HYPE

hype

: long read. About the painful stuff, what I want to share for more than a month. Also does not claim to be complete, it is more about how I try to deal with it. Disclaimer Here, I want to share a few thoughts on how to convince the team/manager/product owner to not use the technology or make proof that this technology fits good in your project. "hype" It is well known that representatives of different professions often invent ways to solve a particular problem. For instance, which approach and constituent materials to use and positions, the choice of a specialist often determines the success of achieving the goals. For example, would the cafe be profitable, and would the bridge withstand the load successfully, would the operated heartbeat for many years. And, unfortunately, one wrong decision can lead to fatal consequences and suffer great losses, and even worse – harm the health and life of people. Engineers, software developers, web developers, and other technical guys are no exception. Moreover, the final software products are extremely dependent on real business, with real people and finances. And the harm that can be caused by badly designed and implemented software can potentially be huge and irreparable damage to the entire business. Let's look at one of the most common crimes committed by various teams that somehow participate in the design and development of various types of IT projects, named (hereinafter referred to as HDD). Hype Driven Development This concept is , but it does not go back to the past century, and means . not new a decision about a technological stack or software architecture that is taken without technical justification, research, based only on loud and popular words from the Internet or other sources, "buzzwords ", unverified rumors It's a development based on fashion and trends, without explanation of your choice from a technical point of view and not confirming by checking or evaluating the proposed solution. What I have most often seen: blockchain, data science, machine / deep / any other learning, MongoDB, GraphQL, Serverless, Clouds, Kubernetes, and more. These "hype" technologies and much more I've seen in different proposals of various technical requirements, in RFPs (Request for proposal), spreadsheets with estimates, and so on. Don't get me wrong, I have a deep respect for the above-listed technologies, and, as an example, I often use MongoDB and Serverless. The problem is that these technologies were proposed to be used and added in the post-production phase, and their connection with business logic seemed as far-fetched as possible. HDD definition as a crime Why I started with such a long prelude at the beginning - you can imagine when a builder chooses from what material to build a skyscraper "because it is so fashionable". Or maybe a doctor who prescribes pills according to the principle "well, those people take similar pills abroad, and this may help you too." Personally, I have not, I have never seen this, I wish the same to you. . For me, such an approach and attitude to work looks like a crime. Therefore, I propose to consider HDD a crime, at least in the article To begin with, I think it's worth remembering what constituent elements of a crime are. Without the presence of corpus delicti, an act cannot be considered criminal. It's a quite extensive and complex definition, but let's summarize and simplify it a little, coz after all, this is not a jurisprudence article, especially since the laws of countries and states are different enough. We are interested in the following components of constituent elements of a crime: - is the part to which the damage was caused; the object - is the external manifestations of the crime, action or inaction, the consequences of the crime, as well as the connection between them or, for example, the time, method, means of committing; the objective side - the one who committed the crime; subject - is a person's attitude to a crime that he has committed. Was it intent (direct or indirect) or it was negligence (frivolity or negligence), there is a motive and what is the purpose of the crime. the subjective side Let's start with the . In our case, this is one of the members of the development team in the broad sense of the word: engineers, managers, product owners. That is all those people who in one way or another influence the development process. subject But they can be divided into two categories. Some of them work on business logic, tasks, and functional requirements - usually the manager, business analyst, and product owner. On the other hand, we have technical specialists - test engineers, developers, architects, team leads. Of course, they can work at the junctions of the technical and non-technical parts of the project, but now it is important that both the former and the latter can offer, perhaps even insist on using the hype technology. And here we smoothly move on to the of the HDD crime - did anyone want to harm when choosing an HDD technology? I think nobody would choose technology or design architecture to the detriment of their project or product. Then why? subjective side Based on personal experience, I can say, that typically, customers (meaning people or companies which order development of product, not product users ), product owners choose one of these technologies to attract the attention of investors and potential users as sources of funds and income. The reason is more than clear and transparent - often investors are not technical specialists, so, many of them are being led by beautiful marketing slogans, that promise many profitable things for the product. But at the same time, they usually don't understand the real essence of things. As a result, we get a technical solution based on marketing. There are also cases when a customer already comes with technical requirements for a future product. When asked "why does he want such a stack of technologies?", we usually get one of the options: "one of my projects uses such a stack and everything is fine", "my partner's project uses such a stack - and he is happy with everything". People who say this usually do not think about the fact that if functional and non-functional requirements are different, then the technologies used do not have to be the same. Sometimes it happens that someone from the technical part of the team initiates the use of "hype" technology. Usually, this is less experienced teammates (juniors), which still cannot always assess the risks and make appropriate time estimations. For them, it all comes down to the fact that they want to try a new technology, which is given in a beautiful wrapper. And also usually they do not look at the license of the solution (let's say it is a library or a framework), or at its maturity. Objective side and consequences of the HDD crime can also be different. It depends on what side of the project we are considering - technical or business. If we are talking about the technical side, there are codebases in general, its architecture, the infrastructure of deployments. The objects of the HDD crime On the other side, the business operated by other concepts, like include cash flows, investments, profits, and other business processes. So, let's say a "hype" technology penetrates the project, seeps into the code base, a lot of logic, additional code and configurations begin to rise around the technology. In this case, what and who will suffer from the introduction of "hype" technology, and how (we are talking about the ) will the HDD affect the project and the business as a whole ( )? objective side the object of the crime There are a lot of things, consider that you are playing dice - it all depends on how hype and not properly researched technology is deeply integrated into the business logic of your application, code and development processes in general. The list below presents the most obvious consequences. 🚫 . This happens relatively rarely, but extremely unfortunate. It happens when a "hype" technology is at the very core of the business logic and, accordingly, the code base, when the very idea of ​​the application is to build something over the technology. Building a business model around technology, not adopting technology to business Accordingly, if the technology breaks down in one way or another (for example, an unobvious bug pops up) - with a high probability, the product that is based on it breaks too. 🚫 - that is, the discrepancy between the expected profit from the technology and the real one, as they often do not take into account that needs to pay for additional infrastructure along with the support of such a solution, as well as the work of specialists who will configure this solution. Low conversion from "hype" technologies 🚫 . Usually, the external dependency is perceived as something atomic, as an integral component within our system, with its public API (interfaces, methods, endpoints). The black box problem But in fact, this is the same program code as the one in which we integrated this component, with its dependencies and bugs, performance, and security problems. You probably say: "But often the code of such components is open source!". Now think, how often do you have enough time, desire, and immediate need to look into the program code of one of your libraries or database (which is also a software product with its source code)? I think not often (but usually it tends to never). For us, a bug (this is how it can harm your project) in any external dependency is a kind of analog of "Schrodinger's cat in a box", which is both there and not. We often find out about the presence of bugs only when this external bug affects the state of our system. 🚫 . It's simple - the devil is in the details. Even if you have over-qualified specialists in your team who love work and are ready to delve into everything new on their way, hardly anyone can comprehend the depth of this or that technology in a short time. Lack of professionalism and experience in the introduced technology 🚫 Hmm, okay, but what is entropy? It is a very broad concept, rooted in natural sciences, thermodynamics, and later mechanics and software. The initial idea is that in an isolated system the degree of chaos and uncertainty will not decrease over time but will remain the same or increase. On the other hand, entropy is a measure of the unknown about the system as a whole. Increasing the entropy of the program code and the system as a whole. The concept first appeared in the context of software in the book Object-Oriented Software Engineering (by Ivar Jacobson, Patrik Jonsson, ACM Press Staff, Magnus Christerson, Gunnar Overgaard). In general, think of entropy as a measure of the dishonesty of the system. The more disorder, uncertainty, the higher the probability of breakage. Compare a hammer and a car, which is a hundred times more complex in its structure - which one is broken down more often and faster? A car has many more constituent components with its level of entropy, and therefore the total entropy is higher. Returning to HDD, the more complex and more unknown technology we involve in the process, the higher the likelihood that the project entropy will increase, and hence the number of bugs and . Mean time between failures (MTBF) 🚫 . Are you sure that the hype framework, the server, will exist, developed, and be supported for a long time, at least as long as the life of your project/product? And that in the next version the public API will not change completely - you need to either translate the API to a new one or live with the deprecated API. Have you assessed these risks correctly? Let's discuss this further. Life cycle and aging of software 🚫 . New technologies usually mean new risks: Increased risks Going out of bounds by time estimation. Risk of unsuccessful completion of the project. The additional overhead for infrastructure, development, and support. Additional vulnerabilities of the system crash. Nobody guarantees that critical security updates will be issued and fixed on time. How to prevent HDD in project Ok, it seems that we have considered all the components of this crime. But how to prevent and avoid the use of HDD on a project without realizing full awareness of what technology the team will live with on the project? Or you can prove the validity of the implementation and evaluate all the pros and cons. Once again, just in case, if the technology is hype, this does not mean at all that it is full of bugs, has not matured, or does not apply to your project. It's just that there should be common sense in everything, namely in the analysis of technology from a technical and business point of view, a sound assessment of risks and additional costs. Here are some ideas and approaches, the use of which can influence the views and awareness of the team regarding the choice of hype technology. 💡 , both in the technical part and in the subject area of business - "do we need it?" Before getting into Data Science, Serverless, and the like, consult a specialist with experience with this technology. Probably, you will not give up the technology, but completely rethink its use in the project. Moreover, it has a positive effect on grades. The opinion of experts 💡 creation is as old as the world - before doing a full-scale implementation and implementation, you should make the simplest demo version tied to any technology. Most likely, you will not notice any deep and hidden problems, but you can throw away the technology at the start if you see that it does not suit you in any way. Proof of Concept 💡 - decisions should never be made alone or in a narrow circle of employees. It is worth discussing and listening to all opinions, perhaps a sensible thought will come from an unexpected side. Also, interesting is the Three amigos approach, which is rooted in BDD and Agile, and means that there are three parties involved in the process: Business, Development, Testing. Thus, you can try to identify the largest number of problems and corner cases associated with the introduced technology. . A collective brainstorm "for" and "against" More details here 💡 " " - and again about how not to drag unnecessary things to your project. Try to apply this technique to the next technology adoption issue. Ask yourself and your colleagues - "why are we doing this," and so on, 5 times according to the list (see the article). It may well be that simpler steps are sufficient to solve the original problem. 5 Whys Also, consider whether you can achieve the desired results without using this technology. How much more difficult and costly it will be. 💡 A huge number of articles have been written about these principles, and I see no need to retell them. Just make sure you don't break them when you introduce the next technology to your project. KISS (keep it simple stupid) And YAGNI (you ain't gonna need it). Conclusion We're finally here, and I'll try to make the ending shorter! There is a huge difference between " " and " ". It would seem that the phrases differ by one word, but there is a huge gap between them. Hype technologies are often interesting, progressive, the main thing is to choose and apply them deliberately, without risking the project and business, not forgetting about your technical debt. adding and usage of new technology deliberately adding and usage of new technology

Hype Driven Development: A Case For Punishing This Abomination

UPDATE WINNER - 🥇 Blockchain 2ND PLACE -🥈 AI 3RD PLACE-🥉 VR "The Noonies! Presented by Hacker Noon ! In partnership with Stream ! It’s time to vote on what matters in tech. Year after year these will serve as the definitive, international and somewhat democratic acknowledgement of all the best and worst people and/or products in technology today," someone overheard CEO David Smooke saying in an All-Hands meeting on Zoom recently. - 2019 # Nominees Most Over-Hyped Technology Noonies Don't believe the hypebeasts. *Blockchain * AI * GraphQL * VR * Docker * Meteor * AWS * ML today. Help Hacker Noon Definitively Declare 2019's Most Over-Hyped Technology The Noonies is made possible by Stream . Stream’s simple, powerful APIs for scalable feeds and chat are used by some of the largest and most popular apps.

Most Over-Hyped Technology - Hacker Noon Awards 2019

Just as an Intelligent Investor should not follow the hype that’s going on in Stock Market because his financial investments could be in vain, you would be smart enough as an Intelligent Software Engineer not to follow the hype of latest technologies that will cost a lot of missed deadlines and budget for the client as well (or worse, render your hours of studying the new hype for nothing)! Just as you don’t get yourself get caught up in the ups and downs of Stock Market and just focusing on the rate of inflation as an investor (oh, renewable energy is going to be the next big hype! Let’s invest on it now!), getting caught up in the sea of ushering technologies (which naturally come and go at an incredible speed!) could do more harm than good on your career and your team. Knowing to control your impulses and let your rational thinking do the decision could save you and your team a lot of time especially when none of your team knows how to set up the stack you’re trying to implement in the next big project that could potentially sabotage it due to some newer stacks not functioning very well. I came from the back-end background of using MS technologies such as C# back in the day of developing winforms as an in-house developer in my first job. I kinda missed the simplicity of working on back-end back then. I just need to know how C# connects everything and how event handler works, as well as I just have to worry on using Entity Framework for handling my persistence layer and basically I’m good to go. Now it’s different. Setting up everything in web applications took a lot of time. Some javascript framework versions are introducing lots of breaking changes. It’s almost impossible to ship the products at the scheduled delivery with all these tedious setups! Whatever your reasons are in following the latest trends and hypes in Software Development, I’m pretty sure 99% of the reason is because it’s “cool”! Despite of the warnings of not just simply jumping from one tech stack to another, especially when you don’t know anything about it yet. I’m sure you’re still gonna jump to see what this new “hype” is all about. So what I did in this article is provide appropriate solutions for each problems in jumping in such hype(or new/cool tech stack you’re planning to explore and jump in) in any event you still try these out in your new project. Anyway, without further ado, here are the reasons why you shouldn’t just simply follow and better assess the first in Software Development: “hype” Following the hype could be a recipe for disaster than increasing efficiency Some “hype” cycle application development Following the hype might lead your team in unnecessary disasters and delays in project delivery than increase their efficiency. Thus, it is not a good idea all in all to let the latest trends and hypes drive your team in important and critical decisions unless if your team is composed of passionate developers who can adapt quickly in trying those stacks out. Just because it introduces a lot of “cool” features doesn’t mean you can simply jump your team in the sea of uncertainty without even trying those one out. Remember, you have no evidence whether you need those features in the first place as of the moment. Solution: Choose specific stacks of your liking, forget the rest. Stick with it FOR A LONG TIME Researching and hacking some tech stacks you want to use first could be the smartest move you can do as the lead developer. Even save your butts in future disasters in the long run. If you want to follow the latest trends and hypes of stack as Web Developer, carefully choose the stack you’re going to use. And stick with it for a long time. Almost no developer existing today makes use of almost all tech stacks that exist as we speak. You only have limited time and as short as 24 hours per day. Make use of your time wisely. technology _While the number of ways to organize JavaScript is almost infinite, here are some tools that help you build single-page…_github.com Front-end JavaScript frameworks - GitHub Collection In web development nowadays, we have bazillions of frameworks that we don’t know how they get this many in just a short period of time. Or if it was really necessary to reinvent the wheel that does the same thing at all(thanks for a lot of trouble in web development, javascript!). What ultimately matters is if it helps you find the ideal job you’re aiming for, or it helps you build better Software products for your next MVP in your startup or on your own, then you’re better off picking the latest hype out there. For example, if your ideal job is to use ASP.net core along with Angular 4, then focus your attention and time on that stack. Never lean on other stacks until you reached a certain degree of mastery and built products around that stack. It is always a mistake to jump from one tech stack to another without actually producing an output the companies or startups were yearning for you as developer. If you just wanted to try those tech stack up for the sake of hobby, I suggest you find another stable profession and do as a hobby on the sides. programming Following the hype could introduce potential issues that will be too costly and time-consuming http://www.ihaveapc.com/ Since your team just started exploring the tech stack you’re planning to use (say, new cool frameworks like ), and your team’s tech stack is more on ASP.net side, you could’ve introduced some issues that neither of your team can solve since their stack is different than what they used to do. React with Redux and Node.js I’m not dismissing the passion and desire of your team to use these newer cool stuffs they can hand themselves on. But you must also consider the current project you’re doing and it’s constraints. Solution: Research some critical features you’re going to implement ahead of time using that stack. Or stick with the current stack of your team Try to know whether it will cause some obstacles in the features you’re trying to build. Or the smartest decision you could make is just stick with the current tech stack your team is comfortable with. I’m a big believer and advocate of change. Believe me. But in the quest for change, you must also have passionate team who desires the change you’re trying to achieve. As they say, . “It takes team to a tango”(it could have been ‘two to a tango’ though) Try to consult this with the team first before making such decisions, or are they willing to cooperate with the tech stack you impose upon them. The learning curve might not be worth it at all Wrong frameworks? Exactly! Credits to http://www.flubu.com/ When I was starting to learn Angular 4, I got pretty confident that it was easy to learn and apply in my personal projects that requires little to no effort to code at all just how I learned their AngularJS like a breeze. The problem started when I struggled in the most trivial of things when trying to add a global event to the component and accessing the textbox of another template from built for Angular 4. I didn’t knew it was a struggle to just manipulate all those stuff that it requires you to learn some things such as . I just want a simple DOM manipulation and attach a global event to one of my controls just as how I attach global events using plain old javascript: bootstrap-ng ViewComponent, ViewChild, TemplateRef document.addEventListener('click', function(e) {alert(`I'm done here!`);}); Like what the heck has happened to Angular these days? I have no problems with them using TypeScript, but the amount of time I needed to learn this framework is just plain ridiculous. They literally got stricter and it feels like there’s no trace of javascript when I tried to use Angular 4 anymore. : It was my fault though. It’s not Angular’s fault. I just didn’t get the general philosophy of the design behind Angular since I come from the background of jQuery that DOM manipulation was sort of a breeze to do. Once I got the hang of the full MVC framework, I understand and continued my learning pace as much as I can. At the end of the day, frameworks standardized the structure you have to use in the project. In the long run, this can save time rather than waste. Good thing about fully structured framework is you don’t need to reinvent the wheel and restructure everything on your own. There’s a lot of design considerations if you want to structure javascript on your own such as: *sigh* Update Dependency Injection, SOLID principles, Domain-Driven Design, Design Patterns, Microservices, Functional Programming, RESTful services architecture considerations….and so on and so forth. So this is the problem when we’re trying to learn the “new, cool” stuff. The learning curve and time to spend on some frameworks might not be worth it. Solution: Play/Hack around with the tech stacks first. See how they play and mix well with each other. And how much time do you need to grasp the basic fundamentals of the new hype While I go back with my previous advice: Do the due diligence to research the tech stack you’re going to use for the project, it’s also important to play around with tech stacks you’re gonna use with the team so that you get to discover the advantages and disadvantages of each of them. than just simply learning and researching in other people’s findings. Nothing beats experimenting it on your own It’s important, and efficient way to discover some breaking issues that might hamper your team. This will save you an extra time of actually implementing the framework you’re planning to use in your next release and prevent you from making the worst decisions in the team. Of course, you can’t find out the pros and cons of each stack by just simply playing around with them within 24 hours. There’s never enough time to discover them until you get them implemented in the real-world project and see how they play well. But at least you get the feel if it’s worth taking risk or pointless at all. After all, it’s how we end up with bazillions of frameworks altogether in web nowadays. It’s getting more and more complicated. Lastly, try to estimate the average timeframe you need to master the stack. If the stack will take you more than the estimated timeframe you have to grasp the basics to apply in a project, then I think it would be wise to try other newer stacks you wanna try out that suits the project and your team. Whenever you feel tempted to jump from one stack to another and you just feel like you’re not making any progress in what you’re doing because you constantly follow the , try to pay attention to these things: “hype” You learn to code to solve real-world problems through technical skills It’s obviously to solve problems that can’t be solved alone by people. So now, how does technology play a big part of solving it? In terms of communication? In terms of entertainment? In terms of storing our memories through photos? What’s the main role of technology? Where does technology fit in? Sometimes we get a little bit misleading upon the things we do as a developer. Sometimes we learn new programming languages because without putting any emphasis in the value it brings to the table. I also am a victim in an endless spiral of tech advancement in such a way that I wanted to learn new programming languages that’s in the market. “it’s cool” “hot” Finally, I got tired and that became the turning point of why am I learning programming languages everyday. Why am I doing this anyway? Sometimes I’m compensating my love of learning new skills in programming through solving real world problems. Something that could bring value to people. It might be an app that could improve their workflow or enhance their thinking, or some app that enhances their experience of doing business. Either way it should be solving some of the world’s existing problems. Sometimes you have to be skeptical on some new quirks or features the programming language of your choice has. For example, what’s the purpose of in solving real-world problems? What does or non-blocking operations solve? Where do you implement it? asynchronous multithreading You learn them to provide for your own and your family needs financially; as well as make an impact You also need to take a look whether the tech stack you’re trying to learn has ROI or a good amount of Return of Investment since you’re basically using your time to learn all these things. You must be compensated accordingly in the things you’re trying to invest into. For instance, are learning these new tech stacks will allow you to find jobs and projects that you like? Are learning these will give you a sense of financial stability in the long run? How many gigs can you catch learning these new tech stacks? And how much impact are you gonna make in learning them? Realistically speaking, you learn them to survive. Fill in your basic needs. It’s the most fundamental thing you need to think of. You learn them not just for trying out the new hype, but to look at the bigger picture While I know for certain that we have different reasons for learning how to code. For the people who learn for their professions, take note that we’re responsible in what we build and what we write. While making your profession as a hobby seems not bad at all to make it more exciting as well as entertaining, sometimes we need to limit and need to reflect whether you’re solving anything or nothing at all. We even need to look at the bigger picture as what business models are applicable in every app that we do, or what features are useful to people. We need to take a look at it and bring value in every critical decisions we make. If you love my stories, follow me on and let me know your thoughts! Twitter _The latest Tweets from Sonny R. Recio (@YellowFlashDev). 10% Entrepreneur / Fitness Junkie / Software Engineer / Full…_twitter.com Sonny R. Recio (@YellowFlashDev) | Twitter P.S. Here are some reference links to prevent you from always riding the “hype” train: _Software development teams often make decisions about software architecture or technological stack based on inaccurate…_blog.daftcode.pl Hype Driven Development _And what I’ve learned from teaching others_medium.freecodecamp.org Things I Wish Someone Had Told Me When I Was Learning How to Code _There's an idea that's been gaining ground in the tech community lately: Everyone should learn to code. But here's the…_techcrunch.com Please don't learn to code _On programming languages & frameworks It's ok to love the framework or language you use the most. If Python is your…_mikecavaliere.com Don't Get Attached to Programming Languages | Mike Cavaliere

Why should you assess the “hype” in Software Development?

I believe that the adoption of new technologies follows a particular pattern. However, I’m not talking about the familiar “Hype Cycle”. While this perspective can be helpful, it is also somewhat misleading: Gartner Hype Cycle The graph shows a simple peak and trough, but the reality is more like an ongoing tug backwards and forwards, between and . I’m calling this the “Hype Pendulum”: hype backlash Let me explain with a couple of examples from the world of web development. HTML5 and PWAs The iPhone App Store opened in 2008, 18 months after the launch of the phone. The web was suddenly left behind in terms of features; native was the cool kid. A couple of years later, Wired famously proclaimed the Web was “dead”. The Web standards community were busy working on HTML5 though. It reached the mainstream consciousness in 2010 when Steve Jobs posted his “Thoughts on Flash”. By 2011, with the HTML5 spec reaching “Last Call”, we we were experiencing something of a hype spike: “The hype created by the promise of HTML5 has almost reached fever pitch”- Mobile Foresight, 2011 Yet just a year later, Facebook famously “ditched” HTML5 in its native app. Once again, the web was written off. This moment probably marked the “trough of disillusionment” nadir. “When the pendulum swung away from HTML5 in 2012, it swung pretty far and scared away many potential innovators.”- ReadWriteWeb, 2013 But over the next few years, interest in web app technologies began to quietly rise up again. In 2015, a new term “Progressive Web Apps” was coined, to describe a bunch of approaches and capabilities that were all now possible. Now we’re in 2016 and we may be starting to see a hype spike once again: “By now, you’ve probably heard that Progressive Web Apps are the future of all mankind. They’ll bring world peace, end hunger, save the rainbows and unicorns, bring balance to the force, and a whole lot more.”- Ionic, 2016 I do truly believe PWAs have a future though. Perhaps there will be further swings of the pendulum before we’re fully settled in web apps’ — but I’m sure we’re getting there! big Plateau of Productivity Responsive Design People had been making responsive sites earlier, but the concept took off when Ethan Marcotte famously coined the term in his A List Apart article in May 2010. It received a tonne of attention, but it wasn’t long before dissenters pushed back, chiefly citing mobile performance versus separate mobile sites, an attachment to the “pixel perfect” designs of print media, or simply the perceived effort involved: “Responsive Web Design is NOT right for your website”- Blogger, 2013 “Responsive Design Is a Waste Of Time”- Blogger, 2013 “Responsive design really sucks”- Blogger, 2014 It took time for the Hype Pendulum to settle and for Responsive Design to be generally accepted as the default way to design web pages. I’d say it got there by around 2015, helped by Google’s SEO policies giving a boost to responsive sites. Hype Pendulums everywhere Does every new web undergo a Hype Pendulum? It seems so to me. For example, think of the reaction to any popular framework. technology JavaScript The example that actually inspired this post — thank you to ’ talk — is NPM. As the repository of code modules, NPM became a symbol of modular code design. NPM — and in turn, modular code — was the subject of a backlash in 2016 due to the left-pad controversy, which according to media outlets, ! Ashley Williams FFConf world’s largest “broke the internet” Node.js is another example. Originally written by Ryan Dahl in 2009, I remember first trying it out myself in 2010, the year that Express and Socket.io were born. It wasn’t long before the hype was in full swing: “Why nodeJS is awesome and why you shouldn’t even think about using it”- Blogger, 2013 The inevitable backlash included the infamous post. “Node.js is cancer” Why does this happen? The Hype Pendulum is partly a by-product of how our human attention works. Balanced, nuanced arguments don’t make such good headlines - rants get more clicks. Binary arguments and zero-sum games appeal due to their reassuring simplicity. Backlashes are also symptomatic of our impatience in a fast-moving world; when we hear about the shiny new technology or approach, we want to use it right away. It’s useful to remember that the extremes of hype and backlash are temporary fluctuations along a timeline of innovation that usually stretches out longer than we would like. Sometimes an early form of technology fails to fully take off, until it returns in a new form that’s more ready for prime time. Performance is a common theme of backlashes; thankfully the performance limitations tend to diminish over time with hardware advances and software optimisations. Sometimes our developer tooling and understanding take a while to catch up. It takes time for innovations to settle, as the shows: Long Nose of Innovation Long Nose of Innovation by Bill Buxton — image by sketchplanations.com It’s also a factor of our motivations. As web evangelists, it’s our role (and passion) to promote the latest technologies and best practices. As web developers, it’s our role to push back if we find real-world issues that need to be addressed. How to deal with it It can be tempting to immediately lurch towards the latest fad, or immediately rail against it. The safer bet is to leave the Hype Pendulum to swing, while we absorb information from both sides, try things out for ourselves and come to informed decisions. With the constant flurry of new libraries and frameworks, much has been said recently about the ‘fatigue’ this can lead to. As , . Ada Rose Edwards says “Knowing HTML, CSS and Vanilla JS through and through will have more long term merit than any flash in pan library or tool kit” As a developer advocate, please do call me out if I ever appear to be overly hyping up a new technique or approach, without due consideration to potential downsides. I have a tendency to say things are awesome ;-) The Lego Movie Although sometimes overly hasty and extreme, backlashes can be important. They can help to ensure that we don’t rush into releasing technology so quickly that we miss potential security or privacy issues. We don’t want to be Chad and Brad from Maciej Ceglowski’s — . “Who Will Command the Robot Armies?” “developers who are just trying to crush out some code out on deadline, and don’t think about the wider consequences of their actions” Although sometimes the Hype Pendulum may be tiresome, it’s generally productive. As Barack Obama , the path of progress . The hype around the latest web technologies may swing backwards and forwards, but this is the case for all innovations. As long as we keep progressing overall, we’ll leave the web in good shape: a better, stronger platform for everybody. And that really be awesome_!_ recently said “has never been a straight line. We zig and zag…” will Note: this article was written outside of my role as a Developer Advocate, but I work at Samsung Internet , Samsung’s mobile web browser. You may be interested to read more of our blog posts and follow us on Twitter !

The “Hype Pendulum” of Web Development

The year 2022 has already shown to be a promising one for video games. From Elden Ring to Horizon Forbidden West, released in winter, to the most recent AAA games such as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II and Sonic Frontiers, 2022 is undoubtedly one of the best years for video games in recent history. And that's not even mentioning the sleeper hits and indies like and that are taking the gaming world by storm. OlliOlli World Cult of the Lamb However, the year is not finished yet, and with 2023 being just a couple of months away, there are many great titles to be excited about. Whether it's a PC game, a Nintendo Switch exclusive, or a "Play Day One" Xbox Pass game, there is something for everyone to look forward to in the following months and beyond. Without further ado, here are some of the best upcoming games to look forward to. Top Upcoming Games of 2022 and 2023 God of War Ragnarök Goat Simulator 3 High on Life The Callisto Protocol Warhammer 40,000: Darktide The Dark Pictures Anthology: The Devil in Me Pokémon Scarlet and Violet World of Warcraft: Dragonflight Need for Speed Unbound System Shock Starfield S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chernobyl Skull and Bones Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora Lies of P 1. God of War Ragnarök : November 9, 2022 Release After a long wait, the next God of War game is finally upon us. Set in Norse Mythology, Ragnarök will have Kratos and his son, Atreus, taking on the might of Odin, Thor, and even Loki. With an expansive new world to explore, godly new powers to obtain, and a more personal story than ever before, God of War Ragnarök is shaping up to be one of the best games of the year alongside Elden Ring. 2. Goat Simulator 3 : November 17, 2022 Release The game is a sequel to the 2014 original, introducing many new features and mechanics. Players can explore an expanded map and play as multiple new goat types, each with unique abilities. On top of that, the game will feature a four-player cooperative mode making it the perfect game to play with friends. 3. High on Life : December 13, 2022 Release In this comedy sci-fi shooter, you must fight off the alien cartel that invades the Earth. Equipped with charismatic talking guns, you'll need to use all your wits and shooting skills to take the aliens down and defend humanity. With a colorful cast of characters, an expansive open world to explore, and plenty of side missions, High on Life is one of the most anticipated upcoming games. Without a doubt, it can become one of the most exciting shooter experiences in recent memory. And the most colorful one! 4. The Callisto Protocol : December 2, 2022 Release The Callisto Protocol is an upcoming, story-driven, single-player survival horror game set on Jupiter’s moon Callisto in 2030. The player must escape the maximum-security Black Iron Prison and uncover its dark secrets that will send chills down your spine. The game hasn't been released yet, but it’s already clear that it will be as scary and challenging as possible. And the first reveal trailer is just a testament to that. 5. Warhammer 40,000: Darktide : November 30, 2022 Release The Warhammer 40,000: Darktide is an upcoming cooperative first-person shooter set in the grimdark universe of Warhammer 40,000. Players will take control of a group of marines and fight through hordes of dangerous enemies. With a mix of gunplay, melee combat, and many enemies to kill, Warhammer 40,000: Darktide can easily become one of the best co-op shooters of the year. 6. The Dark Pictures Anthology: The Devil in Me : November 18, 2022 Release Another title in the collection of great upcoming games is The Dark Pictures Anthology: The Devil in Me is, a horror game that focuses on a group of documentary filmmakers who receive an anonymous call about a modern-day replica of H.H. Holmes' "Murder Castle." Although they are initially hesitant, they eventually decide that this could be their opportunity to win much-needed public attention and agree to go. Upon arriving at the hotel, it's clear to the crew that things are not as they seem. It quickly becomes apparent that they're being watched and manipulated, which puts more pressure on them than just their ratings. 7. Pokémon Scarlet and Violet : November 18, 2022 Release The first installment in a new Pokémon series is almost here. In Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, players can choose between three new starter Pokémon: Sprigatito, Fuecoco, and Quaxly, as well as two new legendary Pokémon: Koraidon and Miraidon. New games will follow the basic gameplay of the previous games, with players catching and training Pokémon to battle other trainers. However, the games will also feature an open-world map where urban areas and wilderness don't have borders between them. The new Pokémon games will be a valuable addition to any player's game collection. 8. World of Warcraft: Dragonflight : November 28, 2022 Release The upcoming expansion for World of Warcraft, Dragonflight, will bring players to the dragons' home world on Dragon Isles, separated into five zones. The new Dragonflight update will include a race called the Dracthyr, as well as a brand-new class to play – the Evoker, both of which are combined. The most highly-anticipated feature of the update, however, is Dragon Riding. With this, players can raise and–obviously-ride a dragon! Isn’t that exciting? 9. Need for Speed Unbound : November 29, 2022 Release So far, we haven’t mentioned any racing titles in the list of upcoming games, so here it is–Need for Speed Unbound. The next installment in the popular racing series will have you driving at breakneck speeds in unique urban locations. Ride the hyperrealistic vehicle on iconic streets, outsmart the cops, prove your worth to the street racing world, and take on weekly qualifiers. With its stunning graffiti-like visuals, customizable car design and driving effects, and heart-pumping gameplay, Need for Speed Unbound is sure to get your adrenaline going. 10. System Shock (2023 Remake) : March 2023 Release One of the most influential games of all time is getting a complete remake. In System Shock, you play as a hacker who has to fight through an AI-controlled space station. The game was ahead of its time when it was first released in 1994 and is still considered a classic today. The upcoming remake will modernize the game for a new generation of players while keeping the core gameplay true to the original. With its cutting-edge graphics, immersive gameplay, and deep storyline, System Shock is sure to be one of the best games of 2023. 11. Starfield : the first half of 2023 Release The upcoming game from The Elder Scrolls and Fallout developer Bethesda Game Studios is probably one of the most highly-anticipated titles right now, and rightly so. According to Bethesda, Starfield will allow you to create any character you want, explore the star systems with unparalleled freedom, and experience adventures on a journey to answer life’s greatest mystery. 12. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chernobyl : most likely in 2023 Release Set to release this upcoming December, the game release had to be pushed to 2023 due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, home to the game developer GSC. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 can be found almost on any list of upcoming games, and if you played previous entries, you’d know why. The S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game series is loosely based on a Soviet sci-fi book and the 1979 film of the same name depicting an anomaly zone filled with alien artifacts and paranormal activities. Like previous entries, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 will take place in the post-apocalyptic Chornobyl Exclusion Zone and have a non-linear story unfolding in the Zone that always calls for stalkers (“STALKER” is an acronym for Scavengers, Trespassers, Adventurers, Loners, Killers, Explorers, and Robbers). S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 will be a first-person sci-fi shooter with survival elements. As a new stalker, the player will search for rare and valuable supplies, including food, meds, and alcohol, as well as battle dangerous mutants. 13. Skull and Bones : March 9, 2023 Release Skull and Bones is an upcoming action-adventure video game developed by Ubisoft. The game is set in the Indian Ocean some centuries ago and will let you experience the ruthless world of pirates. Engage in naval combat, form alliances, and battle it out to become the most feared pirate kingpin. If you want to experience a more realistic and gritty pirate life and naval battles, then this game is one to keep an eye on. 14. Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora : between April 2023 and March 2024 Release First announced in 2017, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is one of the most anticipated upcoming games of recent years. Alas, it’s unlikely that we will see the game anytime soon, but there’s a slight hope that it might release after April 2023. There are not many details about the game yet, but what is known is that Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is a first-person action-adventure game that will feature a standalone story. The player will take the role of a Na’vi embarking on a journey across “a never-before-seen” part of Pandora, exploring the world and its inhabitants and fighting RDA (Resources Development Administration) forces that threaten it. 15. Lies of P : 2023 (TBA) Release Lies of P is a Pinocchio-inspired steampunk adventure game set in a dark Belle Époque world. During the game, the players will be put in situations where lying is needed to protect the protagonist and others. The official gameplay trailer revealed in August 2022 shows the complex world with steampunk-inspired surroundings and dynamic combats, which look like they will be a vital part of the game. Final Words on the Best Upcoming Games These are some of the best upcoming and new games you'll be able to play, hopefully very soon. Of course, a lot depends on the development process, and many factors can cause delays. But, all in all, we're in for some great gaming experiences shortly. So which one are you most excited about? Let us know in the comments below.

15 Best Upcoming Games in 2022 and 2023

The blush is fading off the , and critics are starting to ask if virtual reality is dead in the water. Yet at the same time, virtual reality is strong in industries like medicine, education, and military. apple growing The buzz is fading away, but what it’s leaving in its place is actual technology with a strong backing and real market potential. We all remember the halcyon days — when virtual reality was going to change the world. We put on headsets and stared into new horizons, and we knew this wasn’t going away. We’re the evangelists, after all. Anyone still eagerly chugging down every bit of immersive news doesn’t need to be convinced. We fell into waters, walked through the stars, and knew there was nothing like this in the universe. Trying it meant bringing it into your heart, and explaining it with words alone never quite did it justice. We wanted to walk through our memories. We wanted to explore universes from our living rooms. We wanted everyone to try it and love it as much as we did, for it to take over media and replace it, for it to become the new gold standard. We might have reached a little high. But we were excited, okay? The truth is, new technology almost never replaces what came before. We’re creatures of habit, and just like video couldn’t quite kill the radio star, we shouldn’t have expected virtual reality to sweep every other medium off the table. The sign of VR’s success isn’t the death of video games, movies, and cell phones. Its success is just people continuing to use it. And they are. Gaming It may not have dominating gaming the way evangelists said it would. We may not all be living in Ready Player One. But headsets are still being bought and sold. Developers are creating new titles every day, and advances are still common. Wireless capability is bound to make headsets more popular, and comfort levels are always on the rise. Small and steady use has kept film cameras on shelves. It does the same for virtual reality, and who cares if it isn’t a billion dollar industry? It’s here to stay. Medicine The medical industry is one where it dominating, and continues to grow more popular. Every day there’s an article about a new hospital using VR for the first time, whether to treat patient pain, make surgery safer, or train doctors in new procedures. Medical VR is exciting enough that it should be on the front page of every medical journal, and naysayers who claim VR isn’t hitting its potential clearly aren’t paying attention. is Education Ah, schools. Underfunded, constantly reaching for a new fix, and always just a few steps behind. VR has incredible potential for education, but it’s likely that our underfunded schools will be waiting awhile before they can take advantage of this tech. But outside of elementary and high school, training is getting a big boost from VR (and AR too). We’ll likely continue to see big strides here as people realize how much dang cheaper it is to train in simulations. So is it knocking our socks off and transforming everything? Okay, no, not really. But is it insanely cool and continuing every day to live up to the love and passion we’ve poured into it? It really is. It’s moving past the hype machine and turning into something real. A foundational technology that we’ll all interact with, and something that will grow at a steady, reasonable pace. Give it try to grow into itself. It’ll be pretty amazing what we find. Written by Wren Handman for www.hammerandtusk.com .

Buzz About VR is Dwindling, but VR is Growing

Blackpool Football Club, its fans and community have been treated horrendously over the last few years. The owners, the , have run the club into the ground, , while both the and . Oyston family abusing and taking legal action against fans in the process football authorities Blackpool’s town councillors sat by and watched Last year there was light at the end of the tunnel when ruled that the Oystons had “illegitimately stripped” the club . The ruling came after a legal case bought by Valeri Belokon, a major investor at the club. To compensate Belokon the Oystons need to raise money so have . Justice Marcus Smith “in a manner which involved “fundamental breaches” of their duties as directors” put the club up for sale An interview with , standard Youtube licence vSports founder Bai Qiang by Vincent Evans Seven patient months later a company called vSport and are quoted saying that they expect to complete the purchase by the end of the month. are reported to have bid for Blackpool FC vSport say that they are the “ ”. world’s first non-profit, open-source and blockchain empowered platform which is completely dedicated to the Sports Industry Sounds impressively futuristic but what on earth does that mean? And should fans and journalists be welcoming the news, or undertaking a bit more scrutiny? What on earth is blockchain? is a new that is generating a lot of interest. Many people believe that it will change the world. Blockchain technology I was part of a team that looked at blockchain two years ago. Our first assessment was that . We then wrote a , which looked at the promises and risks. Our simplest definition was: it was useful, but not for everything longer report Blockchains provide a way to store information so that many people can see it, keep a copy of it, and add to it. Once added, it is very difficult to remove information. This can reinforce trust in a blockchain’s content. Listen to talking about blockchains. James This type of data storage can support lots of new business and organisational models. Bitcoin is the most famous new model associated with blockchain, indeed blockchain was invented as part of the development of Bitcoin. Bitcoin was as a way for people to send payments to each other without an intermediary, unfortunately Bitcoin is currently most famous for being notoriously hard to spend and use, generating , , and using . Bitcoin doesn’t seem a great thing. originally intended a few (Bitcoin) billionaires losing some people a lot of money as much energy as Ireland or Denmark from “ ” Blockchain for 2018 and Beyond: A (growing) list of blockchain use cases There are . I won’t list them all. They seem to exist in every sector. many many other proposed uses of blockchain I still haven’t seen one working at scale. And I do spend time looking, Because while I still think there may be some good in blockchain (making it really hard to change data, and making it easier for more people to see when it is changed, must be useful for something! perhaps our will help find it?) there is . project on national archives also a lot of hype It is good to see that . We need to get past it to see where, or if, blockchain can be used for positive purposes. Where there is hype there is danger. Not just of lost money — some people will always lose some money while experimenting with new technology — but of more unintended harmful impacts, such as Bitcoin’s impact on the environment, or a direct and immediate impact on individuals. the hype is gradually being seen by more people As societies we need to experiment with new technology to see where it could be useful, but we need be wary of harmful impacts and who could be affected. In the age of a global internet and world wide web, harm can happen at great scale and speed. What on earth is vSport? vSport say that they are “ ”. It was founded by and, Dutch ex-footballer, . vSport is based in China. world’s first non-profit, open-source and blockchain empowered platform which is completely dedicated to the Sports Industry Bai Qiang Wesley Sneijder The two previously founded a company called Sport8. The of Sport8’s website has not been updated since 2015 although the seems to have been more recently updated. English-language version Chinese-language version There are reports that , although has no mention of it. Bai Qiang previously produced and worked as a Vice-President at large speech recognition firm . Sport8 signed a deal with Borussia Dortmund in 2016 the Borussia Dortmund website a 3D music video in 2012 iFlytek Play ! Could this be offering the chance to win rare memorabilia soon? vSports roulette Brett Ormerod vSport, like many other companies, has raised some initial funds from investors, put out some and a and is trying to show its potential so that it can bring in more funds. When I signed up on the website I got the chance to play a boring roulette game, I don’t think that game will bring in many funds or players in Blackpool. blogposts whitepaper The whitepaper has lots of big words and claims but little technical information or detail on how the capabilities will be built and adopted across the many claimed scenarios. I couldn’t find any source code to review, either to check if the roulette game was fair or to help form an opinion on whether the larger technical claims were credible. A list of applications from the vSport website The list of applications on the website and in the whitepaper is long and varied. In the time it would take to build a business across the sports sector then most of these ideas would be out of date. If I was advising them then, as for most other blockchain companies, I would recommend that a little more focus and a lot less hype would make them more likely to have long-term success. from the vSport whitepaper Some of the applications are a little strange and will have harmful impacts. For example, a section on data sharing talks about personal data like people’s names, sports activities and achievements being put into the blockchain. It says that this could be used in marketing and in making decisions about teenagers at school. . Sometimes people need protecting and data about them needs changing or removing. The very same factors that make it hard to change data in a blockchain, also make it hard to protect the people that the data is about. Don’t put personal data in a blockchain Most of the applications don’t require a blockchain, they could be built with existing and less experimental technologies, and most of them are about creating financial value for vSport, football clubs, and celebrities but, one of the promises of blockchain is that it can widen the number of people involved in decision making. from the vSport whitepaper If vSport follow that model (and the whitepaper hints at this) then football fans could influence its direction and get it to build applications that they want. Perhaps Blackpool fans could vote to ? finally build a training ground Unfortunately the limited information about the foundation shows a simple organisation chart with no detail of who is in which box, how decisions are made, and how they can be appealed. vSport looks like the very early stage of a classic top-down business. Lots of promises, few products and in need of customers to both develop the products and prove that it can deliver what it promises. I worry that it wants to buy Blackpool football club either for marketing or to test its new technology on the club and fans. vSport needs more scrutiny Blackpool fans have had a terrible time. Many, like me, haven’t been to see their football club in years. Any escape route from the Oystons might seem a good one but vSport doesn’t seem the right next destination. Being either a marketing vehicle for vSport or a testing ground for its technology doesn’t seem like something Blackpool FC, its fans, or its community need. Fans, journalists and local councillors (who’ve hopefully learnt a lesson from their failure to get to grips with the Oystons) need to ask more and better questions of any potential new investor. Any investor that should immediately raise alarm bells. fails to talk with fans before bidding Many fans were happy to start a new fan-owned club if the Oystons failed to leave. We can ask more questions of vSport, or wait and see , but we should also continue to be prepared to start a new club rather than accepting the first rescue ship that comes along. if Belokon can use his court case to get ownership from the Oystons

Putting Blackpool FC on the blockchain

It is not about commerce and many engineers disagree about the uniqueness of blockchain technology. Underscore.VC Blockchain Core Summit — March 22, 2018 — Boston Wow. is everywhere. Blockchain With twenty years of experience in enterprise but a blockchain newbie, I attended fifteen events in the Boston area (four different full-day conferences at MIT and venture capital firms and presentations at MIT, Harvard, and different Meetups) to educate myself about blockchain applications. Crypto trading was not my focus. Here is what I learned. software Most attendees are really, really excited, and every blockchain conference is sold out. This amped excitement is driven by the many crypto millionaires, the millions of dollars raised by start-ups with Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs), and a strong aversion to the power of dominant vendors and governments. Over two thousand start-ups raised $7B through ICOs without giving up equity or control. Some estimate that most of these are now inactive and regulatory agencies have stepped in, but start-up funding continues at a rapid pace. Blockchain is the “Wild, Wild West” and driven by passionate believers Bitcoin and blockchain are not about online selling. I naively asked many attendees what they had purchased using Bitcoin, and only one person had ever purchased anything using the cryptocurrency. None of the paid conferences offered an option to pay using Bitcoin. In fact, the number of online merchants accepting Bitcoin has declined in the past year. This movement is about trading and new applications, not commerce Most of the non-crypto trading applications are built using Ethereum, the leading blockchain application tool. This technology is currently very slow, with high transaction costs, and a very cumbersome user experience (private keys and browser wallet plugins). Many people are working to improve this, but improvements won’t come for at least twelve to eighteen months. At launch, a simple game called CryptoKitties used 15% of the Ethereum network, which caused some transactions to take thirty hours to complete. Blockchain technology is incredibly new and raw Blockchain does not bring new customer value to the user experience or the physical device (laptop or mobile phone). Blockchain applications are built with a proprietary web application that interacts with the blockchain for censorship-proof, easily audited data storage. Blockchain is innovation at the data layer only This was the most surprising finding. The technical community has expressed strong skepticism about the uniqueness of blockchain for non-trading applications (Kai Stinchcombe’s two articles (in and ) and Clemens Vasters’ are critical of blockchain and have gone mainly unchallenged). I found many passionate believers on the business side but much fewer on the technical side. Very few people can explain the uniqueness of blockchain technology December April post Currently, no killer blockchain application outside of crypto trading exists. I tried several of the consumer blockchain apps that are live, including Peepeth (Twitter-like microblogging), CryptoKitties (digital cat game), LBRY (“blockchain for YouTube”), Graphite (work processing), and Dock.io (“blockchain for Linkedin”). These early applications are a great way to learn and kudos to the early teams for their work. In exchange for the benefit of immutable data transactions, every user transaction has an actual cost (I paid three to eight cents for each post with Peepeth), and it takes four to ten minutes to update the public blockchain. Over time, the user experience and speed will improve, but the per transaction fees likely will not. Consumer apps are a great way to learn but are not yet compelling Some larger companies, such as Walmart and JP Morgan, are testing private blockchain for supply chain and intercompany applications. While some of these private applications are promising, questions about the unique benefits of blockchain technology persist. Larger companies are piloting private blockchain applications Overall, I found that the reality did not meet all the hype, but the benefits of censorship-proof features and data storage among participants with low trust is worth more experimentation. I plan to continue to monitor this area as an “intrigued skeptic.” Paul Baier has twenty years of enterprise software experience at four venture-backed companies. He earned an MBA at Harvard Business School and graduated from Kenyon College. He is not associated with any blockchain company and owns less than $1,000 of BTC. Blockchain events Paul attended Mar 22: (all day) Underscore.vc Blockchain Core Summit Apr 5: sponsored by IEEE ALGORAND: A Truly Distributed Ledger at MIT Apr 10: Daniel Wang, founder of LoopRing, talk at MIT Bitcoin Club Apr 15: (all day) sponsored by IDEAS Boston BlockchainFest Apr 17: MIT Bitcoin Club meeting Apr 23: (all day) by MIT Technology Review Business of Blockchain Apr 24: at Hubspot Rise of Blockchain Apr 24: New England Venture Capital Briefing: Blockchain and ICOs Apr 24: , a panel with 3 executives Building Blockchain Company Apr 25: FlipSide Breakfast: Strategies for Accredited Investors Apr 25: by IDEO Designing the Blockchain Future or ICO Apr 26: (all day) (Off) The Chain Summit by Pillar Apr 27: Identity and Privacy on a Blockchain May 7: at MIT Fireside Chat with CTO of CryptoKitties May 11: (all day) at MIT Media Lab Blockchain+AI+Human

What I Learned After Attending 15 Blockchain Events

Why product-focused IoT innovation is the comfort zone

Have you ever seen initiatives start with a big hype, turn into a bureaucratic process improvement rigmarole, and finally be given up (typically slowly and silently)? Lean If so, then you have experienced the culmination of one or more failure modes of Lean implementation. But what is the reason? Is it Lean ideas? Is it the way they are communicated? Perhaps it's the organization's fault for not being "Lean-compatible"? Or are Lean fans simply not loud enough to convince everyone of the wonders of Lean? If you are interested in an often-avoided potential explanation, read on. Lean ideas are great - and insufficient I like Lean. As others with a penchant for making things better, I’ve read and watched a lot about Lean concepts. I’ve also had many opportunities to interpret and apply Lean ideas in logistics administration operations, in R&D, in product and service development, and even in project . management Without a doubt: Lean delivers the goods, when applied pragmatically. Lean is a great set of ideas that has verifiably helped numerous companies to cut cost and create value - unfortunately, in that order of focus, cementing Lean as a cost-cutting management fad in many minds. However, for everyone else without such experience of hands-on success with Lean application there is often confusion, rather than clarity about Lean – despite the fact that Lean ideas have been with us in the West for many (20+) years. It's not about a lack of knowledge As with any complex system regarding human behavior and change, there are many root causes for this confusion, and the resulting stagnating or failing Lean implementations. As an example, these include (but are not limited to) a lack of alignment across hierarchical levels, insufficient discretionary funding for pilot projects, and unrealistic expectations imposed by management and consultants on pilot project teams. Some "Lean priests" bemoan the lack of awareness and knowledge of Lean as the largest root cause; and proclaim: “If only our people would really get how Lean simply makes sense!” Yet, knowledge and good-enough understanding of Lean is a commodity. Lean is being taught in universities and MBA programs, trained in corporate training courses, and preached in numerous articles and case studies. You can read a book (like “Lean Thinking”), or even a business novel (like “The Lean Manager”) or watch a YouTube video and grasp its essence far beyond the unfortunate focus on methods. Lean would have no chance to ever succeed if it required triple PhDs and/or an MBA degree. No, a lack of access to Lean knowledge isn't what is blocking companies from benefiting from Lean. Few people are openly talking about one of the largest root causes: unnecessary and ill-timed hype — especially those with "Lean" as part of their professional identity. Hype reflects a lack of pragmatism regarding change In my experience, one of the largest (if not the largest, by far) root causes delaying or even preventing business success with Lean is the following: Lean is often naively communicated and “sold” as the end-all, be-all answer to all business challenges. The key problem is that the usual approach to "doing Lean" in larger, complex organizations is a romantic attempt to apply lofty ideals on the messy reality of business and its operations. This represents two issues with implications that are quite incompatible with Lean itself: A lack of pragmatism and the willingness to make tough business trade-offs. Implication: Lean is a given solution, we just have to do it by-the-book. A lack of understanding of how people change behaviors, and of what Lean calls "pull". Implication: Lean is the inevitable solution, we just have to yell it louder. Often, the very people tasked with creating value through Lean implementations are the ones who set themselves up for failure simply by talking too much about Lean (even though they might also be doing a lot with it). This can (and often does) lead to unrealistic expectations on all levels of the organization. The resulting push-based implementation attempt turns people off and leads to change fatigue, cynicism, and bureaucratic compliance to Lean. Ultimately, in many organizations, nowadays Lean (and "agility") is just another fad, much like TQM, Six Sigma, BPR, and phase-gate before it; all of them useful ideas that in many cases were transformed into tools of a strengthened bureaucracy, instead of tools for delivering value. Instead, organizations that want to actually get value out of Lean fast, instead of just sharing some internal slides patting themselves on the back, need to lead pragmatic change. How this is to be achieved in practice is an entirely different post (but you can read a bit more about it ). here Lean hype is the reference mode As with many other change and improvement initiatives, Lean hype is the dominant reference mode: i.e. what typically happens in an organization that mismanages Lean implementation. One key reason for this is that Lean is mostly communicated in a polarized manner, and often simultaneously: As a set of very specific hands-on methods, tools and clever ideas with impenetrably mystical and "cool" Japanese names. As a set of lofty ideas and principles to do business by, akin to a philosophy or religion (for some, even to live by). We can debate endlessly about which one is true. Probably both are, and that's OK. And, guess what? (spoilers ahead) Nobody who is asked to apply Lean really cares about Lean-theological arguments. Smashing the feedback loop There is a way out of the "Lean hype" reference mode, which I have experienced to be reliably successful. Yet, it's also what the fewest practitioners/preachers of Lean dare to do: go beyond Lean navel-gazing. Here are some ideas on how you can achieve this: Stop the political correctness of conflating Lean with "the only right way to organize operations". It probably is, but bludgeoning stakeholders doesn’t help. Openly question whether Toyota could have stumbled upon the one, true approach that is supposed to work anywhere and in every business and cultural context. In Aikido-style persuasion: first, admit that some of your Lean pilots are underwhelming, and then invite open criticism from all levels - and listen. Stop using the Lean Manufacturing treatment on every single aspect of your business. No, you are not more productive by standardizing your desktop layout and the location of your stapler. And yes, one-piece flow in R&D is counter-intuitively detrimental. Finally, and most importantly: Tread the middle ground. Take Lean beyond Japanese buzzwords, and also down from the theoretical stratosphere. Bridge the theory-practice gap by looking at how Lean fits your organization, not the other way around. How to achieve this? Deceptively simple, and at the same time tough to do: Apply Lean on its own implementation; i.e., how should you market and sell Lean internally in an organization to enable ? pull-based, gradual adoption Set-based on Lean implementation itself This article is long enough as it is, so I would like to leave you with a final thought for a more hassle-free and business-minded Lean implementation. Within Lean Product Development there is a concept called "set-based development". Simplified, this includes the creation of multiple potential paths to success, the exploration of their trade-offs, the repeated elimination of the weakest paths, and the re-use of insights from all paths examined, good and bad. This gradual evolution relies on also understanding what doesn't work for your specific context, and avoiding expending effort (and later, rework) on it. Lean implementation, as everything involving people, is a tricky endeavor. To get it right somehow, it's more business oriented and prudent to know where not to end up, instead of trying to predict and plan for the right solution, like the old waterfall approach. And that, compared to point-based mandating of what Lean should be for your company, is rather more reminiscent of Lean approaches to getting things done with and for people. More Read on similar business challenges, and follow me and . other articles on LinkedIn on Twitter

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