Naisbitt identified three stages of technology as it spreads
through society:
(a) new technology follows the line of least resistance;
(b) technology is used to improve previous technology; and
(c) new directions or uses are discovered that grow out of
the technology itself.
John Naisbitt. Megatrends (1982)
These steps are very similar to the three stages of technology
diffusion: modernisation, innovation and transformation.
So much of what we have done in libraries with technology has been
modernisation. We have taken the card catalogue and we have made it
electronic, you know that is nice but it really does not get us very
far. We have taken journals and we have started to do bit map page
images and that is nice but it really does not get us very far, I can
say again, with respect to transforming scientific communication. Our
real goal is to transform it.
-- "The University as Library" -- Richard Lucier
Follett Lecture Series, University of Leeds, 6th June 1996
The first approximation of an innovation goes only halfway to realizing
its full impact. Two generations ago many people imagined a
horseless-carriage, or automobile. However, very few imagined the
second-order disruption of this horseless carriage -- parking lots and
traffic jams. And virtually no one foresaw the third-order consequence
of this second-order disruption (car plus parking lot) which was
suburbia.
-- Kevin Kelly Whole Earth, Winter 2000.
http://www.findarticles.com/cf_0/m0GER/2000_Winter/68617361/p1/article.jhtml?term=blog