[http://metaphoricalweb.ning.com/profiles/blogs/future-proof-the-future-comes]
In software architecture circles, there's a rather curious term in
vogue called "future proofing". Typically, when you are putting
together an architecture, especially an enterprise level architecture,
one of the major goals is to insure that, once laid down, it won't be
necessary to come back in ten years time, tear the whole thing out and
start from scratch. In essence, you want to set up the architecture so
that, no matter what the future brings, the application or system can
adapt.

It's a laudable goal in theory, but in practice, it's seldom an
achievable goal. Part of the reason for this is that while architecture
tends to be a top down imposition of ideas and structure, the future is
notoriously bottom up. It creeps in through the cracks, like weeds
pushing up through concrete pavement ... before you know it, the
concrete has been reduced to rubble, and the seemingly soft and fragile
weeds and saplings have become a wilderness.

This is a part of the reason that many very good architects - whether
of buildings or of software - tend to have a touch of Zen master in
them. They do not see the future as the enemy, but rather as a wild and
unknowable force that, nonetheless, can be redirected to work the least
amount of damage (and perhaps even to improve upon the existing
infrastructure) over time. What this means is not anticipating the
future per se - that really is an exercise in futility - but in
understanding the characteristics of change and to build with these in
mind.

Such thinking applies just as readily to urban planners, managers, and
decision makers as it does to architects - too many choose to "make
their mark" upon the future without realizing that doing so is an
exercise in hubris, and usually doesn't end well.

I am beginning a series of essays on "predicting" the future that looks
not at trends or even critical technologies to watch but rather that
look at "techniques" - where to look for innovation, how to understand
the growth and decline of systems, understanding how to pull the
relevant from the irrelevant and so forth. Fans of systems theory will
recognize most of these, as in general anticipating the future usually
involves understands how trends and energy flows interact with one
another and how layers of abstraction can be modelled and consequently
separated from one another without losing out too much of the
behavioral glue that nested abstractions bring about.

Each article in this series will be labeled as Future Proofing. Click
on the Future Proofing keyword to see a list of all articles in the
series and check back frequently, more will be added on a daily basis.

The Future Comes From the Edges

Any given structure that you build by its very existence establishes
boundaries. So long as those boundaries remain inviolate, the structure
will stand. However, those boundaries are also under near continuous
bombardment as the outside world interacts with these boundaries. For
instance, every day, a house's walls (and more especially its roof) are
attacked by insects, by mold, by water, pollen spores, and other agents
that are quite fully capable of interaction with these boundaries.
Water pools under roof tiles, slowly dissolving nails and glue, until
eventually a heavy wind rips one or two of these away.

Once the integrity of the house has been breached, the invasion mounts.
Ants and termites get in, mold develops within wood beams and along
exposed paper, increasing the breach and reducing the integrity even
more. Stressed beams pop as rusting nails and staples crumble,
sheet-rock and drywall become powdery and fragile, even mortar for
bricks will eventually disintegrate. This process doesn't happen
quickly, but it does happen - most houses constructed today, when left
unmaintained, will become unlivable within a couple of decades, and
will disintegrate completely within a hundred years.

The same process occurs in society, though it usually happens much more
quickly because the boundaries involved are far more ephemeral in
nature. Governments arise in order to insure that collective actions of
a specific group can take place with as little organizational impedance
as possible. While it is possible that the group is involved consists
of all people within a given geopolitical boundary, in practice,
governments usually serve to mediate conflicts within the most powerful
members of the society - landowners, for instance, or investors, with
the decisions to support other that are not in that group being made
because of the potential that these non-group members have to disrupt
the society.

However, these non-members also represent agents of change, for good or
for ill. If they don't have representation in the group but the group
has some effect upon their lives, then they will agitate for ways to
gain representation. They operate at the margins - protests, work
stoppages, subverting the dominant media, "terrorist" actions, warfare,
interbreeding. The societal structures will remain change so long as
the integrity of those structures remain solid, but eventually, at some
point, a chink will develop. The organization/government/consensus must
either adapt, integrating these new members and/or ideas, or it will
disintegrate if the invaders have a more efficient mode of operation
(more force or a better ability to exploit the existing environment).

From a system architect standpoint, this means designing architectures
so that natural channels exist. If formalized mechanisms exist for
recognizing and incorporating change exist, this makes the process less
disruptive in the long term. This is called flexibility. Design so that
the system can adapt to stress, perhaps even utilize it. People are
beginning to experiment with building hi-rise towers that not only bend
in the presence of high winds or earthquakes, but that can actually
extract energy from the building as it does so to use for other
purposes. Many social networks actually get their value from the change
within their channels.

From a future watch perspective such edge considerations should
therefore be subject to especially close scrutiny. Most intermixing of
ideas occur at the boundaries (think of such boundaries as the edge of
turbulence, where the inside environment mixes with the outside. When
two cultures meet, they have to resolve differences, define new
interfaces between one another, try to work out which works best on
either side. This is the basis for innovation. However, it is also the
place where the greatest strife is occurring, and the biggest threats
to the company, as illustrated above. Look at mashups, where two
unrelated technologies are combined in novel ways. Look at mergers,
where the two organizations are roughly of the same size (same
abstraction level, as discussed in the next section). Look at
organizations that are on the verge of going from one abstraction level
to the next (up or down). Look in cross discipline studies, where
people from different disciplines begin comparing notes. This is always
a good place to start when trying to assess the future.

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Posted By Kurt Cagle to Metaphorical Web at 5/07/2009 09:54:00 AM

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