Re: Disruptor

[Michael Stevens]

I have lot of experience in high tech marketing. I can say that the term “disruptor” has become a bit of a cliché. A high tech company billing itself as a disruptor really has to have a so-called secret sauce (also a cliché) that is both genuinely unique - nobody but nobody else can do it, and there are high barriers to entry - and  it must be easy to explain. In marketing materials (white papers, presentations, etc.) I would lead with the secret sauce, outline the pain that it relieves (most important point), and then say, “We think this is a disruptor.” The word “enabler” is pretty weak in my opinion, even though it might be accurate for some technologies. To me, saying “We’re an enabler” has the connotation of “We want to be acquired.” For what it’s worth.

Mike Stevens

On Oct 18, 2016, at 9:00 AM, [hidden email] wrote:

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Today's Topics:

  1. Re: enablors vs disruptors (Eric Charles)
  2. Re: enablors vs disruptors (Prof David West)
  3. Re: enablors vs disruptors (?glen?)

From: Eric Charles <[hidden email]>

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] enablors vs disruptors

Date: October 18, 2016 at 6:10:12 AM PDT

To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>

"If you ARE (factual) or WERE (counter-factual) a technology startup, do you (would you) advertise yourself as a disruptor? "

Ooooh, THAT is a messy question. If I was technology startup, I would be priming whatever words/concepts Venture Capitalists are receptive to this week. That is because, alas, alas, alas, the goal of most tech startups is to be invested in, and then bought out, before anyone is certain whether we have done anything that will last. Don't get me wrong, I don't think most are trying to snow investors, only that their goal is not to run their company for the next 50 years, and so the short-term prospects of the company are more important than the long-term prospects, and those prospects are driven my markets that are not dominated by mortal "customers." In that context, the ability to "disrupt" has been consistently held in high regard. At the least, if you can make the argument convincing. People getting products for little-to-no money like to try potentially disruptive things, and investors like to see large customer bases, even if those customers have provided little-to-no money.  

In contrast, if I was a non-technology startup (say a co-owner of a solar-panel installation company presided over by a brother), my goals would be quite different: Slowly and systematically building a local-community client base, on a foundation of treating my employees well and providing good value to my customers. I wouldn't want to be disruptive at all, outside of disrupting the market share held by my competitors.

On Mon, Oct 17, 2016 at 11:29 PM, Nick Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:

Thanks, everybody,

 

I guess I have one more question before I try to respond to some these excellent comments:

 

If you ARE (factual) or WERE (counter-factual) a technology startup, do you (would you) advertise yourself as a disruptor?  What would the promotional THEORY  behind doing so?  What market share would you be hoping to capture.  What would be the business model? 

 

N

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Gillian Densmore
Sent: Monday, October 17, 2016 5:55 PM

To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] enablors vs disruptors

 

Enablers are things like an enabled (turned on) WarpCoil or Inertial Dampeners or Teleporters.  Disrupters shoot stuff to blow up rocks. 

But  I suspect nick or his friend don't mean as in from StarTrek. 

 

 

On Mon, Oct 17, 2016 at 5:00 PM, Marcus Daniels <[hidden email]> wrote:

Sure, mobile internet & cloud was a disrupter to the PC industry and to the business of selling analog landlines.

Intel recently had layoffs of more than 10k workers as a result.

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Owen Densmore
Sent: Monday, October 17, 2016 3:47 PM

To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] enablors vs disruptors

 

Was the iPhone a disrupter?

 

On Mon, Oct 17, 2016 at 2:32 PM, Marcus Daniels <[hidden email]> wrote:

I’d say the folks that think a jackhammer is needed, aren’t a victim of the folks with the concrete in a truck (that presumably pour it on anything they can!), they are the sites where a jackhammer is now a useful instrument.  This makes me think of those bathtubs that can be installed right on top of old tubs.   Pour baby pour!

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Carl Tollander
Sent: Monday, October 17, 2016 2:04 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] enablors vs disruptors

 

Well, there's the concrete truck and then there's the jackhammer.

 

On Oct 17, 2016 1:24 PM, "Marcus Daniels" <[hidden email]> wrote:

It depends on whether, like David, you point to liberalism as the threat to individual freedom and productivity, or the momentum of conservativism and oligarchy to constrain lives.    Some (like Assange) can’t stand either one.   A disruptor seeks a benign sort of chaos when power can shift hands quickly, and repeatedly.  The people that are all used up and have limited skills should give way to those that do.   Sure they can try to elect someone like Trump, but that’s where sophisticated “liberal autocracy” must step-up to outmaneuver the reactionaries. 

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Nick Thompson
Sent: Monday, October 17, 2016 12:18 PM
To: friam <[hidden email]>
Cc: 'Stephen Guerin' <[hidden email]>
Subject: [FRIAM] enablors vs disruptors

 

 

Dear Friammers,

 

A close friend of mine has gone to work in marketing for a Startup Incubator in Another City.  I have been perusing the website and I notice frequent use of the word “disruptors”, as if disruption was a goal in itself.  This puzzles me.  I have always thought of technology as “enabling’ and have thought of its disruptive effects as a kind of collateral damage that needs to be mitigated.  Now I recognize that one of the properties of a really good technology company is the ability to respond quickly to disruption, and to provide solutions and open up opportunities for those whose lives are disrupted.  And I realize that if I owned a technology company, I might want to produce disruption in order that I might supply “enablors” to the disrupted.  But isn’t it a case of industrial narcissism to MARKET oneself as a disruptor, a kind of “preaching to the choir”, rather than outreach to potential purchasers of one’s technology?  Or is my thinking “oh so 20^th Century.”

 

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

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From: Prof David West <[hidden email]>

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] enablors vs disruptors

Date: October 18, 2016 at 7:46:40 AM PDT

To: [hidden email]

If I was head of marketing for any company, but especially a tech company startup or otherwise, I likely would be enamored of using taglines like, "This changes everything!" Connotations of the future, of excitement, of adventure, just the right amount of tension (fear) from uncertainty, promise of new opportunities, etc. etc.  I.e., I would market as a disruptor without using the word.

davew

On Mon, Oct 17, 2016, at 09:29 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:

Thanks, everybody,

 

I guess I have one more question before I try to respond to some these excellent comments:

 

If you ARE (factual) or WERE (counter-factual) a technology startup, do you (would you) advertise yourself as a disruptor?  What would the promotional THEORY  behind doing so?  What market share would you be hoping to capture.  What would be the business model? 

 

N

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Gillian Densmore
Sent: Monday, October 17, 2016 5:55 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] enablors vs disruptors

 

Enablers are things like an enabled (turned on) WarpCoil or Inertial Dampeners or Teleporters.  Disrupters shoot stuff to blow up rocks. 

But  I suspect nick or his friend don't mean as in from StarTrek. 

 

 

On Mon, Oct 17, 2016 at 5:00 PM, Marcus Daniels <[hidden email]> wrote:

Sure, mobile internet & cloud was a disrupter to the PC industry and to the business of selling analog landlines.

Intel recently had layoffs of more than 10k workers as a result.

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Owen Densmore
Sent: Monday, October 17, 2016 3:47 PM

To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] enablors vs disruptors

 

Was the iPhone a disrupter?

 

On Mon, Oct 17, 2016 at 2:32 PM, Marcus Daniels <[hidden email]> wrote:

I’d say the folks that think a jackhammer is needed, aren’t a victim of the folks with the concrete in a truck (that presumably pour it on anything they can!), they are the sites where a jackhammer is now a useful instrument.  This makes me think of those bathtubs that can be installed right on top of old tubs.   Pour baby pour!

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Carl Tollander
Sent: Monday, October 17, 2016 2:04 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] enablors vs disruptors

 

Well, there's the concrete truck and then there's the jackhammer.

 

On Oct 17, 2016 1:24 PM, "Marcus Daniels" <[hidden email]> wrote:

It depends on whether, like David, you point to liberalism as the threat to individual freedom and productivity, or the momentum of conservativism and oligarchy to constrain lives.    Some (like Assange) can’t stand either one.   A disruptor seeks a benign sort of chaos when power can shift hands quickly, and repeatedly.  The people that are all used up and have limited skills should give way to those that do.   Sure they can try to elect someone like Trump, but that’s where sophisticated “liberal autocracy” must step-up to outmaneuver the reactionaries. 

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Nick Thompson
Sent: Monday, October 17, 2016 12:18 PM
To: friam <[hidden email]>
Cc: 'Stephen Guerin' <[hidden email]>
Subject: [FRIAM] enablors vs disruptors

 

 

Dear Friammers,

 

A close friend of mine has gone to work in marketing for a Startup Incubator in Another City.  I have been perusing the website and I notice frequent use of the word “disruptors”, as if disruption was a goal in itself.  This puzzles me.  I have always thought of technology as “enabling’ and have thought of its disruptive effects as a kind of collateral damage that needs to be mitigated.  Now I recognize that one of the properties of a really good technology company is the ability to respond quickly to disruption, and to provide solutions and open up opportunities for those whose lives are disrupted.  And I realize that if I owned a technology company, I might want to produce disruption in order that I might supply “enablors” to the disrupted.  But isn’t it a case of industrial narcissism to MARKET oneself as a disruptor, a kind of “preaching to the choir”, rather than outreach to potential purchasers of one’s technology?  Or is my thinking “oh so 20^th Century.”

 

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

 

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

 

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From: ┣glen┫ <[hidden email]>

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] enablors vs disruptors

Date: October 18, 2016 at 8:56:37 AM PDT

To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>

I think Eric did a good job demonstrating that the use of "technology" in "technology startup" is at least ambiguous, if not a straight-up misnomer.  But another ambiguity lies in the word "startup".  My company is routinely misclassified as a startup simply because we're small and have our hands in some (seemingly) novel pies.  But we're just a "boutique" company, which is decidedly different from the VC-seeking, market-focused, pockets of turbulence one usually means by "startup".

All this yammering the marketeers do about disruption is red meat for the audience of the business books section at Barnes & Noble, right next to the self-help and homeopathy sections.  It's not quite nonsense, though.  The myth that any single innovation, linearly drives the market this way or that is caused and maintained by the same psychological condition that makes us think Einstein, Newton, Hitler, or whoever was pivotal to the development of mankind.  These Great People were drafted by the collective to play those roles.  They were not causative, isolated, instances.

The same is true of any other technological advance from beer brewing to germ theory to the iphone.


On 10/17/2016 08:29 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:

If you ARE (factual) or WERE (counter-factual) a technology startup, do you (would you) advertise yourself as a disruptor?  What would the promotional THEORY  behind doing so?  What market share would you be hoping to capture.  What would be the business model?  

--
␦glen?




_______________________________________________
Friam mailing list
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http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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[Merle Lefkoff-2]

I read recently that it was economist Joseph Schumpeter who observed that originality is an act of creative destruction.  We have to demolish the old way of doing things when we advocate for new systems.  As someone who applies complexity to changing public policy, I feel I have no other choice.

On Tue, Oct 18, 2016 at 10:08 AM, Michael Stevens <[hidden email]> wrote:

I have lot of experience in high tech marketing. I can say that the term “disruptor” has become a bit of a cliché. A high tech company billing itself as a disruptor really has to have a so-called secret sauce (also a cliché) that is both genuinely unique - nobody but nobody else can do it, and there are high barriers to entry - and  it must be easy to explain. In marketing materials (white papers, presentations, etc.) I would lead with the secret sauce, outline the pain that it relieves (most important point), and then say, “We think this is a disruptor.” The word “enabler” is pretty weak in my opinion, even though it might be accurate for some technologies. To me, saying “We’re an enabler” has the connotation of “We want to be acquired.” For what it’s worth.

Mike Stevens

On Oct 18, 2016, at 9:00 AM, [hidden email] wrote:

Send Friam mailing list submissions to
[hidden email]

To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
[hidden email]

You can reach the person managing the list at
[hidden email]

When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
than "Re: Contents of Friam digest..."
Today's Topics:

  1. Re: enablors vs disruptors (Eric Charles)
  2. Re: enablors vs disruptors (Prof David West)
  3. Re: enablors vs disruptors (?glen?)

From: Eric Charles <[hidden email]>

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] enablors vs disruptors

Date: October 18, 2016 at 6:10:12 AM PDT

To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>

"If you ARE (factual) or WERE (counter-factual) a technology startup, do you (would you) advertise yourself as a disruptor? "

Ooooh, THAT is a messy question. If I was technology startup, I would be priming whatever words/concepts Venture Capitalists are receptive to this week. That is because, alas, alas, alas, the goal of most tech startups is to be invested in, and then bought out, before anyone is certain whether we have done anything that will last. Don't get me wrong, I don't think most are trying to snow investors, only that their goal is not to run their company for the next 50 years, and so the short-term prospects of the company are more important than the long-term prospects, and those prospects are driven my markets that are not dominated by mortal "customers." In that context, the ability to "disrupt" has been consistently held in high regard. At the least, if you can make the argument convincing. People getting products for little-to-no money like to try potentially disruptive things, and investors like to see large customer bases, even if those customers have provided little-to-no money.  

In contrast, if I was a non-technology startup (say a co-owner of a solar-panel installation company presided over by a brother), my goals would be quite different: Slowly and systematically building a local-community client base, on a foundation of treating my employees well and providing good value to my customers. I wouldn't want to be disruptive at all, outside of disrupting the market share held by my competitors.

On Mon, Oct 17, 2016 at 11:29 PM, Nick Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:

Thanks, everybody,

 

I guess I have one more question before I try to respond to some these excellent comments:

 

If you ARE (factual) or WERE (counter-factual) a technology startup, do you (would you) advertise yourself as a disruptor?  What would the promotional THEORY  behind doing so?  What market share would you be hoping to capture.  What would be the business model? 

 

N

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Gillian Densmore
Sent: Monday, October 17, 2016 5:55 PM

To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] enablors vs disruptors

 

Enablers are things like an enabled (turned on) WarpCoil or Inertial Dampeners or Teleporters.  Disrupters shoot stuff to blow up rocks. 

But  I suspect nick or his friend don't mean as in from StarTrek. 

 

 

On Mon, Oct 17, 2016 at 5:00 PM, Marcus Daniels <[hidden email]> wrote:

Sure, mobile internet & cloud was a disrupter to the PC industry and to the business of selling analog landlines.

Intel recently had layoffs of more than 10k workers as a result.

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Owen Densmore
Sent: Monday, October 17, 2016 3:47 PM

To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] enablors vs disruptors

 

Was the iPhone a disrupter?

 

On Mon, Oct 17, 2016 at 2:32 PM, Marcus Daniels <[hidden email]> wrote:

I’d say the folks that think a jackhammer is needed, aren’t a victim of the folks with the concrete in a truck (that presumably pour it on anything they can!), they are the sites where a jackhammer is now a useful instrument.  This makes me think of those bathtubs that can be installed right on top of old tubs.   Pour baby pour!

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Carl Tollander
Sent: Monday, October 17, 2016 2:04 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] enablors vs disruptors

 

Well, there's the concrete truck and then there's the jackhammer.

 

On Oct 17, 2016 1:24 PM, "Marcus Daniels" <[hidden email]> wrote:

It depends on whether, like David, you point to liberalism as the threat to individual freedom and productivity, or the momentum of conservativism and oligarchy to constrain lives.    Some (like Assange) can’t stand either one.   A disruptor seeks a benign sort of chaos when power can shift hands quickly, and repeatedly.  The people that are all used up and have limited skills should give way to those that do.   Sure they can try to elect someone like Trump, but that’s where sophisticated “liberal autocracy” must step-up to outmaneuver the reactionaries. 

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Nick Thompson
Sent: Monday, October 17, 2016 12:18 PM
To: friam <[hidden email]>
Cc: 'Stephen Guerin' <[hidden email]>
Subject: [FRIAM] enablors vs disruptors

 

 

Dear Friammers,

 

A close friend of mine has gone to work in marketing for a Startup Incubator in Another City.  I have been perusing the website and I notice frequent use of the word “disruptors”, as if disruption was a goal in itself.  This puzzles me.  I have always thought of technology as “enabling’ and have thought of its disruptive effects as a kind of collateral damage that needs to be mitigated.  Now I recognize that one of the properties of a really good technology company is the ability to respond quickly to disruption, and to provide solutions and open up opportunities for those whose lives are disrupted.  And I realize that if I owned a technology company, I might want to produce disruption in order that I might supply “enablors” to the disrupted.  But isn’t it a case of industrial narcissism to MARKET oneself as a disruptor, a kind of “preaching to the choir”, rather than outreach to potential purchasers of one’s technology?  Or is my thinking “oh so 20^th Century.”

 

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

 

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

 

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From: Prof David West <[hidden email]>

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] enablors vs disruptors

Date: October 18, 2016 at 7:46:40 AM PDT

To: [hidden email]

If I was head of marketing for any company, but especially a tech company startup or otherwise, I likely would be enamored of using taglines like, "This changes everything!" Connotations of the future, of excitement, of adventure, just the right amount of tension (fear) from uncertainty, promise of new opportunities, etc. etc.  I.e., I would market as a disruptor without using the word.

davew

On Mon, Oct 17, 2016, at 09:29 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:

Thanks, everybody,

 

I guess I have one more question before I try to respond to some these excellent comments:

 

If you ARE (factual) or WERE (counter-factual) a technology startup, do you (would you) advertise yourself as a disruptor?  What would the promotional THEORY  behind doing so?  What market share would you be hoping to capture.  What would be the business model? 

 

N

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Gillian Densmore
Sent: Monday, October 17, 2016 5:55 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] enablors vs disruptors

 

Enablers are things like an enabled (turned on) WarpCoil or Inertial Dampeners or Teleporters.  Disrupters shoot stuff to blow up rocks. 

But  I suspect nick or his friend don't mean as in from StarTrek. 

 

 

On Mon, Oct 17, 2016 at 5:00 PM, Marcus Daniels <[hidden email]> wrote:

Sure, mobile internet & cloud was a disrupter to the PC industry and to the business of selling analog landlines.

Intel recently had layoffs of more than 10k workers as a result.

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Owen Densmore
Sent: Monday, October 17, 2016 3:47 PM

To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] enablors vs disruptors

 

Was the iPhone a disrupter?

 

On Mon, Oct 17, 2016 at 2:32 PM, Marcus Daniels <[hidden email]> wrote:

I’d say the folks that think a jackhammer is needed, aren’t a victim of the folks with the concrete in a truck (that presumably pour it on anything they can!), they are the sites where a jackhammer is now a useful instrument.  This makes me think of those bathtubs that can be installed right on top of old tubs.   Pour baby pour!

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Carl Tollander
Sent: Monday, October 17, 2016 2:04 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] enablors vs disruptors

 

Well, there's the concrete truck and then there's the jackhammer.

 

On Oct 17, 2016 1:24 PM, "Marcus Daniels" <[hidden email]> wrote:

It depends on whether, like David, you point to liberalism as the threat to individual freedom and productivity, or the momentum of conservativism and oligarchy to constrain lives.    Some (like Assange) can’t stand either one.   A disruptor seeks a benign sort of chaos when power can shift hands quickly, and repeatedly.  The people that are all used up and have limited skills should give way to those that do.   Sure they can try to elect someone like Trump, but that’s where sophisticated “liberal autocracy” must step-up to outmaneuver the reactionaries. 

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Nick Thompson
Sent: Monday, October 17, 2016 12:18 PM
To: friam <[hidden email]>
Cc: 'Stephen Guerin' <[hidden email]>
Subject: [FRIAM] enablors vs disruptors

 

 

Dear Friammers,

 

A close friend of mine has gone to work in marketing for a Startup Incubator in Another City.  I have been perusing the website and I notice frequent use of the word “disruptors”, as if disruption was a goal in itself.  This puzzles me.  I have always thought of technology as “enabling’ and have thought of its disruptive effects as a kind of collateral damage that needs to be mitigated.  Now I recognize that one of the properties of a really good technology company is the ability to respond quickly to disruption, and to provide solutions and open up opportunities for those whose lives are disrupted.  And I realize that if I owned a technology company, I might want to produce disruption in order that I might supply “enablors” to the disrupted.  But isn’t it a case of industrial narcissism to MARKET oneself as a disruptor, a kind of “preaching to the choir”, rather than outreach to potential purchasers of one’s technology?  Or is my thinking “oh so 20^th Century.”

 

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

 

============================================================
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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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From: ┣glen┫ <[hidden email]>

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] enablors vs disruptors

Date: October 18, 2016 at 8:56:37 AM PDT

To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>

I think Eric did a good job demonstrating that the use of "technology" in "technology startup" is at least ambiguous, if not a straight-up misnomer.  But another ambiguity lies in the word "startup".  My company is routinely misclassified as a startup simply because we're small and have our hands in some (seemingly) novel pies.  But we're just a "boutique" company, which is decidedly different from the VC-seeking, market-focused, pockets of turbulence one usually means by "startup".

All this yammering the marketeers do about disruption is red meat for the audience of the business books section at Barnes & Noble, right next to the self-help and homeopathy sections.  It's not quite nonsense, though.  The myth that any single innovation, linearly drives the market this way or that is caused and maintained by the same psychological condition that makes us think Einstein, Newton, Hitler, or whoever was pivotal to the development of mankind.  These Great People were drafted by the collective to play those roles.  They were not causative, isolated, instances.

The same is true of any other technological advance from beer brewing to germ theory to the iphone.


On 10/17/2016 08:29 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:

If you ARE (factual) or WERE (counter-factual) a technology startup, do you (would you) advertise yourself as a disruptor?  What would the promotional THEORY  behind doing so?  What market share would you be hoping to capture.  What would be the business model?  

--
␦glen?




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[Frank Wimberly-2]

Merle,

I hope that doesn't mean you think it's good to vote for Trump.

Frank

Frank Wimberly
Phone [phone]

On Oct 18, 2016 10:49 AM, "Merle Lefkoff" <[hidden email]> wrote:

I read recently that it was economist Joseph Schumpeter who observed that originality is an act of creative destruction.  We have to demolish the old way of doing things when we advocate for new systems.  As someone who applies complexity to changing public policy, I feel I have no other choice.

On Tue, Oct 18, 2016 at 10:08 AM, Michael Stevens <[hidden email]> wrote:

I have lot of experience in high tech marketing. I can say that the term “disruptor” has become a bit of a cliché. A high tech company billing itself as a disruptor really has to have a so-called secret sauce (also a cliché) that is both genuinely unique - nobody but nobody else can do it, and there are high barriers to entry - and  it must be easy to explain. In marketing materials (white papers, presentations, etc.) I would lead with the secret sauce, outline the pain that it relieves (most important point), and then say, “We think this is a disruptor.” The word “enabler” is pretty weak in my opinion, even though it might be accurate for some technologies. To me, saying “We’re an enabler” has the connotation of “We want to be acquired.” For what it’s worth.

Mike Stevens

On Oct 18, 2016, at 9:00 AM, [hidden email] wrote:

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When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
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Today's Topics:

  1. Re: enablors vs disruptors (Eric Charles)
  2. Re: enablors vs disruptors (Prof David West)
  3. Re: enablors vs disruptors (?glen?)

From: Eric Charles <[hidden email]>

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] enablors vs disruptors

Date: October 18, 2016 at 6:10:12 AM PDT

To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>

"If you ARE (factual) or WERE (counter-factual) a technology startup, do you (would you) advertise yourself as a disruptor? "

Ooooh, THAT is a messy question. If I was technology startup, I would be priming whatever words/concepts Venture Capitalists are receptive to this week. That is because, alas, alas, alas, the goal of most tech startups is to be invested in, and then bought out, before anyone is certain whether we have done anything that will last. Don't get me wrong, I don't think most are trying to snow investors, only that their goal is not to run their company for the next 50 years, and so the short-term prospects of the company are more important than the long-term prospects, and those prospects are driven my markets that are not dominated by mortal "customers." In that context, the ability to "disrupt" has been consistently held in high regard. At the least, if you can make the argument convincing. People getting products for little-to-no money like to try potentially disruptive things, and investors like to see large customer bases, even if those customers have provided little-to-no money.  

In contrast, if I was a non-technology startup (say a co-owner of a solar-panel installation company presided over by a brother), my goals would be quite different: Slowly and systematically building a local-community client base, on a foundation of treating my employees well and providing good value to my customers. I wouldn't want to be disruptive at all, outside of disrupting the market share held by my competitors.

On Mon, Oct 17, 2016 at 11:29 PM, Nick Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:

Thanks, everybody,

 

I guess I have one more question before I try to respond to some these excellent comments:

 

If you ARE (factual) or WERE (counter-factual) a technology startup, do you (would you) advertise yourself as a disruptor?  What would the promotional THEORY  behind doing so?  What market share would you be hoping to capture.  What would be the business model? 

 

N

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Gillian Densmore
Sent: Monday, October 17, 2016 5:55 PM

To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] enablors vs disruptors

 

Enablers are things like an enabled (turned on) WarpCoil or Inertial Dampeners or Teleporters.  Disrupters shoot stuff to blow up rocks. 

But  I suspect nick or his friend don't mean as in from StarTrek. 

 

 

On Mon, Oct 17, 2016 at 5:00 PM, Marcus Daniels <[hidden email]> wrote:

Sure, mobile internet & cloud was a disrupter to the PC industry and to the business of selling analog landlines.

Intel recently had layoffs of more than 10k workers as a result.

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Owen Densmore
Sent: Monday, October 17, 2016 3:47 PM

To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] enablors vs disruptors

 

Was the iPhone a disrupter?

 

On Mon, Oct 17, 2016 at 2:32 PM, Marcus Daniels <[hidden email]> wrote:

I’d say the folks that think a jackhammer is needed, aren’t a victim of the folks with the concrete in a truck (that presumably pour it on anything they can!), they are the sites where a jackhammer is now a useful instrument.  This makes me think of those bathtubs that can be installed right on top of old tubs.   Pour baby pour!

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Carl Tollander
Sent: Monday, October 17, 2016 2:04 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] enablors vs disruptors

 

Well, there's the concrete truck and then there's the jackhammer.

 

On Oct 17, 2016 1:24 PM, "Marcus Daniels" <[hidden email]> wrote:

It depends on whether, like David, you point to liberalism as the threat to individual freedom and productivity, or the momentum of conservativism and oligarchy to constrain lives.    Some (like Assange) can’t stand either one.   A disruptor seeks a benign sort of chaos when power can shift hands quickly, and repeatedly.  The people that are all used up and have limited skills should give way to those that do.   Sure they can try to elect someone like Trump, but that’s where sophisticated “liberal autocracy” must step-up to outmaneuver the reactionaries. 

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Nick Thompson
Sent: Monday, October 17, 2016 12:18 PM
To: friam <[hidden email]>
Cc: 'Stephen Guerin' <[hidden email]>
Subject: [FRIAM] enablors vs disruptors

 

 

Dear Friammers,

 

A close friend of mine has gone to work in marketing for a Startup Incubator in Another City.  I have been perusing the website and I notice frequent use of the word “disruptors”, as if disruption was a goal in itself.  This puzzles me.  I have always thought of technology as “enabling’ and have thought of its disruptive effects as a kind of collateral damage that needs to be mitigated.  Now I recognize that one of the properties of a really good technology company is the ability to respond quickly to disruption, and to provide solutions and open up opportunities for those whose lives are disrupted.  And I realize that if I owned a technology company, I might want to produce disruption in order that I might supply “enablors” to the disrupted.  But isn’t it a case of industrial narcissism to MARKET oneself as a disruptor, a kind of “preaching to the choir”, rather than outreach to potential purchasers of one’s technology?  Or is my thinking “oh so 20^th Century.”

 

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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From: Prof David West <[hidden email]>

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] enablors vs disruptors

Date: October 18, 2016 at 7:46:40 AM PDT

To: [hidden email]

If I was head of marketing for any company, but especially a tech company startup or otherwise, I likely would be enamored of using taglines like, "This changes everything!" Connotations of the future, of excitement, of adventure, just the right amount of tension (fear) from uncertainty, promise of new opportunities, etc. etc.  I.e., I would market as a disruptor without using the word.

davew

On Mon, Oct 17, 2016, at 09:29 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:

Thanks, everybody,

 

I guess I have one more question before I try to respond to some these excellent comments:

 

If you ARE (factual) or WERE (counter-factual) a technology startup, do you (would you) advertise yourself as a disruptor?  What would the promotional THEORY  behind doing so?  What market share would you be hoping to capture.  What would be the business model? 

 

N

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Gillian Densmore
Sent: Monday, October 17, 2016 5:55 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] enablors vs disruptors

 

Enablers are things like an enabled (turned on) WarpCoil or Inertial Dampeners or Teleporters.  Disrupters shoot stuff to blow up rocks. 

But  I suspect nick or his friend don't mean as in from StarTrek. 

 

 

On Mon, Oct 17, 2016 at 5:00 PM, Marcus Daniels <[hidden email]> wrote:

Sure, mobile internet & cloud was a disrupter to the PC industry and to the business of selling analog landlines.

Intel recently had layoffs of more than 10k workers as a result.

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Owen Densmore
Sent: Monday, October 17, 2016 3:47 PM

To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] enablors vs disruptors

 

Was the iPhone a disrupter?

 

On Mon, Oct 17, 2016 at 2:32 PM, Marcus Daniels <[hidden email]> wrote:

I’d say the folks that think a jackhammer is needed, aren’t a victim of the folks with the concrete in a truck (that presumably pour it on anything they can!), they are the sites where a jackhammer is now a useful instrument.  This makes me think of those bathtubs that can be installed right on top of old tubs.   Pour baby pour!

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Carl Tollander
Sent: Monday, October 17, 2016 2:04 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] enablors vs disruptors

 

Well, there's the concrete truck and then there's the jackhammer.

 

On Oct 17, 2016 1:24 PM, "Marcus Daniels" <[hidden email]> wrote:

It depends on whether, like David, you point to liberalism as the threat to individual freedom and productivity, or the momentum of conservativism and oligarchy to constrain lives.    Some (like Assange) can’t stand either one.   A disruptor seeks a benign sort of chaos when power can shift hands quickly, and repeatedly.  The people that are all used up and have limited skills should give way to those that do.   Sure they can try to elect someone like Trump, but that’s where sophisticated “liberal autocracy” must step-up to outmaneuver the reactionaries. 

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Nick Thompson
Sent: Monday, October 17, 2016 12:18 PM
To: friam <[hidden email]>
Cc: 'Stephen Guerin' <[hidden email]>
Subject: [FRIAM] enablors vs disruptors

 

 

Dear Friammers,

 

A close friend of mine has gone to work in marketing for a Startup Incubator in Another City.  I have been perusing the website and I notice frequent use of the word “disruptors”, as if disruption was a goal in itself.  This puzzles me.  I have always thought of technology as “enabling’ and have thought of its disruptive effects as a kind of collateral damage that needs to be mitigated.  Now I recognize that one of the properties of a really good technology company is the ability to respond quickly to disruption, and to provide solutions and open up opportunities for those whose lives are disrupted.  And I realize that if I owned a technology company, I might want to produce disruption in order that I might supply “enablors” to the disrupted.  But isn’t it a case of industrial narcissism to MARKET oneself as a disruptor, a kind of “preaching to the choir”, rather than outreach to potential purchasers of one’s technology?  Or is my thinking “oh so 20^th Century.”

 

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

============================================================
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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

 

============================================================
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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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From: ┣glen┫ <[hidden email]>

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] enablors vs disruptors

Date: October 18, 2016 at 8:56:37 AM PDT

To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>

I think Eric did a good job demonstrating that the use of "technology" in "technology startup" is at least ambiguous, if not a straight-up misnomer.  But another ambiguity lies in the word "startup".  My company is routinely misclassified as a startup simply because we're small and have our hands in some (seemingly) novel pies.  But we're just a "boutique" company, which is decidedly different from the VC-seeking, market-focused, pockets of turbulence one usually means by "startup".

All this yammering the marketeers do about disruption is red meat for the audience of the business books section at Barnes & Noble, right next to the self-help and homeopathy sections.  It's not quite nonsense, though.  The myth that any single innovation, linearly drives the market this way or that is caused and maintained by the same psychological condition that makes us think Einstein, Newton, Hitler, or whoever was pivotal to the development of mankind.  These Great People were drafted by the collective to play those roles.  They were not causative, isolated, instances.

The same is true of any other technological advance from beer brewing to germ theory to the iphone.


On 10/17/2016 08:29 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:

If you ARE (factual) or WERE (counter-factual) a technology startup, do you (would you) advertise yourself as a disruptor?  What would the promotional THEORY  behind doing so?  What market share would you be hoping to capture.  What would be the business model?  

--
␦glen?




_______________________________________________
Friam mailing list
[hidden email]
http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

--

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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

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[gepr]

It seems to me that new usage patterns always evolve out of old usage patterns.  If that's true, then the old way isn't destroyed, but repurposed, adapted, abused, and evolved.

On 10/18/2016 09:48 AM, Merle Lefkoff wrote:
> I read recently that it was economist Joseph Schumpeter who observed that
> originality is an act of creative destruction.  We have to demolish the old
> way of doing things when we advocate for new systems.  As someone who
> applies complexity to changing public policy, I feel I have no other
> choice.


--
␦glen?

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[Merle Lefkoff-2]

Hahaha.  No, Frank.  Like many of my colleagues I don't have a candidate in this race, but I've already voted for Hillary, who will no doubt keep intact the status quo of perpetual war.

Merle Lefkoff, Ph.D.

Visiting Professor in Integrative Peacebuilding

Saint Paul University

Ottawa, Canada

On Tue, Oct 18, 2016 at 10:50 AM, Frank Wimberly <[hidden email]> wrote:

Merle,

I hope that doesn't mean you think it's good to vote for Trump.

Frank

Frank Wimberly
Phone <a href="tel:%28505%29%20670-9918" value="[phone]" target="_blank">[phone]

On Oct 18, 2016 10:49 AM, "Merle Lefkoff" <[hidden email]> wrote:

I read recently that it was economist Joseph Schumpeter who observed that originality is an act of creative destruction.  We have to demolish the old way of doing things when we advocate for new systems.  As someone who applies complexity to changing public policy, I feel I have no other choice.

On Tue, Oct 18, 2016 at 10:08 AM, Michael Stevens <[hidden email]> wrote:

I have lot of experience in high tech marketing. I can say that the term “disruptor” has become a bit of a cliché. A high tech company billing itself as a disruptor really has to have a so-called secret sauce (also a cliché) that is both genuinely unique - nobody but nobody else can do it, and there are high barriers to entry - and  it must be easy to explain. In marketing materials (white papers, presentations, etc.) I would lead with the secret sauce, outline the pain that it relieves (most important point), and then say, “We think this is a disruptor.” The word “enabler” is pretty weak in my opinion, even though it might be accurate for some technologies. To me, saying “We’re an enabler” has the connotation of “We want to be acquired.” For what it’s worth.

Mike Stevens

On Oct 18, 2016, at 9:00 AM, [hidden email] wrote:

Send Friam mailing list submissions to
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To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
[hidden email]

You can reach the person managing the list at
[hidden email]

When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
than "Re: Contents of Friam digest..."
Today's Topics:

  1. Re: enablors vs disruptors (Eric Charles)
  2. Re: enablors vs disruptors (Prof David West)
  3. Re: enablors vs disruptors (?glen?)

From: Eric Charles <[hidden email]>

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] enablors vs disruptors

Date: October 18, 2016 at 6:10:12 AM PDT

To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>

"If you ARE (factual) or WERE (counter-factual) a technology startup, do you (would you) advertise yourself as a disruptor? "

Ooooh, THAT is a messy question. If I was technology startup, I would be priming whatever words/concepts Venture Capitalists are receptive to this week. That is because, alas, alas, alas, the goal of most tech startups is to be invested in, and then bought out, before anyone is certain whether we have done anything that will last. Don't get me wrong, I don't think most are trying to snow investors, only that their goal is not to run their company for the next 50 years, and so the short-term prospects of the company are more important than the long-term prospects, and those prospects are driven my markets that are not dominated by mortal "customers." In that context, the ability to "disrupt" has been consistently held in high regard. At the least, if you can make the argument convincing. People getting products for little-to-no money like to try potentially disruptive things, and investors like to see large customer bases, even if those customers have provided little-to-no money.  

In contrast, if I was a non-technology startup (say a co-owner of a solar-panel installation company presided over by a brother), my goals would be quite different: Slowly and systematically building a local-community client base, on a foundation of treating my employees well and providing good value to my customers. I wouldn't want to be disruptive at all, outside of disrupting the market share held by my competitors.

On Mon, Oct 17, 2016 at 11:29 PM, Nick Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:

Thanks, everybody,

 

I guess I have one more question before I try to respond to some these excellent comments:

 

If you ARE (factual) or WERE (counter-factual) a technology startup, do you (would you) advertise yourself as a disruptor?  What would the promotional THEORY  behind doing so?  What market share would you be hoping to capture.  What would be the business model? 

 

N

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Gillian Densmore
Sent: Monday, October 17, 2016 5:55 PM

To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] enablors vs disruptors

 

Enablers are things like an enabled (turned on) WarpCoil or Inertial Dampeners or Teleporters.  Disrupters shoot stuff to blow up rocks. 

But  I suspect nick or his friend don't mean as in from StarTrek. 

 

 

On Mon, Oct 17, 2016 at 5:00 PM, Marcus Daniels <[hidden email]> wrote:

Sure, mobile internet & cloud was a disrupter to the PC industry and to the business of selling analog landlines.

Intel recently had layoffs of more than 10k workers as a result.

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Owen Densmore
Sent: Monday, October 17, 2016 3:47 PM

To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] enablors vs disruptors

 

Was the iPhone a disrupter?

 

On Mon, Oct 17, 2016 at 2:32 PM, Marcus Daniels <[hidden email]> wrote:

I’d say the folks that think a jackhammer is needed, aren’t a victim of the folks with the concrete in a truck (that presumably pour it on anything they can!), they are the sites where a jackhammer is now a useful instrument.  This makes me think of those bathtubs that can be installed right on top of old tubs.   Pour baby pour!

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Carl Tollander
Sent: Monday, October 17, 2016 2:04 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] enablors vs disruptors

 

Well, there's the concrete truck and then there's the jackhammer.

 

On Oct 17, 2016 1:24 PM, "Marcus Daniels" <[hidden email]> wrote:

It depends on whether, like David, you point to liberalism as the threat to individual freedom and productivity, or the momentum of conservativism and oligarchy to constrain lives.    Some (like Assange) can’t stand either one.   A disruptor seeks a benign sort of chaos when power can shift hands quickly, and repeatedly.  The people that are all used up and have limited skills should give way to those that do.   Sure they can try to elect someone like Trump, but that’s where sophisticated “liberal autocracy” must step-up to outmaneuver the reactionaries. 

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Nick Thompson
Sent: Monday, October 17, 2016 12:18 PM
To: friam <[hidden email]>
Cc: 'Stephen Guerin' <[hidden email]>
Subject: [FRIAM] enablors vs disruptors

 

 

Dear Friammers,

 

A close friend of mine has gone to work in marketing for a Startup Incubator in Another City.  I have been perusing the website and I notice frequent use of the word “disruptors”, as if disruption was a goal in itself.  This puzzles me.  I have always thought of technology as “enabling’ and have thought of its disruptive effects as a kind of collateral damage that needs to be mitigated.  Now I recognize that one of the properties of a really good technology company is the ability to respond quickly to disruption, and to provide solutions and open up opportunities for those whose lives are disrupted.  And I realize that if I owned a technology company, I might want to produce disruption in order that I might supply “enablors” to the disrupted.  But isn’t it a case of industrial narcissism to MARKET oneself as a disruptor, a kind of “preaching to the choir”, rather than outreach to potential purchasers of one’s technology?  Or is my thinking “oh so 20^th Century.”

 

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

 

============================================================
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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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From: Prof David West <[hidden email]>

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] enablors vs disruptors

Date: October 18, 2016 at 7:46:40 AM PDT

To: [hidden email]

If I was head of marketing for any company, but especially a tech company startup or otherwise, I likely would be enamored of using taglines like, "This changes everything!" Connotations of the future, of excitement, of adventure, just the right amount of tension (fear) from uncertainty, promise of new opportunities, etc. etc.  I.e., I would market as a disruptor without using the word.

davew

On Mon, Oct 17, 2016, at 09:29 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:

Thanks, everybody,

 

I guess I have one more question before I try to respond to some these excellent comments:

 

If you ARE (factual) or WERE (counter-factual) a technology startup, do you (would you) advertise yourself as a disruptor?  What would the promotional THEORY  behind doing so?  What market share would you be hoping to capture.  What would be the business model? 

 

N

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Gillian Densmore
Sent: Monday, October 17, 2016 5:55 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] enablors vs disruptors

 

Enablers are things like an enabled (turned on) WarpCoil or Inertial Dampeners or Teleporters.  Disrupters shoot stuff to blow up rocks. 

But  I suspect nick or his friend don't mean as in from StarTrek. 

 

 

On Mon, Oct 17, 2016 at 5:00 PM, Marcus Daniels <[hidden email]> wrote:

Sure, mobile internet & cloud was a disrupter to the PC industry and to the business of selling analog landlines.

Intel recently had layoffs of more than 10k workers as a result.

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Owen Densmore
Sent: Monday, October 17, 2016 3:47 PM

To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] enablors vs disruptors

 

Was the iPhone a disrupter?

 

On Mon, Oct 17, 2016 at 2:32 PM, Marcus Daniels <[hidden email]> wrote:

I’d say the folks that think a jackhammer is needed, aren’t a victim of the folks with the concrete in a truck (that presumably pour it on anything they can!), they are the sites where a jackhammer is now a useful instrument.  This makes me think of those bathtubs that can be installed right on top of old tubs.   Pour baby pour!

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Carl Tollander
Sent: Monday, October 17, 2016 2:04 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] enablors vs disruptors

 

Well, there's the concrete truck and then there's the jackhammer.

 

On Oct 17, 2016 1:24 PM, "Marcus Daniels" <[hidden email]> wrote:

It depends on whether, like David, you point to liberalism as the threat to individual freedom and productivity, or the momentum of conservativism and oligarchy to constrain lives.    Some (like Assange) can’t stand either one.   A disruptor seeks a benign sort of chaos when power can shift hands quickly, and repeatedly.  The people that are all used up and have limited skills should give way to those that do.   Sure they can try to elect someone like Trump, but that’s where sophisticated “liberal autocracy” must step-up to outmaneuver the reactionaries. 

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Nick Thompson
Sent: Monday, October 17, 2016 12:18 PM
To: friam <[hidden email]>
Cc: 'Stephen Guerin' <[hidden email]>
Subject: [FRIAM] enablors vs disruptors

 

 

Dear Friammers,

 

A close friend of mine has gone to work in marketing for a Startup Incubator in Another City.  I have been perusing the website and I notice frequent use of the word “disruptors”, as if disruption was a goal in itself.  This puzzles me.  I have always thought of technology as “enabling’ and have thought of its disruptive effects as a kind of collateral damage that needs to be mitigated.  Now I recognize that one of the properties of a really good technology company is the ability to respond quickly to disruption, and to provide solutions and open up opportunities for those whose lives are disrupted.  And I realize that if I owned a technology company, I might want to produce disruption in order that I might supply “enablors” to the disrupted.  But isn’t it a case of industrial narcissism to MARKET oneself as a disruptor, a kind of “preaching to the choir”, rather than outreach to potential purchasers of one’s technology?  Or is my thinking “oh so 20^th Century.”

 

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

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From: ┣glen┫ <[hidden email]>

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] enablors vs disruptors

Date: October 18, 2016 at 8:56:37 AM PDT

To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>

I think Eric did a good job demonstrating that the use of "technology" in "technology startup" is at least ambiguous, if not a straight-up misnomer.  But another ambiguity lies in the word "startup".  My company is routinely misclassified as a startup simply because we're small and have our hands in some (seemingly) novel pies.  But we're just a "boutique" company, which is decidedly different from the VC-seeking, market-focused, pockets of turbulence one usually means by "startup".

All this yammering the marketeers do about disruption is red meat for the audience of the business books section at Barnes & Noble, right next to the self-help and homeopathy sections.  It's not quite nonsense, though.  The myth that any single innovation, linearly drives the market this way or that is caused and maintained by the same psychological condition that makes us think Einstein, Newton, Hitler, or whoever was pivotal to the development of mankind.  These Great People were drafted by the collective to play those roles.  They were not causative, isolated, instances.

The same is true of any other technological advance from beer brewing to germ theory to the iphone.


On 10/17/2016 08:29 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:

If you ARE (factual) or WERE (counter-factual) a technology startup, do you (would you) advertise yourself as a disruptor?  What would the promotional THEORY  behind doing so?  What market share would you be hoping to capture.  What would be the business model?  

--
␦glen?




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[Marcus G. Daniels]

Or corrected.   I don't want to go to the hospital and get a different loved-one.   I want the cancer cured, the organ replaced, or whatever.    It's harder to do that than make more babies.  

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of ?glen?
Sent: Tuesday, October 18, 2016 10:54 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Disruptor

It seems to me that new usage patterns always evolve out of old usage patterns.  If that's true, then the old way isn't destroyed, but repurposed, adapted, abused, and evolved.

On 10/18/2016 09:48 AM, Merle Lefkoff wrote:
> I read recently that it was economist Joseph Schumpeter who observed
> that originality is an act of creative destruction.  We have to
> demolish the old way of doing things when we advocate for new systems.  
> As someone who applies complexity to changing public policy, I feel I
> have no other choice.


--
␦glen?

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[Frank Wimberly-2]

As a person whose 4 year old grandson lives with us I can say that it may be easy to make babies but it's not easy to raise them.

Frank

Frank Wimberly
Phone [phone]

On Oct 18, 2016 11:01 AM, "Marcus Daniels" <[hidden email]> wrote:

Or corrected.   I don't want to go to the hospital and get a different loved-one.   I want the cancer cured, the organ replaced, or whatever.    It's harder to do that than make more babies.

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of ?glen?
Sent: Tuesday, October 18, 2016 10:54 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Disruptor

It seems to me that new usage patterns always evolve out of old usage patterns.  If that's true, then the old way isn't destroyed, but repurposed, adapted, abused, and evolved.

On 10/18/2016 09:48 AM, Merle Lefkoff wrote:
> I read recently that it was economist Joseph Schumpeter who observed
> that originality is an act of creative destruction.  We have to
> demolish the old way of doing things when we advocate for new systems.
> As someone who applies complexity to changing public policy, I feel I
> have no other choice.


--
␦glen?

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[Merle Lefkoff-2]

It's also easier to make war than wage peace. 

As the mother of four and the grandmother of seven, I wish you a lot of luck Frank!

On Tue, Oct 18, 2016 at 11:07 AM, Frank Wimberly <[hidden email]> wrote:

As a person whose 4 year old grandson lives with us I can say that it may be easy to make babies but it's not easy to raise them.

Frank

Frank Wimberly
Phone <a href="tel:%28505%29%20670-9918" value="[phone]" target="_blank">[phone]

On Oct 18, 2016 11:01 AM, "Marcus Daniels" <[hidden email]> wrote:

Or corrected.   I don't want to go to the hospital and get a different loved-one.   I want the cancer cured, the organ replaced, or whatever.    It's harder to do that than make more babies.

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of ?glen?
Sent: Tuesday, October 18, 2016 10:54 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Disruptor

It seems to me that new usage patterns always evolve out of old usage patterns.  If that's true, then the old way isn't destroyed, but repurposed, adapted, abused, and evolved.

On 10/18/2016 09:48 AM, Merle Lefkoff wrote:
> I read recently that it was economist Joseph Schumpeter who observed
> that originality is an act of creative destruction.  We have to
> demolish the old way of doing things when we advocate for new systems.
> As someone who applies complexity to changing public policy, I feel I
> have no other choice.


--
␦glen?

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[Marcus G. Daniels]

I think she’s the sort to quietly finish a fight – talk is good, but smoke and silence will work too.

 

Marcus

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Merle Lefkoff
Sent: Tuesday, October 18, 2016 11:00 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Disruptor

 

Hahaha.  No, Frank.  Like many of my colleagues I don't have a candidate in this race, but I've already voted for Hillary, who will no doubt keep intact the status quo of perpetual war.

Merle Lefkoff, Ph.D.

Visiting Professor in Integrative Peacebuilding

Saint Paul University

Ottawa, Canada

 

On Tue, Oct 18, 2016 at 10:50 AM, Frank Wimberly <[hidden email]> wrote:

Merle,

I hope that doesn't mean you think it's good to vote for Trump.

Frank

Frank Wimberly
Phone <a href="tel:%28505%29%20670-9918" target="_blank">[phone]

 

On Oct 18, 2016 10:49 AM, "Merle Lefkoff" <[hidden email]> wrote:

I read recently that it was economist Joseph Schumpeter who observed that originality is an act of creative destruction.  We have to demolish the old way of doing things when we advocate for new systems.  As someone who applies complexity to changing public policy, I feel I have no other choice.

 

On Tue, Oct 18, 2016 at 10:08 AM, Michael Stevens <[hidden email]> wrote:

I have lot of experience in high tech marketing. I can say that the term “disruptor” has become a bit of a cliché. A high tech company billing itself as a disruptor really has to have a so-called secret sauce (also a cliché) that is both genuinely unique - nobody but nobody else can do it, and there are high barriers to entry - and  it must be easy to explain. In marketing materials (white papers, presentations, etc.) I would lead with the secret sauce, outline the pain that it relieves (most important point), and then say, “We think this is a disruptor.” The word “enabler” is pretty weak in my opinion, even though it might be accurate for some technologies. To me, saying “We’re an enabler” has the connotation of “We want to be acquired.” For what it’s worth.

Mike Stevens

On Oct 18, 2016, at 9:00 AM, [hidden email] wrote:

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Today's Topics:

  1. Re: enablors vs disruptors (Eric Charles)
  2. Re: enablors vs disruptors (Prof David West)
  3. Re: enablors vs disruptors (?glen?)

From: Eric Charles <[hidden email]>

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] enablors vs disruptors

Date: October 18, 2016 at 6:10:12 AM PDT

To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>

 

"If you ARE (factual) or WERE (counter-factual) a technology startup, do you (would you) advertise yourself as a disruptor? "

 

Ooooh, THAT is a messy question. If I was technology startup, I would be priming whatever words/concepts Venture Capitalists are receptive to this week. That is because, alas, alas, alas, the goal of most tech startups is to be invested in, and then bought out, before anyone is certain whether we have done anything that will last. Don't get me wrong, I don't think most are trying to snow investors, only that their goal is not to run their company for the next 50 years, and so the short-term prospects of the company are more important than the long-term prospects, and those prospects are driven my markets that are not dominated by mortal "customers." In that context, the ability to "disrupt" has been consistently held in high regard. At the least, if you can make the argument convincing. People getting products for little-to-no money like to try potentially disruptive things, and investors like to see large customer bases, even if those customers have provided little-to-no money.  

 

In contrast, if I was a non-technology startup (say a co-owner of a solar-panel installation company presided over by a brother), my goals would be quite different: Slowly and systematically building a local-community client base, on a foundation of treating my employees well and providing good value to my customers. I wouldn't want to be disruptive at all, outside of disrupting the market share held by my competitors.

 

 

-----------
Eric P. Charles, Ph.D.
Supervisory Survey Statistician

U.S. Marine Corps

 

On Mon, Oct 17, 2016 at 11:29 PM, Nick Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:

Thanks, everybody,

 

I guess I have one more question before I try to respond to some these excellent comments:

 

If you ARE (factual) or WERE (counter-factual) a technology startup, do you (would you) advertise yourself as a disruptor?  What would the promotional THEORY  behind doing so?  What market share would you be hoping to capture.  What would be the business model? 

 

N

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Gillian Densmore
Sent: Monday, October 17, 2016 5:55 PM

To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] enablors vs disruptors

 

 

Enablers are things like an enabled (turned on) WarpCoil or Inertial Dampeners or Teleporters.  Disrupters shoot stuff to blow up rocks. 

But  I suspect nick or his friend don't mean as in from StarTrek. 

 

 

On Mon, Oct 17, 2016 at 5:00 PM, Marcus Daniels <[hidden email]> wrote:

Sure, mobile internet & cloud was a disrupter to the PC industry and to the business of selling analog landlines.

Intel recently had layoffs of more than 10k workers as a result.

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Owen Densmore
Sent: Monday, October 17, 2016 3:47 PM

To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] enablors vs disruptors

 

Was the iPhone a disrupter?

 

On Mon, Oct 17, 2016 at 2:32 PM, Marcus Daniels <[hidden email]> wrote:

I’d say the folks that think a jackhammer is needed, aren’t a victim of the folks with the concrete in a truck (that presumably pour it on anything they can!), they are the sites where a jackhammer is now a useful instrument.  This makes me think of those bathtubs that can be installed right on top of old tubs.   Pour baby pour!

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Carl Tollander
Sent: Monday, October 17, 2016 2:04 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] enablors vs disruptors

 

Well, there's the concrete truck and then there's the jackhammer.

 

On Oct 17, 2016 1:24 PM, "Marcus Daniels" <[hidden email]> wrote:

It depends on whether, like David, you point to liberalism as the threat to individual freedom and productivity, or the momentum of conservativism and oligarchy to constrain lives.    Some (like Assange) can’t stand either one.   A disruptor seeks a benign sort of chaos when power can shift hands quickly, and repeatedly.  The people that are all used up and have limited skills should give way to those that do.   Sure they can try to elect someone like Trump, but that’s where sophisticated “liberal autocracy” must step-up to outmaneuver the reactionaries. 

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Nick Thompson
Sent: Monday, October 17, 2016 12:18 PM
To: friam <[hidden email]>
Cc: 'Stephen Guerin' <[hidden email]>
Subject: [FRIAM] enablors vs disruptors

 

 

Dear Friammers,

 

A close friend of mine has gone to work in marketing for a Startup Incubator in Another City.  I have been perusing the website and I notice frequent use of the word “disruptors”, as if disruption was a goal in itself.  This puzzles me.  I have always thought of technology as “enabling’ and have thought of its disruptive effects as a kind of collateral damage that needs to be mitigated.  Now I recognize that one of the properties of a really good technology company is the ability to respond quickly to disruption, and to provide solutions and open up opportunities for those whose lives are disrupted.  And I realize that if I owned a technology company, I might want to produce disruption in order that I might supply “enablors” to the disrupted.  But isn’t it a case of industrial narcissism to MARKET oneself as a disruptor, a kind of “preaching to the choir”, rather than outreach to potential purchasers of one’s technology?  Or is my thinking “oh so 20^th Century.”

 

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

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From: Prof David West <[hidden email]>

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] enablors vs disruptors

Date: October 18, 2016 at 7:46:40 AM PDT

To: [hidden email]

 

If I was head of marketing for any company, but especially a tech company startup or otherwise, I likely would be enamored of using taglines like, "This changes everything!" Connotations of the future, of excitement, of adventure, just the right amount of tension (fear) from uncertainty, promise of new opportunities, etc. etc.  I.e., I would market as a disruptor without using the word.

 

davew

 

 

On Mon, Oct 17, 2016, at 09:29 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:

Thanks, everybody,

 

I guess I have one more question before I try to respond to some these excellent comments:

 

If you ARE (factual) or WERE (counter-factual) a technology startup, do you (would you) advertise yourself as a disruptor?  What would the promotional THEORY  behind doing so?  What market share would you be hoping to capture.  What would be the business model? 

 

N

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Gillian Densmore
Sent: Monday, October 17, 2016 5:55 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] enablors vs disruptors

 

Enablers are things like an enabled (turned on) WarpCoil or Inertial Dampeners or Teleporters.  Disrupters shoot stuff to blow up rocks. 

But  I suspect nick or his friend don't mean as in from StarTrek. 

 

 

On Mon, Oct 17, 2016 at 5:00 PM, Marcus Daniels <[hidden email]> wrote:

Sure, mobile internet & cloud was a disrupter to the PC industry and to the business of selling analog landlines.

Intel recently had layoffs of more than 10k workers as a result.

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Owen Densmore
Sent: Monday, October 17, 2016 3:47 PM

To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] enablors vs disruptors

 

Was the iPhone a disrupter?

 

On Mon, Oct 17, 2016 at 2:32 PM, Marcus Daniels <[hidden email]> wrote:

I’d say the folks that think a jackhammer is needed, aren’t a victim of the folks with the concrete in a truck (that presumably pour it on anything they can!), they are the sites where a jackhammer is now a useful instrument.  This makes me think of those bathtubs that can be installed right on top of old tubs.   Pour baby pour!

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Carl Tollander
Sent: Monday, October 17, 2016 2:04 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] enablors vs disruptors

 

Well, there's the concrete truck and then there's the jackhammer.

 

On Oct 17, 2016 1:24 PM, "Marcus Daniels" <[hidden email]> wrote:

It depends on whether, like David, you point to liberalism as the threat to individual freedom and productivity, or the momentum of conservativism and oligarchy to constrain lives.    Some (like Assange) can’t stand either one.   A disruptor seeks a benign sort of chaos when power can shift hands quickly, and repeatedly.  The people that are all used up and have limited skills should give way to those that do.   Sure they can try to elect someone like Trump, but that’s where sophisticated “liberal autocracy” must step-up to outmaneuver the reactionaries. 

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Nick Thompson
Sent: Monday, October 17, 2016 12:18 PM
To: friam <[hidden email]>
Cc: 'Stephen Guerin' <[hidden email]>
Subject: [FRIAM] enablors vs disruptors

 

 

Dear Friammers,

 

A close friend of mine has gone to work in marketing for a Startup Incubator in Another City.  I have been perusing the website and I notice frequent use of the word “disruptors”, as if disruption was a goal in itself.  This puzzles me.  I have always thought of technology as “enabling’ and have thought of its disruptive effects as a kind of collateral damage that needs to be mitigated.  Now I recognize that one of the properties of a really good technology company is the ability to respond quickly to disruption, and to provide solutions and open up opportunities for those whose lives are disrupted.  And I realize that if I owned a technology company, I might want to produce disruption in order that I might supply “enablors” to the disrupted.  But isn’t it a case of industrial narcissism to MARKET oneself as a disruptor, a kind of “preaching to the choir”, rather than outreach to potential purchasers of one’s technology?  Or is my thinking “oh so 20^th Century.”

 

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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From: ┣glen┫ <[hidden email]>

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] enablors vs disruptors

Date: October 18, 2016 at 8:56:37 AM PDT

To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>

I think Eric did a good job demonstrating that the use of "technology" in "technology startup" is at least ambiguous, if not a straight-up misnomer.  But another ambiguity lies in the word "startup".  My company is routinely misclassified as a startup simply because we're small and have our hands in some (seemingly) novel pies.  But we're just a "boutique" company, which is decidedly different from the VC-seeking, market-focused, pockets of turbulence one usually means by "startup".

All this yammering the marketeers do about disruption is red meat for the audience of the business books section at Barnes & Noble, right next to the self-help and homeopathy sections.  It's not quite nonsense, though.  The myth that any single innovation, linearly drives the market this way or that is caused and maintained by the same psychological condition that makes us think Einstein, Newton, Hitler, or whoever was pivotal to the development of mankind.  These Great People were drafted by the collective to play those roles.  They were not causative, isolated, instances.

The same is true of any other technological advance from beer brewing to germ theory to the iphone.


On 10/17/2016 08:29 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:

If you ARE (factual) or WERE (counter-factual) a technology startup, do you (would you) advertise yourself as a disruptor?  What would the promotional THEORY  behind doing so?  What market share would you be hoping to capture.  What would be the business model?  

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␦glen?




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Merle Lefkoff, Ph.D.
President, Center for Emergent Diplomacy
Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
[hidden email]
mobile:  <a href="tel:%28303%29%20859-5609" target="_blank">[phone]
skype:  merle.lelfkoff2

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Merle Lefkoff, Ph.D.
President, Center for Emergent Diplomacy
Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
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mobile:  [phone]
skype:  merle.lelfkoff2

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[Marcus G. Daniels]

When I was a child I would help my grandmother clear out old bushes and trees having deep roots, e.g. to make more space for planting.    My tool of choice was to get the tractor and a chain and yank on it .    I could happily yank on it and yank on it, for an hour or even more.  I like the hydraulic lift and I liked having the horsepower.     Great fun.    It was also pretty stupid (or at least inefficient) because with a little digging one with a shovel could find the main roots and saw them.    She was quick at that (an old woman down in hole tearing up her thin skin without even caring) and she also had a knack for keeping a big tree trunk burning for days at a time, even deep into the ground.    An elegant solution when it works because it destroys itself.   But either of her solutions took some calculation and attention.  It wasn’t obvious and instrumental like the tractor approach.     

 

It seems a lot of people that want obvious and instrumental solutions for technical or social problems.    I think they’ll just yank and yank and get nowhere (other than to break things).    I’ll excuse myself because I was 12.  

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Frank Wimberly
Sent: Tuesday, October 18, 2016 11:08 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Disruptor

 

As a person whose 4 year old grandson lives with us I can say that it may be easy to make babies but it's not easy to raise them.

Frank

Frank Wimberly
Phone [phone]

 

On Oct 18, 2016 11:01 AM, "Marcus Daniels" <[hidden email]> wrote:

Or corrected.   I don't want to go to the hospital and get a different loved-one.   I want the cancer cured, the organ replaced, or whatever.    It's harder to do that than make more babies.

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of ?glen?
Sent: Tuesday, October 18, 2016 10:54 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Disruptor

It seems to me that new usage patterns always evolve out of old usage patterns.  If that's true, then the old way isn't destroyed, but repurposed, adapted, abused, and evolved.

On 10/18/2016 09:48 AM, Merle Lefkoff wrote:
> I read recently that it was economist Joseph Schumpeter who observed
> that originality is an act of creative destruction.  We have to
> demolish the old way of doing things when we advocate for new systems.
> As someone who applies complexity to changing public policy, I feel I
> have no other choice.


--
␦glen?

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[gepr]

Yes.  But corrected implies some sort of coherent controller-controlled separation and relation.  When the feed-back and -forward relations get too numerous and intertwined, the concept of "correction" dissolves.  For example, when the cure fundamentally modifies the patient so that they're a very different person afterwards, that's not a correction so much as an evolution.

I can testify anecdotally that my therapy changed me in fundamental ways, some good, most bad.  Even if the scans continue to fail in finding lesions, it's debatable whether this particular intervention was a "cure," which implies "return to normal", versus a de- followed by a re-construction.


On 10/18/2016 10:00 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:

> Or corrected.   I don't want to go to the hospital and get a different loved-one.   I want the cancer cured, the organ replaced, or whatever.    It's harder to do that than make more babies.  
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of ?glen?
> Sent: Tuesday, October 18, 2016 10:54 AM
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Disruptor
>
> It seems to me that new usage patterns always evolve out of old usage patterns.  If that's true, then the old way isn't destroyed, but repurposed, adapted, abused, and evolved.
>
> On 10/18/2016 09:48 AM, Merle Lefkoff wrote:
>> I read recently that it was economist Joseph Schumpeter who observed
>> that originality is an act of creative destruction.  We have to
>> demolish the old way of doing things when we advocate for new systems.  
>> As someone who applies complexity to changing public policy, I feel I
>> have no other choice.

--
␦glen?

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[Marcus G. Daniels]

"But corrected implies some sort of coherent controller-controlled separation and relation.  "

Maybe instead of a doctor, a talented mechanic that can hone in on faulty spring or loose screw that creates a hard to reproduce rattle.   I want the gal that has those kind skills fixing my car (or designing one), not some idiot that says it is a disaster of a car and I should sue the automaker.    

I claim it is better if an entity that introduces a disruptive technology understands exactly why it is better, in a deep technical way, more so than a fetish for some shiny object or as a distraction and relief from their own ignorance.   Maybe at the end of the day the automaker should be sued.   (Maybe the foreign power or non-state actor should be blown to oblivion.  Maybe the universal health care plan should be torn to ribbons, etc. )   Or maybe just a 5 cent spring needs replacement.

Marcus
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[gepr]

Yes, particularly for artificial systems, the separation/linearity can be relatively clear.  I suppose it boils down to whether or not a mechanic is capable of appropriate intervention with a non-mechanical[*] system?

But, ultimately, I gel with your gist.  Even if a mechanic fails to _know_ for certain why an intervention should or should not lead to a planned outcome, we can at least hope for one who _tries_ to circumscribe the space of possible outcomes and estimate the uncertainty involved (even if based largely on heuristics built up through deep and long experience).  That's especially true when the only viable competing interventionist exhibits complete ignorance of the current system.


[*] This mailing list should be populated by people who understand the constellation of issues surrounding the concept of a mechanism.

On 10/18/2016 11:08 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> "But corrected implies some sort of coherent controller-controlled separation and relation.  "
>
> Maybe instead of a doctor, a talented mechanic that can hone in on faulty spring or loose screw that creates a hard to reproduce rattle.   I want the gal that has those kind skills fixing my car (or designing one), not some idiot that says it is a disaster of a car and I should sue the automaker.    
>
> I claim it is better if an entity that introduces a disruptive technology understands exactly why it is better, in a deep technical way, more so than a fetish for some shiny object or as a distraction and relief from their own ignorance.   Maybe at the end of the day the automaker should be sued.   (Maybe the foreign power or non-state actor should be blown to oblivion.  Maybe the universal health care plan should be torn to ribbons, etc. )   Or maybe just a 5 cent spring needs replacement.


--
␦glen?

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