Standards and Herbert Simon

Standards are Essential to Innovation 

●Open technical standards are accumulated wisdom and common agreement on technology and best practices

●Technical standards are the pinnacle artifact of technology knowledge base

●Modern existence depends on technical standards

●Standards are key to efficient innovation in complex digital technology development

Technology development occurs over many generations of products and technologies.

Standards capture and promote the accumulated knowledge.

It is not an understatement to say that our modern, high-technology lifestyle would not be possible without on technical standards.

There are general principles at work here:

Consider comments by Herbert Simon who was awarded a Nobel Prize in economics and Turing Award in computer science.

Simon identified a key feature of complex systems that they evolve more rapidly if there are stable intermediate forms.

For technology development, standards are the stable forms which foster adoption and promote the highest levels of innovation.