What do you mean by avalanche?
Avalanche is an important metaphor
for innovation.1 It is a cascading
series of events where each one triggers
new events. Entrepreneurs try
to anticipate the right moment—the
tipping point4—when an innovation
proposal will trigger an avalanche of
people adopting the proposal. If the
timing is too early, the proposal will
not be a tipping point. If it is too late,
someone else will have started the
avalanche. The metaphor is borrowed
from complexity theory, where snow
avalanches or sandpile avalanches
can only be described by the frequency
and duration of a cascade, but it
is impossible to predict whether any
particular event will trigger a cascade
or how long it will last. Edison banked
on cheap electricity causing an avalanche
of people moving from gas to
electric lighting. Intel Chairman Andy
Grove once said any technology that
could do something 10 times better
than any current technology creates
a high risk of an avalanche in favor of
that technology. In the Internet, the
introduction of the Mosaic browser in
1994 triggered an avalanche into the
World Wide Web and into commercial
use of the Internet; prior to that time,
commercial uses were discouraged.
Today, a number of education leaders
see MOOCs as the beginning of an avalanche
that will transform education.