The Plateau of Productivity: Why The Opportunity for Insight from Altitude Is Here NOW!

Like any new technology, drone tech has gone through the hype, the hysteria, the disappointment, and then the inevitable realization as to the role that insight from altitude can play in so many industries.

If you work within the industry, you’ll certainly know this has been the case. You will likely have seen many organizations, hearing about the marvels of drone technology, rushing out to get a drone in 2015 or 2016 to explore the opportunity. They do a few flights, explore what’s possible, and then, the initial burst of enthusiasm disappears.

This path to potential progress closely follows a trend long ago defined by the research firm Gartner in their well-known “hype cycle.”

Years ago, they postulated that any new technology or idea which comes to our world goes through an inevitable cycle. It appears, and the hype machine starts up, leading people to the peak of inflated expectations. Then, the bubble bursts — people hit the trough and disillusionment comes about.

But in the meantime, the pioneers – including us here at LI&D – keep working with the technology, exploring it, working with it, aligning to its opportunity. We’ve been busy on the slop of enlightenment, and are now ready to take you into the plateau of productivity.

Here’s the thing – every single new technology goes through this curve! Condiser the idea of e-commerce and online shopping – relentlessly hyped in the late 90’s, it led to the dot.com era in late 1999 and 2000. Companies valued at billions in value with little to no sales. This was followed by the infamous dot.com collapse … and a period of time in the economic wasteland of unrealistic expectations.

Yet at the same time, organizations like Amazon were busy building out their platform, signing up customers, revamping supply chains. More and more people signed up for Amazon Prime – and suddenly, e-commerce and online shopping was more than real.

And then, COVID-19 hit, and suddenly every retailer, from large global companies to small local stores, has had to deploy an online shopping platform simply to try and survive. Talk about a plateau of productivity.

Drones have been going through the same curve. We dug out this particular analysis which suggested that we hit the peak of expectations prior to 2017, and started down the path to the trough of disillusionment.

Are we now out of the trough? We certainly believe this to be the case – if you view our blog posts over the last few months, you will have seen that we provide an endless commentary on the opportunities, benefits and business case for the deployment of insight from altitude.

We hope you can join us on this plateau of productivity! Interested in learning more? Give us a call and let’s chat!