The Competition between DVDs and Video-on-Demand, an example of Red Queens or Increasing Returns?

“Red Queens, Butterflies, and Strange Attractors: Imperfect Lenses into Emergent Technologies,” explains the phenomenon known as “Red Queens” in which two competing technologies propel improvements in both (Dr. Thornburg, 2013), so it is the idea that competition brings out the best of both worlds.  When video on demand came into the marketplace, it needed to dislodge DVDs; it had to have sufficient power and create sufficient momentum, or it would not be able to overcome the barrier established by the long-time thriving DVD market.  Because of the sustained competitive advantage of the DVD market, video on demand needed to be extra-competitive.  In this small way, one could argue that video on demand and the DVD industries demonstrate Red Queens.  Arguing against the concept of Red Queens to explain the success of these industries is the different timelines of the emergence of each technology.  DVD became popular first.  Video on line came second.  So, while video on demand may have been competing against DVD, the converse was not true. 

Okay, now let us now consider how DVDs and video on demand are examples of the concept of increasing returns.  Increasing Returns is the idea that once ahead, a company gets further ahead faster and faster, and once behind, the more behind a company falls (Arthur, 1996). Speaking in favor of the concept that increasing returns would explain the behavior of these industries, consider their developmental timeline.  Check out this informative report by EY regarding Trends and the Future of Television and Media http://www.ey.com/Publication/vwLUAssets/EY_-_6_trends_that_will_change_the_TV_industry/$FILE/EY-6-trends-that-will-change-the-TV-industry.pdf.  According to the report, the DVD industry reached its heyday in the mid-90s, replacing VCR.  Video on line was emerging about 2007 with 30 million users of Netflix.  Thus, these two industries had insufficient overlap at the time of their emergence for “red queens” to explain their emergence patterns.  Consider the concept of increasing returns.  I argue that “increasing returns” better describes the emergence of video on demand which replaced the prior entertainment technology of DVDs.  The EY report claims that it is the evolution of control that was the underlying drive that propelled video on demand to success.  Looked at from the angle of increasing returns, when DVD was up and coming, it had a technological advantage to the VCR because it was an improved form of technology.  When video on demand gathered momentum, it provided the consumer control and access.  The needs of the user changed and video on demand met those needs.  So as video on demand grabbed a niche in the marketplace, its momentum gathered, building upon itself more and more until the DVD industry fell further and further behind. 

References

Arthur, W. B. (1996). Increasing returns and the new world of business. Harvard Business Review, 74(4), 100–109

Thornburg, D. (2013d). Red queens, butterflies, and strange attractors: Imperfect lenses into emergent technologies. Lake Barrington, IL: Thornburg Center for Space Exploration

SixthSense is Disruptive

SixthSense is a computer system that one wears and it corresponds to movements that the wearer makes.  The SixthSense is described here:  http://www.ted.com/talks/pranav_mistry_the_thrilling_potential_of_sixthsense_technology.html

SixthSense detects things in the environment and informs the user of those objects. Additionally, one can use ordinary objects as a screen. Thus, no longer will the wearer need be limited to a computer and mouse to use digital technology.  Rather, the everyday environment becomes the computer field and hands become the mouse.  One will be able to automatically sync information in the environment into the computer by the camera in the wearable computer system.  For example, a page of information from a random book can be scanned into the computer.  Scanners would no longer be necessary. This technology is disruptive to other technologies because the camera will sense what the wearer wants to do, and responds correspondingly.  This technology would make the blind person’s white cane and the TV viewer’s remote control obsolete.  The hard box equipment of many devices would be obsolete.  So not only throw out the remote, toss the TV as well. 

From a social perspective, SixthSense will change the current pattern of individuals sitting at computers, and instead, computers will be seamless in the physical environment.  This will allow individuals to be more socialized with one another.  There will be less people staring into their phones. It is hard for me to image all of what else will arise through this technology. 

Once the SixthSense technology has emerged, I predict it would have about 35 years before being displaced.  I imagine a replacement technology would be something that provides the computer functioning without the camera and little finger tip devices but instead the computer could be placed just beneath the skin on the hands and forehead.  What a world it is going to be!

When I think about the video, Rhymes of History, (Dr. Thornburg, 2014) and how societal patterns can be created anew in present technology, there is an emerging technology that I think succinctly fits as an example.  Social media is a rhyme of history rekindling past days of sitting around the campfire. My 103-year-old grandmother explained to me that when she was young, at the end of the day, as the cool of the night set in, the family would gather around and tell stories.  While nowadays people seem glued to their phones, I must ask, are we really less social?  Or are we more social than ever before?

I could link any of probably a thousand social media sites to serve as an example to demonstrate my point.  I picked one which happened to focus on the theme of hearing through social media in the same manner as in the old campfire days, where people sat around to listen to a tale of what others thought:  https://www.thepinnaclesolutions.com/solutions/campfire/

References

Laureate Education (Producer). (2014). David Thornburg: Rhymes of History [Video file]. Baltimore, MD: Author.

My McLuhan tetrad (Laureate Education 2014, Thornburg, 2013) is based upon Learning Management Systems.  As an educational technology futurist, and following McLuhan’s example, as taught by our instructor, Dr. Thornburg, I ask the four essential questions:

“(a) What a technology does that is new (enhances)?

 (b) what a new technology replaces (obsoletes)?

 (c) what a new technology brings from the past (retrieves/rekindles)?

 (d) what might replace the new technology in the future (reverses)?”

Enhances:  The advent of learning management systems brought improved and faster communication and increased staff and student participation.  It improved problem-solving and made for faster processing.  Finances were more easily integrated, tracked, and organized resulting in higher profits.  Customer service became at a higher level.  Data and marketing became targeted and rich. These findings were the conclusions of the studies at the boom of the industry (Alavi & Leidner, 1999).

Obsoletes:  Learning Management Systems created an overcapacity of some employees and services, but not always in the manner anticipated.  One would imagine the usage of paper would be much less but the need for paper continues to exist, and in some ways, more paper and ink are required as our printers print, print, and continue to print.  As was true in the Industrial Revolution, the advent of technology in the late 20th century brought an end to certain jobs because the computer machine could make processes faster and simpler (Jensen, 1993).  No need for so many teacher’s aids or even teachers.  Geographical limitations in the distance between people have become unimportant with the LMS.  It is perfectly okay that my instructor lives and works in Nigeria, for example.  Schools can become virtual.  Offices are virtual.  I chose an app and 24-hour support from India to proof-read my work reports at a less expensive price than a secretary who used to perform the same function. 

Retrieves/rekindles:  Learning Management Systems caused energy usage to increase dramatically.  The postal system and its competitors had increased markedly with the advent of the technology that developed at the same time when the LMS systems became widely popular.  Teachers became more accessible.  They are just an email away.  Schools such as Walden University request to please allow your instructor a certain number of hours to respond to your email.  Learning and knowledge have considerably increased as data, learning circles, and information has dramatically increased.  Global interests are of greater importance.  Technical jobs are worldwide such that some third-world countries have developed into meaningful participants in the global economy (BBC, 2010).  For example, technical workers in India help me with my Dell computer, proof-read my work reports, and assist with my Adobe software. 

Reverses:  Let’s project out 50 years from now or more.  The LMS can give rise to personal tutors as preprogrammed hologram images ready to aid the student.  The mobile device today which looks up millions of articles, books, and websites in a matter of a second may transform into virtual reality tours.  Learning about the middle ages and the travels of the Vikings.  With virtual reality, you are pulled into the scene.  Not enough people to make all those virtual reality tours?  No problem, the computer will do it with self-learning and the current information already on the internet for it to access.  With brain downloading and uploading, learning disability?  No problem, a quick upload and now a gap-fix can just provide the brain its needed link.  In fact, no need to learn at all.  Second language?  How about an upload of 100 languages?  Low on storage space, no problem, delete the 80 languages you will probably never need, and if you did need it, you could upload it later. 

References

Alavi, M., & Leidner, D. E. (1999). Knowledge management systems: issues, challenges, and benefits. Communications of the AIS, 1(2es), 1.

BBC Four. (Producer). (2010). Hans Rosling’s 200 countries, 200 years, 4 minutes - The joy of stats [Video file]. Retrieved June 7, 2014, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbkSRLYSojo

Jensen, M. C. (1993). The modern industrial revolution, exit, and the failure of internal control systems. the Journal of Finance, 48(3), 831-880.

Laureate Education (Producer). (2014). David Thornburg: McLuhan’s Tetrad [Video file]. Baltimore, MD: Author.

Thornburg, D. (2013). Emerging technologies and McLuhan’s laws of media. Lake Barrington, IL: Thornburg Center for Space Exploration.

Module 1 Assignment 1:  Blog Post on Identifying an Emerged Technology

Educ 8342

Futurist Thornburg, D. (2013) uncovered many examples of current and upcoming transformations in educational technology.  His archetypal paper discussed the evolving history of the various technologies, anchoring those examples to references of current research.  Following the typecast of Thorburg, this blog post considers another case illustration of a technology used in education which is undergoing a transformation.  Specifically, the next generation of Learning Management Systems is underway.  First, membership in traditional LMS systems are stagnant and declining.  There is much evidence demonstrating that LMS systems as we know them are losing traction.  Emelo (2014) in his blog, “River, Do More With Mentoring” can be found here:  http://www.riversoftware.com/helpful-resources/blog/item/366-is-the-traditional-lms-on-its-way-out .  The writer cites a Brandon Hall Group survey in which about half of respondents of organizations want to change their LMS.  Similar references are commonplace on the Internet.  I invite the reader to see Cho’s (2015) descriptions of Blackboard’s attempt to adapt to needs of the major universities:  http://www.thehoya.com/blackboard-usership-steadily-declines/.  The Washington Post got in on the Blackboard slam, check out this post:  https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/blackboard-loses-high-profile-clients-as-students-gripe-about-its-design/2015/08/21/1fd91708-4511-11e5-8e7d-9c033e6745d8_story.html?utm_term=.ce9e76da6ff5.  Second, it is recognized that the traditional LMS fails to deliver the types of services that administrators and learners want as evidenced by failure to use the LMS outside of the classroom necessity.  Pearson is exiting the field of Learning Management Systems.  As the reason for the exit, Craig’s (2015) boasted, “The Decline and Fall of the Learning Management System.”  The article notes accurately that users are going digital mobile.  It is not enough for an LMS to merely be accessible by the mobile device because the very way of learning is changing.  The Pearson article can be found here:  http://www.pearsoned.com/education-blog/the-decline-and-fall-of-the-learning-management-system/.  Third, the employed pedagogy of the traditional LMS is inconsistent with the latest understanding of how learners want to learn (Tracey, 2016).  The new LMS, on the other hand, self-selects for flexible cognitive styles and self-learning modalities (Yuan & Liu, 2011). 

The fourth reason that I will discuss as to why the LMS as we know it is on the way out is that these outdated systems do not deliver the services needed by the users because the platforms are inadequately designed for the emerging digital, mobile user. For example, the new LMS systems need not only accommodate learners savvy of learning by way of their learning style via personalized learning, but the new LMS systems need to incorporate dashboards of sophisticated learning analytics.  The Brandon Hall Group indicated that organizations want their LMS to have skills to integrate (Gurunath & Kumar, 2015).  Brown et al. (2015) provided a wonderful summary article of the future of the digital learning environment that we are emerging into.

In the meantime, while we wait for the new LMS emerging technology to take a firm grasp, I see that various ad lib systems are springing up to meet needs.  A couple LMS options that are popping up to replace the outdated LMS systems include  Google Sites and Social Networking Sites (Pilli, 2014).  Zhuang (2017) takes a look at some of these emerging technologies in the context of higher education and e-learning. Brown et al. (2015) discussed in detail what the LMS 3.0 will be incorporating.  For myself, I like Google Sites because, as Whatonearth14 explained in his blog, Google Sites may be used in many ways that traditional LMS.  His blog can be found here:  https://whatonearth14.wordpress.com/2014/06/23/google-sites-lms-everything-in-one-place. Since that post, Google Sites has updated from that platform, which they call “Classic Sites,” to the New Sites – and it is more flexible and robust. 

References

Bogage, J. (2015, August 22).  Blackboard Loses High-profile Clients.  Retrieved June 9, 2017

from https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/blackboard-loses-high-profile-clients-as-students-gripe-about-its-design/2015/08/21/1fd91708-4511-11e5-8e7d-9c033e6745d8_story.html?utm_term=.ce9e76da6ff5

Brown, M., Dehoney, J., & Millichap, N. (2015). The next generation digital learning

            environment. A Report on Research. ELI Paper. Louisville, CO: Educause April.

Cho, E. (2015, October 08). Blackboard Usership Steadily Declines. Retrieved June 09, 2017,

            from http://www.thehoya.com/blackboard-usership-steadily-declines/Emelo, R. (2014,

            February 18). SOFTWARE. Retrieved June 09, 2017, from

http://www.riversoftware.com/helpful-resources/blog/item/366-is-the-traditional-lms-on-its-way-out

Craig, R. (2015, November 19).  The Decline and Fall of the Learning Management System. 

Retrieved June 9, 2017 from http://www.pearsoned.com/education-blog/the-decline-and-fall-of-the-learning-management-system/

Google Sites LMS: everything in one place. (2014, June 23). Retrieved June 09, 2017, from

https://whatonearth14.wordpress.com/2014/06/23/google-sites-lms-everything-in-one place

Gurunath, R., & Kumar, R. A. (2015). SAAS EXPLOSION LEADING TO A NEW PHASE OF

            A LEARNING MANAGEMENT SYSTEM. International Journal of Current Research

            and Review, 7(22), 62.

Pilli, O. (2014). LMS Vs. SNS: Can Social Networking Sites Act as a Learning Management

            Systems. American International Journal of Contemporary Research, 4(5), 90-97.

Thornburg, D. (2013). Current Trends in Educational Technology. Licensed via Creative

 Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License.

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/us

Tracey, M. W. (2016). 14 How I Gave Up ADDIE for Design Thinking, and So Did My

            Students. Studio Teaching in Higher Education: Selected Design Cases, 195.

Yuan, X., & Liu, J. (2011, November). An exploratory study of the effect of cognitive styles on

user performance in an information system. In 5th Workshop on Human-Computer

Interaction and Information Retrieval. Retrieved (Vol. 22).

Zhuang, Y., Ma, H., Xie, H., Leung, A. C. M., Hancke, G. P., & Wang, F. L. (2016, October).

            When innovation meets evolution: an extensive study of emerging e-Learning

            technologies for higher education in Hong Kong. In International Symposium on \ Emerging Technologies for Education (pp. 574-584). Springer, Cham.

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Connectivism

Technology has allowed me to have a lot more while fun learning.  More pleasure translates to increased relaxation and greater retention and creativity during the learning experience.  I love watching YouTube videos.  For our 100 point classroom paper, most of my references were video files.  For me, learning in an online environment has allowed me increased flexibility to study in time and locations that work best for my schedule.  Also, learning is easier for me to accomplish due to the increased availability of information. 

Although not a perfected theory, Connectivism excites me, and fits best into my philosophy of learning.  The theory aligns best with the organizational style and complexity processes seen in nature (Siemens 2009, Athabasca University, 2010). The human nervous system works through nerves that connect by nodes, paralleling the organization described in connectivism.  The theory of complex systems, including game theory, articulates that when many different behaviors merge, the outcomes are complex and more unpredictable (TedXTalks, 2011).  As described in Complexity Theory, in complex systems, one cannot accurately predict how entities will form and re-form (Siemens, 2013).  The concept of connectivism attempts to embrace the ideas of complex systems theories, paralleling most accurately the systems seen in nature.  I think that one day we will answer the questions that learning and instructional theory ask simply by measuring learning using future biological and scientific technological processes.  Connectivism is fundamentally different from the other learning theories. 

References:

AthabascaUniversity Connectivism (2010).  Connecting with George Siemens [video file].

            Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gNaOZAjkxg

Siemens, G., & Tittenberger, P. (2009). Handbook of emerging technologies for learning.

            Manitoba,, Canada: University of Manitoba.

TedXTalks (2011). TEDxCanberra - Boho Interactive -  Chaos, complexity, balloons and

            bunnies [video file].  Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bN2N7gqAax0.

Siemens, G. (2013).  Responding to the fragmentation of higher education [video file]. Retrieved

            from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qgntB2YEUI