Tag Archives: venture capital
August 8, 2021 proof of concept
proof of concept
(1970’s | enginese? miltarese? | “practical demonstration”)
It’s neither proof nor concept, really. “Concept,” a philosopher’s term, is slumming here, donning the mantle of any crassly marketable consumer good. “Proof” — the bottom line for everyone, as Paul Simon said — is replaced by “we’re pretty sure it will work,” or “we got it to work once.” Proof of concept is an early milestone in the process of research and development; the expression has become essential in both technological and financial circles. It is a rudimentary demonstration of the viability or feasibility — terms that sound more ordinary and less jargony than they did — of a new idea or application of an idea, whether product, technology, or government program. Trying to answer the simplest of questions: Can it get off the ground?
There are a couple of related expressions. An obvious one is prototype, but that refers to something more advanced, a working model that approximates the mechanics and processes that cause your thing to go. Proof of concept merely establishes that what you want to do is possible, leaving many fine points unexplored. A prototype has to answer more questions. “Minimum viable product,” which I have alluded to before, goes beyond the prototype; no longer a model, it is the thing itself in its simplest form. This site explains it all for you.
I don’t know if they were meaningfully related or not, but “proof of concept” reminds me of “proof of purchase.” By the mid-1970’s, the latter was quite common, having replaced “box tops” in consumer vocabulary as your means of earning a reward for buying enough of a particular product. Such lagniappes still exist, but they are less built into the system than they used to be. “Proof of” has a long history, and plenty of words may follow it. But I have a feeling that “purchase” was its most frequently heard adjunct at the crucial moment when “proof of concept” was formed.
The phrase dates from 1967, says Wikipedia. Executives and experts in military and technological fields tossed it around some back in the seventies. Available as a noun or adjective even then, it now takes an indefinite article and has become widespread, although still mostly associated with new technology and the wherewithal to develop it. But it’s used in other contexts and may creep into more.
Once again, my old buddy Charles comes through with a solid new expression, though not the one he thought he was supplying. If Charles says it, it must be good.
Tags: consumers, English, finance, language, manufacturing, Paul Simon, product development, r&d, retail, shopping, technology, venture capital, words
- Leave a comment
- Posted under Entries
Lex maniac 