This book is about technological innovations. It is set against a background of contemporary technological turbulence and numerous attempts to describe the genesis of various changes in technology that have been observed. It represents an attempt to make sense of the technological dynamism that appears to be endemic to the times and to provide some plausible suggestions for managing it.

The task is not an easy one. In particular, it is a task that is complicated by the conspicuous importance of technological innovation to modern life. There is no shortage of stories of innovation. They fill biographies, the popular press, and the after-hours conversations of participants. These stories have certain similarities. Changes in technologies, practices, and products are characteristically described in terms of the triumph of the new over the old. Initially, a new idea, institution, or practice is introduced into a small part of the system. Ultimately, it becomes pervasive. The stories use the powers of retrospection to identify individual and organizational genius in this triumph of good over evil.

The obvious difficulty with these stories is not so much that they can be demonstrated unambiguously to be false as it is that even if they were false we would nevertheless construct and repeat them. The market for stories of individual and collective triumph is insatiable, and anthropomorphic biases in human storytelling and comprehension are legendary. As a result, the fact that the tales of innovation that are told seem to have a consistent structure is hardly compelling evidence for their validity.