BUSN 660 THE 5TH WAVE / TUTORIALOUTLET DOT COM BUSN 660 THE 5TH WAVE / TUTORIALOUTLET DOT COM | Page 2

the 6th wave may overlap the end of the 5th wave expected 2020 time
frame. "Innovations are no longer the results of individual efforts, but
are organized and concerted actions whose results are rapidly diffused
(Comtois, Rodrigue, & Slack, 2013)." The time frames will
progressively become shorter moving from wave to wave. Are we
done with innovation in information systems as widely seen in the 5th
wave? No, we will continue to see changes, improvements, and new
systems and devices created even after movement into the 6th wave.
2-The 5th wave of technology centers on the computer. The biggest
piece of this we interact with daily is the internet. The first ripples of
this wave harken back to the Air Force’s Semi-Automatic Ground
Environment (SAGE) network and the Defense Advanced Research
Project Agency (DARPA) initial military network research (Burnam-
Fink, 2011). While this slowly reached the civilian world in the
1970s, it didn’t really become noticeable until the early 1980s. I
would say the 5th wave really started with the advent of the bulletin
board system (The BBS Corner, 2009). This enabled the first mass
digital data sharing. All types of information were posted on the
virtual
“cork-and-pin bulletin board” according to The BBS Corner’s report.
As modem speeds increased, the amount of information increased and
graphics were shared as well.
As the internet grew in prominence, it assimilated much of the
bulletin board structure, while expanding in new directions. Finally
weaned off telephone modems beginning with the 21st century, the
media content shot through the roof. Download speeds and file sizes
dwarf the capacities of computer hardware from the late 90’s. The
advances have started leveling off though. New breakthroughs are
slower in coming and people have settled in and started to get
comfortable with the new technology (Burnam-Fink, 2011). Still, the
business world is coming to grips with this and adapting (Butterworth,
2010). As this occurs over the next few years and we really start to
normalize, then the time will be ripe for the next big wave of
technology.