each of these points in the hype cycle in a bit more detail.

Technology trigger

This is the initial breakthrough. It's an exciting time when either researchers, engineers discover a new way of doing something. It's more the possibility of disruption rather than actual disruption. This is often the time when the press - and investors - get excited.

Peak of inflated expectations

This is when everyone gets really excited about the possibility of disruption. This period can be characterized by the sentence "This changes everything." It's the period when everyone talks about transformation but nothing yet has really transformed. True, the new technology might have worked somewhere, but there's lots of projects that don't even hit the ground, and a few that have simply failed.

Trough of disillusionment

This is the hangover everyone goes through after getting drunk on inflated expectations. This begins with 'Why X isn't working' pieces in the press, which gradually develops into silence. Technologies or trends seem to disappear into relative insignificance.

Slope of enlightenment

Now the hype has died down, technologies are applied with more serious consideration. Arguably the period of disillusionment is an important period of reflection about what works and what doesn't. This allows businesses and organizations to apply technologies in a more effective way during this 'enlightened' period. In essence, this time is about experimentation and learning. True, there might be some humility here, which is probably a good thing after the earlier inflated expectations.

Plateau of productivity

This is where enlightenment turns into stability. Ways of using a particular technology become established within an industry. It becomes mainstream. Perhaps the benefits to customers are now being felt more readily, which makes it easier to calculate just how valuable something might be.

The hype cycle is a framework that explains how technologies become popular and gradually more mainstream. Of course, there are some technologies that don't quite follow this trajectory - what happens, for example, when things simply never take off? Some technologies get stuck at the trough of disillusionment.

If they can never really give us the full picture, are hype cycles actually nothing more than a load of hype?

Are hype cycles just a load of hype?

Although hype cycles are useful in outlining how technologies are adopted, and mature, there are, of course, do have some limitations. Of course, Gartner have some stake in actually selling the concept to you. Its business is based on being an authoritative and invaluable source of tech insight. This means Gartner needs you (or maybe your boss) to think that hype cycles are a recurring pattern of all technology.

Similarly, the people who write about technology and sell it, have a vested interest in hype cycles. They might not realize it but the need to 'tell a story' about how or why something is important - why something is 'transformative' - feeds into the concept that Gartner has successfully monetized.

But that doesn't mean tech hype cycles should simply be ignored. They might well be artificial and lacking in any quantitative rigour, but we ignore the hype cycle at our peril. This is because the way we - the press, industry leaders, and tech communities - plays an important part in how technologies and trends are adopted. We need to take a somewhat ironic approach to hype cycles. That means we need to recognise while part of it is a bit of a charade, it's a charade that is pretty much inescapable. Trends and technology can't exist outside of these systems. Things only ever become popular when they're visible and when they're being talked about. Hype cycles give us a framework for understanding how technology is talked about.

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