On identifying and tracking the next "killer app"

This paper describes a joint business-academia initiative aimed at identifying the next "killer app," carried out in 2003 and 2004. Although the project has not met its stated objective (insofar as that can be determined), it has proven to be a source of learning about the process of trying to foresee technological advances, especially the obstacles in patterns of thought that prevent business groups from collaboratively arriving at compelling visions of technological futures. Insights that have emerged from this process add to a significant literature that seeks to explain why companies have such difficulty shifting to new technological paradigms. This paper helps to explain not inter-firm differences in the rate of adoption of new technologies, but rather why the gestation period for the use of new technologies in all businesses is often quite long.