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 (http://www.csc.com/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)…