Jennifer Rice: One of my favorite posts over the past two years is titled Blogging and the Singularity. If you’re not familiar with the Singularity, it’s the point when societal, scientific and economic change is so fast we cannot imagine what will happen from our present perspective. The idea is based on the premise that the rate of change is exponential, not linear; the rate of change in the past is a snail’s pace compared to what we’ll see in the next 10, 20, 50 years.
Humans don’t like change. We hunker down in our comfort zones and don’t see change until it hits us over the head… and at that point it’s usually too late. I just finished reading Seeing What’s Next: How Theories of Innovation Predict Industry Change by Clayton Christensen. If you’ve never read anything by Clayton, I encourage you to do so. (He also wrote The Innovator’s Dilemma and The Innovator’s Solution.) His fundamental premise on industry disruption is one that, IMHO, every business person should be familiar with.
How current are you with fundamental consumer and technology trends? With the tenets of the grassroots economy such as co-creation, transparency and customer/employee empowerment? With the opportunities among underserved or unserved customers that cry out for disruptive innovation?
None of us should be in any business but the change business. We must not only keep up with the facts of change, but also (and perhaps more importantly) release our death-grip on the way things are right now. It’s completely futile. Is your business structured for flexibility and change? Are you?
Dan Goldgeier
David Burn
Shawn Hartley
Wade Sturdivant