Disruptive Technology: An Orientation

You know when you have one of those rare moments of true clarity - when everything falls into place?  I'm not there. Or at least, I didn't know I was until recently.  In fact, my whole system was disrupted, not completely crashed, but significantly disrupted.  I could have identified it as malware or a virus, as a professional suggested, but I took the approach it had been disrupted for another reason, something more meaningful.  

First, let's go straight to the tech definition for Disruptive Technology. You may know by now that I'm fascinated by computer terms and use them as an overlay for personal experience.  Here's TechTarget's definition.  "A disruptive technology is one that displaces an established technology and shakes up the industry or a ground-breaking product that creates a completely new industry."   Here are several obvious examples:  personal computers, cell phones, social media.  Investors are always on the search for disruptive technologies to create new business opportunities.  

Circling back to my disrupted system, there's no need to explain my personal situation, because it could be anyone's experience that rocks them to the core, along with extending hopes for significant change and growth.  It could include many different types of systems - physical, mental, emotional, relational, spiritual. When a system is disrupted, it causes one to pause.  With this in mind, I looked further and found that Clayton Christensen, a Harvard Business School professor, coined the term in 1997 in his best-selling book, "The Innovator's Dilemma."  Christensen separates new technology into two categories: sustaining and disruptive.  "Sustaining technology relies on incremental improvements to an already established technology.  Disruptive technology lacks refinement, often has performance problems because it is new, appeals to a limited audience and may not yet have a proven practical application." 

​This is where things began to come together for me.  I identified - lacks refinement, appeals to a limited audience, performance problems, may not have a proven practical application.  I'm home!  I'm not broken, or fundamentally flawed.  I've just been working on an ineffective model, and now, I'm orienting to innovations that may be disruptive, but the beginning of a new industry, say, of myself.
​The reason. 

The orientation is happening, and the SEARCH is on.  Join me.