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enablors vs disruptors

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Nick Thompson

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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Prof David West

Re: enablors vs disruptors

Imagine a scale of "technology goodness" that runs from Preserve-Status-Quo thru Exploit-Status-Quo thru Enhance-Status-Quo thru Variation-of-Status-Quo thru Alternative-to-Status-Quo thru Disrupt-Status-Quo to Transform-Whole-System.

Now use that scale as a horizontal axis and add a vertical axis labeled number-of-potential-customers. The result will be a inverted bell curve with the maximum number of customers at Exploit-Status-Quo and Disrupt-Status-Quo.

The first maxima results from the inherent conservatism of most people. The second results when a tipping point is passed (all my friends have IPhones, I must have one as well) and the masses do their lemming leap.

Add to the mix the kind of "ultra-liberal technological determinism," pervasive in silicon valley et.al. — if only we had matter converters and holodecks we would live in an egalitarian non-racist world without money or war — and you get technology companies asserting that they are not only disruptive, but the foundation for a massive transformation of everything evil into something that is good.

If a company can sell itself as 'disruptive' it enhances the probability of the occurrence of a tipping point and the resulting massive customer base. Unfortunately, few of these technologies will ever be a foundation for any real transformation because tech is far from all that is required to bring such about.

BTW — The sole reason that I am attracted to The Donald is my conviction that he would be disruptive but have no control over the potential transformation that might — emphasize might — result. (Also, I would be satisfied with a disruption that enhanced the paralysis of government, and slowed the liberal autocracy from complete and total assumption of control over every aspect of life.)

davew

On Mon, Oct 17, 2016, at 12:18 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:

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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FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv

Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College

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Robert Wall

Re: enablors vs disruptors

In reply to this post by Nick Thompson

Hi Nick,

I think this fellow would agree with you: Technology: Enabler versus Disruptor.

It is not the business model that is necessarily disrupted, but the way that the model is executed through the use of emerging or existing technological innovations: a better "mousetrap" so to speak What gets disrupted is the market share profile; what occurs then is sometimes call a "shakeout." The computer shakeouts of the '80s come to mind for me, especially with the advent of the personal computer ... and now the shrinking and even wearable mobile computing platforms.

But, you are rights in saying that the new competing execution strategies for identical business models are enabled by newer, more clever technology integrations that can disrupt existing market shares in those markets.

So it is not enablers versus disrupters; it is more that enablers [i.e., the better mousetrap] enable disruption, which is what I think you are saying.

Well, that's my $0.02 anyway. 🤐

On Mon, Oct 17, 2016 at 12:18 PM, Nick Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:

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
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David Eric Smith

Re: enablors vs disruptors

In reply to this post by Nick Thompson

This feels to me like our current-generation’s endorsement of essentially what Schumpeter termed (+/- my usual mistakes in transcription) “gales of creative destruction”.

My more conservative farmer friends in Kentucky and Illinois regard Schumpeter as The Devil, delighting in the hardship of others from which the profiteers can make a living. Many of the complexity economists I know think of this destruction as not only real but in many cases salutary.

Best to all,
Eric

> On Oct 17, 2016, at 2:18 PM, Nick Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
>
> 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 20th 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

Marcus G. Daniels

Re: enablors vs disruptors

In reply to this post by Nick Thompson

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,

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

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

Carl Tollander

Re: 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

Marcus G. Daniels

Re: enablors vs disruptors

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

Owen Densmore

Re: enablors vs disruptors

Administrator

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

Marcus G. Daniels

Re: enablors vs disruptors

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

Gillian Densmore

Re: 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

gepr

Re: enablors vs disruptors

Pretty much anything "as in Star Trek" can serve as a metaphor to pretty much anything IRL. So, all you have to do is begin with, "Metaphorically, ..." And we have to allow for all of the incarnations, movies, TNG, DS9, Voyager, etc. We should even count http://www.powells.com/book/physics-of-star-trek-9780465002047/7-2

The world is your oyster!

On 10/17/2016 04:55 PM, Gillian Densmore wrote:
> 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.

--
☣ glen

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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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uǝʃƃ ⊥ glen

Nick Thompson

Re: enablors vs disruptors

In reply to this post by Gillian Densmore

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?

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
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Eric Charles-2

Re: enablors vs disruptors

"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

[hidden email]

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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Prof David West

Re: enablors vs disruptors

In reply to this post by Nick Thompson

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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gepr

Re: enablors vs disruptors

In reply to this post by Nick Thompson

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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uǝʃƃ ⊥ glen

Nick Thompson

Re: enablors vs disruptors

In reply to this post by Prof David West

Hi, everybody,

The response to this thread has been great. I had thought by this point I would have had a lot to say in response to your responses, but you have collectively just about said it all and I am [relatively] speechless.

Thanks very much.

Nick

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 Prof David West
Sent: Tuesday, October 18, 2016 8:47 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] enablors vs disruptors

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 [[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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Steve Smith

Re: enablors vs disruptors

In reply to this post by Carl Tollander

> Well, there's the concrete truck and then there's the jackhammer.
>
if these are the subjects, what are the objects?

A concrete truck enables the paving of the universe but disrupts the
ecosystem while the jackhammer presumably/roughly does just the opposite.

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Marcus G. Daniels

Re: enablors vs disruptors

The concrete truck also facilitates a new ecosystem. The old ecosystem (say, coal mining, humans building mass-produced machines with their hands) won't last much longer anyway. The old ecosystem is like a lake with out-of-control toxic algae growth.

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
Sent: Friday, October 21, 2016 11:55 AM
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.
>
if these are the subjects, what are the objects?

A concrete truck enables the paving of the universe but disrupts the ecosystem while the jackhammer presumably/roughly does just the opposite.

============================================================
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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Robert Wall

Re: enablors vs disruptors

So, perhaps, rather than thinking of enablers and disrupters as alternative predicate adjectives describing new technological innovations brought to market, let's think of the former as the subject of a simple sentence with a prepositional phrase and the latter as the object of the same sentence, such as "The enabler brought disruption to the existing market." This connotes more of a cause and effect relationship between the words; so they are coupled and not opposed as they would be comparing them as separate predicate adjectives.

As it turns out, as far as I can remember, in a market strategy aimed at being disruptive in, say, a start-up seeking venture capital to target and break through certain established barriers to entry set up as defenses against disruption--in a way reminiscent of what the trebuchet brought to existing castle walls in the Middle Ages--the enabler is much more than the technology per se (i.e., the trebuchet) ... as Eric Charles has proffered in his strategy for a non-technology start-up. The enabler must also include the strategy itself--entry and exit--an organization, leadership, a delivery system, ideology and policy development, fundraising, people, closed-loop feedback systems with timely corrective action, etc. Disruption is not guaranteed by just a good technological idea. Successful big businesses--those worth disrupting--most always have built-in defenses against disruptions. Timing is also important to thwart a competent counter attack.

To be sure, disruption--that is, market share usurpation--can come in various degrees. There's Amazon's "trebuchet" to the brick and mortar businesses ... but there are still many surviving bookstores like Collective Works and Op Cit. So scale or size--like with species surviving an extinction event disruption--is a form of defense like it wasn't when Tower Records got too big to respond to the Amazon or Apple disruptions.

And then there are those "boutique" challenges, like Five Guys, to the seemingly impenetrable hamburger delivery businesses represented by the Big Three. In this case, there is no real new technology at the core, but just a strategy to appeal to a different segment of the market not being addressed well enough to repel a niche-level disruption ... a wood chipper instead of a trebuchet, say.

Like many on this thread have done already, the analysis brought by Nick has been immediately analogized to the current political spectrum with concrete dump trucks and jackhammers even. I like this direction, especially for the 2016 election, which should motivate us all to contemplate how to cause a disruption in the system that has, IMHO, delivered to us the two worst candidates for POTUS in recent memory ... and mine goes back all the way to Eisenhower and Stevenson ... I did like Ike ... even if I was just a kid then traveling with my parents on the nascent interstate highway infrastructure he brought to the transportation marketplace ... disruptive? Ask the Holiday Inns, Howard Johnsons, etc. that replaced the mom and pops.

Electorally, it looks like 2016 is a bust, but can we do anything for 20120? How do we disrupt the market for political leadership? In that respect, I found this article brought to us by The Daily Beast to be quite thought-provoking: "Time To Take a Silicon Valley Hammer To the Two-Party Duopoly (9-10-2016)." Yeah, it could even be a jackhammer. 😊

What the author brings is a reformation of the previous sentence I brought at the start of this post, such as "The Citizens' Party brought disruption to the market for political leadership ." He says,

"Let's disrupt the Democratic and Republican parties the way Uber’s eviscerated the taxi business."

"I want us to come together to build this Citizens’ Party to enable the broad range of Americans who fall under the fat part of the bell curve in our political thinking and attitudes—those of us who find the Democrats’ socialism-fueled platform as repugnant as we find the Republicans’ nativist one—to identify and nurture candidates and raise funds and build organizations that reflect our non-outlier beliefs about how our country should work."

"If we ’re going to disrupt this market for political leadership—the market the two parties collude to control in a way no Justice Department would ever allow in any other context—we’re going to need to bring expertise from the technology, political, policy, legal, communications, and fundraising industries and communities into the swarm and make them all buzz together." 😎

That's much more to bring than just a technology product to enable the disruption. The "castle walls" of the existing Duopoly are nearly seventeen decades old and heavily fortified and those insiders are very good at controlling the existing zeitgeist (i.e., the marketplace of ideas). Moreover, there is no profit motive here, just a better chance a more reliable political leadership delivery system. I dunno, in a way, this can be sold as the averting of another kind of extinction event: a self-made one. Hmmm.

I am not sure that Nick anticipated his thread to be taken in this direction and hope that I haven disrupted his intended train of thought too much. 🤔😊 Cheers.

On Fri, Oct 21, 2016 at 12:11 PM, Marcus Daniels <[hidden email]> wrote:

The concrete truck also facilitates a new ecosystem. The old ecosystem (say, coal mining, humans building mass-produced machines with their hands) won't last much longer anyway. The old ecosystem is like a lake with out-of-control toxic algae growth.

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
Sent: Friday, October 21, 2016 11:55 AM
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.
>
if these are the subjects, what are the objects?

A concrete truck enables the paving of the universe but disrupts the ecosystem while the jackhammer presumably/roughly does just the opposite.

============================================================
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
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Nick Thompson

Re: enablors vs disruptors

Thanks, Robert, for an very interesting and thoughtful contribution to this thread. I sit with Dave West every Friday, so I would have had to be more brain-dead than I actually am not to anticipate that my question might be taken politically. It’s all good. And many of the same issues apply.

One of those issues is the “bring on the comet” vs “feed the dinosaur” argument. To return to my original question, I am still doubtful that an entrepreneur should offer his company up as a comet unless he has a mammal in waiting.

NIck

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 Robert Wall
Sent: Friday, October 21, 2016 4:20 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] enablors vs disruptors

"Let's disrupt the Democratic and Republican parties the way Uber’s eviscerated the taxi business."

"I want us to come together to build this Citizens’ Party to enable the broad range of Americans who fall under the fat part of the bell curve in our political thinking and attitudes—those of us who find the Democrats’ socialism-fueled platform as repugnant as we find the Republicans’ nativist one—to identify and nurture candidates and raise funds and build organizations that reflect our non-outlier beliefs about how our country should work."

"If we ’re going to disrupt this market for political leadership—the market the two parties collude to control in a way no Justice Department would ever allow in any other context—we’re going to need to bring expertise from the technology, political, policy, legal, communications, and fundraising industries and communities into the swarm and make them all buzz together." 😎

I am not sure that Nick anticipated his thread to be taken in this direction and hope that I haven disrupted his intended train of thought too much. 🤔😊 Cheers.

On Fri, Oct 21, 2016 at 12:11 PM, Marcus Daniels <[hidden email]> wrote:

The concrete truck also facilitates a new ecosystem. The old ecosystem (say, coal mining, humans building mass-produced machines with their hands) won't last much longer anyway. The old ecosystem is like a lake with out-of-control toxic algae growth.

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
Sent: Friday, October 21, 2016 11:55 AM
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.
>
if these are the subjects, what are the objects?

A concrete truck enables the paving of the universe but disrupts the ecosystem while the jackhammer presumably/roughly does just the opposite.

============================================================
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