NoSQL Evangelism - Are we drinking the Koolaid?

Recently I went to a workshop to learn more about Neo4j, a NoSQL graph database. I sat at table with a bunch of other techies, as we heard all about the benefits of graph databases, and how the whole world can be modeled as a set of graph relationships. They say graphs are everywhere. One of my neighbors at the table asked "Have you drunk the Koolaid yet?".

This expression got me thinking about how technology is evangelized. Technology companies need developers and systems engineers to adopt their technology in order to be successful, and they need to convince them to consider their technology, and it especially difficult when developers have already gotten comfortable with other technologies.

I unfortunately remember the origin of the "Koolaid" reference. Back in the 1970's, there were a lot of cults, and at Jonestown, Guyana, 500 people from Jim Jones People's Temple died in a mass homocide-suicide from drink poison laced Koolaid.

As gruesome as the origin is, we still use the expression today to mean blindly adopting beliefs and taking actions without sensibly acknowledging the consequences. And in the 1970's many institutions had broken down, and many people were looking for new institutions to join to feel community and structure. Unfortunately, some of these new institutions were not so benign.

Back to technology evangelism...

I believe we are in a Golden Age of information technology. The speed at which new technologies are being developed is breathtaking. But, how do tech leaders and architects who's job is to adopt the appropriate new technologies and to know which ones to pick. So, we listen to all the pitches from all the up and coming companies about how great their technologies are, and how they will make the software we are creating even better. But, in order to learn if this is all true, we have to invest a fair amount time and money to determine if such and such technology will work for us, and improve our own software. What do we do?

We trust our instincts and drink the Koolaid.