Cringely's Law states that short-term adoption of new technologies never occurs as quickly as we expect, but their long-term impact is far greater than we realize.
I came across this quotation while reading this month's MIT Technology Review and loved it immediately. I didn't know anything about Robert X. Cringley but knew that I liked his thinking. This is what disruptive innovation is about. People make things, some say, "why would anyone do that/want that?" (think Twitter, Facebook, computers, BlackBerry's, etc), and then sure enough, everyone wants that. Now this doesn't happen to every innovation, and it is certainly difficult to predict which ones will catch on, but it's simply important to know how the phenomenon works.
This is essential for schools and teachers who might want to think that, "this will never have a place in schools," but be careful about using words like never. Innovation works in strange and twisted ways.
