The state of technological and social change: Impressions

As the long-wave theory has predicted, we are seeing a period of consolidation in which the pace of radical technological innovation seems exceeded by the pace of social change. Peter Drucker's dictum, that technology changes faster than society, appears now to have been reversed. The article offers research and anecdotal support for these assertions, linking them to specific trends and trend interactions, including patents and intellectual property litigation, new product development, and politics and revolution.

Research Highlights
► Peter Drucker's 1985 dictum that for several decades social change had been slower than technological change, has been turned on its head. Social change is now the hare and tech change the tortoise, relatively speaking. This will change again in the future.
► The law should continue to protect a particular patent only if the applicant or a licensee commercializes it within a short period of time following the granting of the patent.
► Research is needed on the mechanism by which innovations, which are nondifferentiable points on experience curves, aggregate to form seemingly smooth business cycles and Kondratieff waves.
► Technological Forecasting & Social Change will encourage research on measuring the rate of social change.