In this blog I expect we will come up with some guidelines for understanding the plethora of digital disruptions we are facing and will face, as well as for managing them to advantage in our respective businesses. When we do, let’s highlight the former in bold at the latter in italics. I’ll start us off.

You can’t stop disruptive technologies. About five years ago, the price of powerful hardware dropped so precipitously, and a myriad of software productivity tools became so widely available through consumer channels that, while employers struggled to evaluate and integrate it all, employees quickly outfitted themselves with state-of-the-art home offices and leading edge communications gear. These very tech-savvy employees, many of whom never knew a world without the Internet or cell phones, were not content to leave their gadgets at home, and brought them into the corporation, policies prohibiting them notwithstanding. These technologies – instant messaging, Internet e-mail, cell phones, PDAs, flash drives, GPS, portable hubs and MP3 players,* to name a few early ones** – were helping employees get more work done faster, and get it done anywhere, anytime. If the corporation was withholding support for all this unauthorized equipment, so be it. The employees could and did support it themselves. What’s a corporation to do?

One of our clients decided to decouple tried-and-true-but-slower-moving IT from early-adopter employee purchasing by giving employees a budget to buy their own equipment, with the provisions that a) they could not call the help desk for support; b) anything that disrupted the corporate network would be shut down, and c) employees were required to sign an agreement saying that to the best of their ability they would use the technology securely and responsibly. This arrangement, they say, has been working well. Lesson learned: Plan to give up some control, and trust your employees to move your company forward in the digital age – though stay involved to make sure the infrastructure you do provide is not compromised.

Again, expect some chaos as you move from business model A to business model B. For example, commenting on the illegal use of a laptop in Notre Dame’s coaching box, the New York Times reported, “…the N.C.A.A. appears more reluctant than professional sport leagues – and even some high schools – to welcome the latest available technology.” The article observed, “In many aspects, football keeps technology at arm’s length, particularly at a time when it might be most useful – on game day.” You can bet this will change. You can’t stop the technology, so be creative in figuring out the best way to harness it.
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*Note the blurring distinction between entertainment equipment and productivity tools.  MP3 players, first used to listen to music, were quickly adopted to replay corporate briefings and seminars.

**See the Digital Disruptions report for the latest innovations you can expect to see soon.

Before they will power 21st century business, technology innovations will first disrupt 20th century business models. As NYU media pundit Clay Shirkey puts it, disruptions don’t typically take us cleanly from current business model A to new business model B, but from business model A to chaos to business model B. It is often the case that before we can progress in a new direction we must retrace some steps and take time to map out a new route, and this likely will be the case in spades in the digital millennium.

Strikes and law suits are often signs of disruption.  When they are prompted by innovative digital technologies that threaten the status quo, defensive maneuvering by the establishment is not only expected but called for – until a new order emerges that capitalizes on the advantages brought by unstoppable innovations yet assures their fair and responsible use.

The billion-dollar law suit for “massive intentional copyright infringement” brought last year by Viacom against Google/YouTube for providing access to Viacom content illegally uploaded by fans is a case in point. To address the issue, Google introduced a copyright identification system called Video ID, which tracks unauthorized videos. It enables a copyright owner to either block the clip, leave it up, or enable YouTube to sell ads linked to the material and share the revenue. According to a CNET News blog post, “Google said on its blog… that copyright owners were choosing to turn a buck from unauthorized clips 90 percent of the time.“

The CNET News post quoted Google, “It’s clear to our (more than 300) Video ID partners that our technology has created a framework that allows copyright holders to sanction the creativity of their biggest fans…These partners now have a new way to successfully distribute and market their content online.”  The CNET News post went on to report, “Several start-ups are working on technology that will track unauthorized videos wherever they exist on the Web and then insert an advertisement into the clips.“

Digital content actually allows for tighter owner control then ever. In the past, media giants whose terms of sale legally prohibited certain personal uses of content could not discover such illegal uses nor enforce their claims, but now copyright owners can do so via the Internet. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (1998) supports this new-found ability, a result of the powerful lobbying muscle of the media industry. Ultimately, though, the consumer will not be put back in his box, and a win-win solution, such as Google/Viacom’s, will be hashed out for the Writers Guild strikers in Hollywood (they so far won minor concessions for Internet distribution), the New York City cab drivers (they so far lost their battle to shun imposed GPS devices in their cars), and countless conflicts to come.

The immense disruptive potential of digital innovation, however, will take much time to address – 50 years, according to a gathering of prominent CEOs at the 2008 World Economic Forum in Davos – and I agree.

What do you think?

Digital Disruptions: Technology Innovations Powering 21st Century Business

Complete with its own blog by Alex Fuss, 2008 LEF Associate on Digital Disruptions, and all of you who contribute to this dialogue on disruptive technologies—those technologies that, per Harvard professor Clayton Christensen, introduce to the market very different value propositions than were previously available.

But I am getting ahead of myself. Let me (Alex, here) kick this blog off with an excerpt from a presentation I gave in April at an LEF Client Forum:

The digital disruptions begun with the Internet’s launch at the end of the 20th century and responsible for a tremendous spike in global productivity promise a second-round impact in the 21st century that we can only begin to imagine.  At CSC we have identified seven categories of digital disruptions that are rapidly impacting today’s business models:

1. New Media
2. Augmented Reality
3. Social Power
4. Information Transparency
5. Digital Spectrum
6. Platform Makeover
7. Smart(er) World

The year-long research effort by CSC’s LEF to identify these categories and delve into the implications of specific technologies they comprise will result in the Digital Disruptions research report, to be released in October 2008. 

Looking back, having worked on the Digital Disruptions report for over a year has undoubtedly broadened my horizons, deepened my research and analysis skills, greatly expanded my network of technology innovators and pundits, and left me with some new habits that should serve me well long after the report is officially released.  Foremost among these habits is the tendency to scour the news daily for any and all technology breakthroughs and filter the announcements and pronouncements through the prism of the report, defracting them through the gradients of its seven themes.

Leveraging the blog, I will, in true Web 2.0-fashion, share my personal thoughts on the implications of relevant industry events as they occur, and solicit your personal and professional comments. I am by no means an expert on the subject – “Digital Disruptions” is too broad and too fast-changing a topic for anyone to master – and look to the collective wisdom of all to help us understand the technology landscape forming before us, and how to best use that shared knowledge to advantage.

Though the report is not out yet, if you would like to familiarize yourself with the report’s themes, you can listen to the podcast of the research preview I gave in April by subscribing to the LEF RSS feed (/lefpodcast) and adding the podcast from the LEF Forum, April 2008, podcast 12 “Digital Disruptions.”  In addition, Clayton Christensen’s book The Innovator’s Dilemma provides a good foundation for understanding disruption in the context of technology innovations.

I’m looking forward to a stimulating collective discussion, an actualization of theme 3 above: Social Power.

À la prochaine (until next time)…