HYPE CYCLE & CULTURE MAKING

Below is a link to an article from American Libraries magazine that references the "Hype Cycle" in regards to new technologies. The hype cycle, as you might imagine, is the process of getting past both the initial hype and the ensuing disillusionment of an innovation to understanding how to use it and making it work on a longer term. The article notes that "a concept rarely performs to expectations. What matters is how you learn from yourself and others in order to improve your own implementation experience. Instead of taking a new application and running with it blindly, we can create a layered perspective on how and why it suits our local needs:
- Utility—First understand a product’s technical foundation.
- Application—Then, examine how it is hyped, adopted, adapted, and rejected.
- Insight—Finally, implement with a critical understanding of its capabilities and caveats."

http://www.americanlibrariesmagazine.org/columns/dispatches-field/hope-hype-and-voip-riding-library-technology-cycle

I think I'll keep those three points of perspective in mind when using and writing about technology for this project. I also like to go through Andy Crouch's questions from his book Culture Making. (http://www.culture-making.com/)
- What does X assume about the world?
- What does X assume about the way the world should be?
- What does X make possible?
- What does X make impossible (or at least a lot more difficult)?
- What new culture is created in response to X?