Wireless Pers Commun (2008) 45:437–444 DOI 10.1007/s11277-008-9476-3 Looking for New DNA: The World Around IMT-advanced E. R. Fledderus Published online: 21 March 2008 © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC. 2008 Abstract Technology, such as IMT-2000 and IMT-A, plays an important role in our society. A number of prominent authors and thinkers have judged the impact of technology as being increasingly radical. This paper connects different visions on technology, thereby bringing different perspectives on innovation into line. An important motivation for this paper has been the predominantly instrumental vision on technology that is present at most European governments. The paper shows that this is an imbalanced vision that neglects the renewing and radical power of technology. On the other hand, the paper focuses on the required skills (‘DNA’) that are needed to help companies bridge the gap from radical innovation to user centred innovation. The paper concludes with an example from personal network technology, illustrating the main concepts and claims. Keywords Innovation · IMT-A · Personal network · Technology adoption 1 Introduction International Mobile Telecommunications—Advanced (IMT-A) is a concept from the ITU for mobile communication systems with capabilities which go further than that of IMT-2000. Technology, such as IMT-2000 and IMT-A, plays an important role in our society. A number of prominent authors and thinkers have judged the impact of technology as being increasingly radical. They coined terms such as information society, information revolution, information age or network(ed) society. Think of the techno-optimistic visions of the future of Alvin Toffler [1], Nicholas Negroponte [2] or Francis Fukuyama [3], who even viewed the information age as the final piece of western civilization. These authors not only point E. R. Fledderus (B ) TNO Information and Communication Technology, Brassersplein 2, 2612 CT, Delft, The Netherlands e-mail: erik.fledderus@tno.nl E. R. Fledderus Radio Communication, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands 123