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Culp: Moore Is Not Always More

We may have reached an important limit to a particular kind of growth at a particular pace typified by Moore’s law. This does not mean innovation is dead.

You may have noticed recently that Moore’s law is quietly fading away. Earlier this year, M. Mitchell Waldrop, writing on Nature.com, penned an epitaph: “Next month, the worldwide semiconductor industry will formally acknowledge what has become increasingly obvious to everyone involved: Moore’s law, the principle that has powered the information technology revolution since the 1960s, is nearing its end.”

It seems we may have reached an important limit to a particular kind of growth at a particular pace. This doesn’t mean that growth stops altogether, but it will likely take longer to realize such large improvements as we saw in the latter part of the last century. It was a very good run for the exponential growth in the semiconductor business — but we knew it was coming. Increasingly small spaces are unable to effectively deal with the heat generated by the “system on a chip” that enables advanced computing at a nanoscale.

This does not mean innovation is dead. There will be myriad opportunities to use what processing speed we have more effectively and efficiently. For many years, developers have relied on the increase in hardware efficiencies to compensate for bloated code and its performance that has been masked by processor speed. As the rates of processor speeds slow, efficiencies must occur elsewhere. Indeed, new programming languages have been invented recently to zero in on coaxing specialized hardware to peak efficiency, such as Nvidia’s CUDA.

From an innovation perspective, this brings up a lot of questions. As we think about the mechanics of innovation, is there a rate or a pace that can be identified? Is that different for public versus private sector? Are there effective limits to growth in innovations for government? Is there a corollary to Moore’s law for innovations?

Innovation is big news in the public sector these days. Governments at all levels are setting up innovation programs, and that in itself seems like a big innovation. But we can’t take that to the bank just yet. If we look at innovation offices like startup companies in the private sector, we should be prepared for a reality check; the private sector knows the difficulty involved with startups. Despite having customers, cash and a promising business model, most startups fail for lack of scalability. And while scalability may not be the pre-eminent issue for government innovation offices, there are several conditions that affect their sustainability.

Government has a history of establishing mandates without regard to readiness — that’s the nature of the legislative process. The civic innovation movement also disregards the notion of readiness. Further, the desire for innovation in government clashes with a culture that does not reward and nurture it, threatening to indict the new paradigm and its proponents when an initiative falters. Naysayers will always line up and point out public-sector failures as evidence of ineptitude, including when the initiative was required by legislation.

Regardless of how innovation enters government, we should embrace and commend the efforts toward improvement. A lot of activity is being driven by collaboration with civic innovators and the demand for open data. The fact that more people are interested in a dialog with government about its services seems a commendable development as well. We should also be doing whatever we can to make sure innovation sticks if we are serious about doing more with less and better. We must also be smart about our efforts — more innovation isn’t always better, and we need to put some thought into the process and measure the outcomes.

For starters, let’s stop ignoring what we know. Let’s use available tools to better understand our readiness for new initiatives to give ourselves a fighting chance at success. Let’s do a little research on innovation readiness assessment models and then apply them to the organizations in which we’re seeking to establish innovation. Let’s recognize that changing the present culture is necessary to realize a new and better way to serve citizens, and it’s not free or easy — even if civic innovators are willing to help, we must recognize and commit the resources required to be successful.


This commentary appears in the Summer 2016 issue of Techwire magazine.

Shell Culp is a senior fellow at the Center for Digital Government, senior adviser for Public Consulting Group and principal with Almirante Partners. She formerly worked as an agency information officer for the state of California.