EDS Fellow Kas Kasravi wants to identify the top three IT trends. An initial survey produces a 'shortlist' of over fifty. So he does what many clever IT people do easy as breathing - lumps them together to produce three highly generalized trends: Visibility, Automation and Simplification.
Not content with that, he proceeds to formulate three laws: the Law of Visibility, the Law of Automation, and the Law of Simplification. He seems to be playing with the tension between the second law (which promotes complexity) and the third law (which promotes simplicity).
The trouble I have with this manoeuvre is that the IT trends cease to be empirically grounded descriptions of what is actually going on in IT, and become armchair theories derived from some abstract understanding of the timeless essence of IT. Is it always a good thing to give people the wisdom of the hedgehog when they are paying for the knowledge of the fox? [See Kheper article on the Fox and the Hedgehog.]
And why is it better to have three trends rather than fifty? Let a hundred flowers bloom!
I see from the EDS website that one of the responsibilities of an EDS fellow is to provide vision and perspective on emerging trends. But if there are only three unchanging trends, perhaps EDS doesn't need so many fellows after all. Let's hope Kas isn't talking himself out of a job.
IT Trend Laws (May 2006) - post no longer available
Wikipedia: Lumpers and Splitters, The Hedgehog and the Fox
See also James Martin (June 2006)
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