representation stability is an exciting new area that combines ideas from commutative algebra and representation theory. the meta-idea is to combine a sequence of objects together using some newly defined algebraic structure, and then to translate abstract properties about this structure to concrete properties about the original object of study. finite generation is a particularly important property, which translates to the existence of bounds on algebraic invariants, or some predictable behavior. i'll discuss some examples coming from topology (configuration spaces) and algebraic geometry (secant varieties).