I love graphs.
Clicking on an article in a recent email newsletter brought me to “The Wireless Hype in Process Automation” by Dieter Schaudel at ControlGlobal.com. The wireless part hooked me, but the graph of the Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies really grabbed me. It takes us from the Technology Trigger over the Peak of Inflated Expectations through the Trough of Disillusionment and finally up the Slope of Enlightenment to the Plateau of Productivity. Go look at the graph. Apply it in retrospect to fieldbuses, OPC, and other innovations we are at home with today. Think about it going forward with electric cars, green energy, the US president-elect, or Industrial Ethernet. Where are we on this curve for these things?
And the article is interesting for the position of wireless on the curve, too.
I like better the graphs showing increasing growth of PROFIBUS and PROFINET, but the Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies really makes me think.