Is "Dead" really Dead?

One of the tried and trusted ways of getting your industry report noticed is to give it a title based on the “Is x dead?” formula. I recently noticed “Is data modeling dead?” and “Is business intelligence dead?” and you can probably think of many more.

Usually the answer to the “Is x dead?” question is: No, but it's changing.

This reflects an eternal pattern in technology development. New technologies displace some aspects of existing technologies, but overall they tend to grow the field rather than diminish it. TV never killed radio, but it sure changed it. Online hasn't killed TV, but it sure changed it. And so on.

We ought to read the “Is x dead?” formula as “It's time to think differently about x”. To take a core ACORD example, the question is not, and has never been, “Are forms dead?” Instead, the emergence of new ways of operating prompts the community to think, “It's time to think differently about forms”. Forms continue to be useful, but aspects of what they used to do are now done by other means. And ACORD Forms are now digital (i.e. smart) and can bridge to sophisticated systems via Standards.