Be afraid - very afraid! Be excited - very excited!
In this second article in the EDUCHAOS series Marie Jasinski explores what disruptive technologies are all about and how we need a disruptive attitude to turn potential threats into opportunities. Maybe the new mantra for the knowledge era should be disruptable rather than sustainable!
You’re disruptive!
What is disruptive technology?
Examples of disruptive technologies
Is your organisation vulnerable: take a disruptive technologies quiz
Disruption: It’s all about diversity and innovation
Disruptive attitudes: BYO to the learning party!
You’re disruptive!
You are using voice tools - you’re disruptive!
Yes, because the Web is no longer a silent, text-based environment, the potential of voice tools is so obvious. I have to work from home because I can’t use these tools through the firewall. That’s why I’m lobbying to change the policy on firewalls in my organisation.
You are using Open Source not our Learning Management System - you’re disruptive!
Yes, and I know there is a policy about using our organisation’s learning management system, but I don’t need to track my students as I’m using a blended approach. This Open Source tool is easier to use; I can be in charge, I don’t have to work my way through layers of bureaucracy when I want to change things and it’s more convenient for my learners. And above all it’s free, so what’s the fuss all about?
You’re disruptive!
Yes, because I’m not interested in providing learners with pre-structured content. I want my learners to generate and process their own content collaboratively. I don’t want to use this content-heavy program. It’s not what I want to do and it’s not the way they learn.
You’re disruptive!
Yes because I can see the advantage of using mobile technology to engage young learners. I know there are problems with cost and process, but hey, more of the younger ones have mobiles than computers and I’m trying to figure out how to work with this.
Do these scenarios ring bells? Has this happened to you? Then you’ve probably got a disruptive bent! Great! Keep bending and don’t underestimate yourself; what’s weird today, will be workable tomorrow. Read on and find out why.
What is disruptive technology?
Disruptive Technology is a term popularized by Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen in his book 'The Innovator's Dilemma.'
Christensen distinguishes between sustaining and disruptive technologies. Sustaining technologies improve the performance of established products that often dominate a field. Disruptive technologies offer alternatives to these established products. They are cheaper to produce, simpler, smaller, better performing, more convenient to use and can help solve immediate problems. They attract the fringe clients of established products or new client markets.
Disruptive technologies challenge orthodox ways of doing things, create new niches in established markets, and produce unexpected networks and synergies.
Disruptive technologies also inject new or innovative ways of tackling old problems. They provide solutions to new problems that existing technologies cannot adequately or speedily address.
Popular examples of disruptive technologies include:
- Digital cameras replacing photographic film.
- Internet telephony enabling conversations over the Internet instead of using a telephone
- DSL enabling faster data transmission over copper telephone lines than a dial up account can provide.
- E-commerce where you can purchase online rather than use retail outlets.
- USB memory sticks replacing CDs and floppy drives for data storage
Disruptive technologies offer alternatives to established technologies and are perceived as more agile, responsive and empowering for the user. They say to those prepared to experiment, “Hey, try me, I think I can offer another way!” They complement established systems – and threaten them at the same time!
Mainstream technologies are complex and expensive. That often means they need to be centrally managed to make sure people don’t mess them up and don’t breach copyright restrictions. In this environment, users generally have little say how the product works, and changes are difficult, slow and expensive to implement. Also they are often tied to contracts so you can be locked into them even if they no longer meet your needs.
Innovators and people whose problems can’t be solved by these established technologies are often forced underground. They find co-conspirators who point them to alternative solutions. Because they are operating outside the officially sanctioned system, the guerrilla users have to find ways round the system or operate on the fringes – often from home and in their own time. They become shadow workers.
Examples of disruptive technologies in education
Free Software
Moodle is a good example of a disruptive technology. A simple, easy to use course management system, Moodle did not set out to topple the established learning management platforms. Martin Dougiamas felt that these products did not help him use the kind of principles to which he was committed. So he built his own tool and shared it with other like-minded educators. Soon it was picked up by people wanting a new way of tackling the eLearning issue, as well as people who simply could not afford the Cadillac technologies (ie luxurious and expensive) It did two things. It provided users with a simple, low-cost solution, and it empowered users by letting them contribute to the ongoing development of the tool.
SNAPSHOT: Marty Cielens has put together a comprehensive range of free software (Open Source) tools that are used in education and training. What motivated him?
SNAPSHOT: Sally Drummond a consultant from Victoria shows what can be done with a disruptive attitude, a creative mind and no budget! How is she using free software?
Blogs
Blogs are another good example of a disruptive technology. Initially they started out as simple tools to let people publish and share ideas on the web without having to learn html, set up servers, employ web developers, or deal with network administrators. They were simple, powerful and cheap. Many of these blogger tools have adapted to the rapidly changing user base by adding new functionality without losing the core simplicity. New products have sprung up in response to the needs of new classes of bloggers who want to be able to create communities, create collaborative writing spaces and so on.
Blogs for example have been instrumental in the spread of RSS technologies. These allow people to automate the exchange of ideas and news, instantly linking thousands of individuals and allowing them to customise the information they receive and how often they receive it.
SNAPSHOT: This article from Peter Heilbuth from Gippsland TAFE outlines how blogs were used to engage staff in their strategic planning process.
Like this Gippsland TAFE example, blogs are now becoming mainstream with knowledge management blogs, corporate communications blogs, and marketing blogs all entering the marketplace.
Here’s a straight forward easily readable article on the demise of “the establishment” and the rise of blogs!
Collaborative content
Find out about more about disruptive technologies from the disruptive Wikipedia the first self-organised encyclopaedia on just about anything! And you are invited to edit the page, contribute your own ideas and comments.
Is your organisation vulnerable: take a disruptive technologies quiz
Here’s a disruptive technologies quiz from an interesting site called Integral. Integral’s focus is “disruptive technologies management.” It helps organisations “transform threats into opportunities”. Find out how vulnerable your organisation is to disruptive technologies. Do you need to very afraid or very excited? Explore other interesting snippets including an interview with Clayton Christensen. The issues raised in the “Am I Vulnerable?” checklist is worth contemplating.
Disruption: It’s all about diversity and innovation
A diversity of users has led to diversity in technologies. Because many of the new technologies have come out of the Open Source movement, they are readily accessible to users who can try two, three or more alternatives without cost until they find the one that works for them. User feedback leads to modifications or to new products. These technologies are mutating to fit the needs of users, and systems are being pushed in new directions by the disruptive impact of the technologies.
Conversations that users and builders of these technologies engage in as they experiment and explore, create new ways of looking at old problems, sometimes leading to a quantum shift in how things are done. If you doubt the potential impact of disruptive technologies, just think “The Law of Small Effects” – something that seems insignificant right now can gain momentum and have a big impact!
Disruptive attitudes: BYO to the learning party!
Is attitude the heart-of-the-matter in turning disruptive threats into opportunities? Here’s an illustration of what I’m getting at.
Recently, I was a presenter at the inaugural North American Simulation and Gaming Association (NASAGA) online conference. A group of Aussies “The OZ MOB” participated in a web-based role play demonstration and we had a great time. Onya mob! You were impressive!
Here’s the issue. The conference platform was iCohere. All the presenters were asked to do either a Powerpoint presentation which would be converted into a narrated streaming Powerpoint, or a live webcast. iCohere had its own software for streaming Powerpoint. You send your slides to iCohere, they arrange for you to do a live voiceover by telephone and then the whole presentation is streamed and integrated into the conference site. Now this was a problem for me as I was here in OZ and they were based in the US. And trying to figure out how to upload the Powerpoint slides onto my server so iCohere could access them was all too much for me. And the thought of talking into a telephone to record my narration was not my style.
I didn’t want to do that. I had my own software for Powerpoint conversion and my own server. The easiest and most convenient solution for me was to do my own thing and send the URL to iCohere. I thought I may be in for some tough negotiation because I didn’t intend to use their product and was being non-compliant.
The iCohere team said “No problems! BYO style and technology to the learning party!” They would work with whatever was most convenient for me.
Obviously BYO was popular, as in the end, five different types of Powerpoint converting software was used – only one of them was iCohere’s product. And two different webcasting providers sponsored several live presentations. That didn’t detract from iCohere (which is a fine product). It just meant that everyone had their own way of doing things and iCohere accommodated that.
The presenters were happy as they could do their own thing, the delegates were happy as they were exposed to and could test out a range of tools and iCohere was happy as its focus was not on their technology, but on providing what their customer wanted. With this sort of customer service approach, I suspect iCohere will be around for a while!
Maybe the key to surviving disruption is having a disruptive attitude!
The following quite sums it up well:
Few companies can survive disruption. But your best chance lies in redefining your job definition, rather than your product. Analyze why people are using your product. What are they hiring you and your product to do? From there, it's a shorter path to finding a way to integrate or assimilate the disrupting technology, deliver what your consumers actually want -- rather than updating what you're already giving them -- and therefore create a model for sustainable growth.
Disruptive technology breeds innovation and obsolescence
Alan Saracevic
San Francisco Chronicle, March 2004
So, is there EDUCHAOS in your organisation? Does it work that fine edge between order and disorder by embracing disruptive technologies to see what emerges? Or does it dismiss disruption and risk being blindsided when these technologies mature and then gain a larger audience and market share that threatens the status quo?
Come and be disruptive and share your opinions, examples and experiences in the forum!
Marie Jasinski
Articles in the EDUCHAOS series
EDUCHAOS: out of control and thriving!
EDUCHAOS- Disruptive Technologies
EDUCHAOS: Using improv and storytelling in business
EDUCHAOS: Job Sculpting - in tune with making work WORK!
EDUCHAOS: Patchworking – showing off your assets
EDUCHAOS: Go Conative - where there’s will, you’re away!
EDUCHAOS: Tuning in to your own voice!
EDUCHAOS: Loose change – a new currency
