DISRUPTIVE TECHNOLOGIES could be coming for your job



As I have been watching Bloomberg LP, for the past few months there have been a lot of talk of disruption.  I think they held an entire conference or seminar on it.  The odd thing was that they kept using the word disruption as if it meant something GOOD.  So I thought I would do some research on disruption to understand how it meshes with something good.  For me, disruption means a break or creating a new way of doing things. 

The buzz word is actually disruptive innovation which has evolved from disruptive technology.  Disruptive is to break apart or rupture, to throw into disorder.  Or to be more specific, disruption is to interrupt the normal course.  And innovation is to introduce something new, either an idea or method or device.  So as you can guess, disruptive innovation is new technologies which will interrupt the old way of doing things for a completely new way.  For instance: the eight track is gone and we have I-tunes.  Your floppy drive is gone (or at least sitting in a box) and you use a flash drive. 

The difference between disruptive innovation (technology) and sustainable innovation is the later is static or on its way out.  Sustaining innovation doesn't create new markets but disruptive innovations does.  Here is a chart to easily show the difference:
                             

Sustaining:

An innovation that does not affect existing markets.

Evolutionary:

An innovation that improves a product in an existing market in ways that customers are expecting.

Revolutionary: (discontinuous, radical)

An innovation that is unexpected, but nevertheless does not affect existing markets.

Disruptive

An innovation that creates a new market by applying a different set of values, which ultimately (and unexpectedly) overtakes an existing market.

In many ways we all have purchased a disruptive innovation (technology) such as our mobile phones.  It is disruptive in that the mobile phone is replacing the landline.  And many of the apps on your cell phone will replace the brick and mortal stores.  (Sears is in trouble, JC Penney is in trouble..)  Another example is the e-books that everyone is buying for their Kindle or tablet.  (Libraries are beginning to go digital, bookstores are disappearing and tablets are on their way to replacing the PC).  There are many, many, many more disruptive innovations (technologies) that are well on their way to being the new revolutionary, must have "thing or device." 

So what is the big deal.  We like most of the disruptive innovations.  While these new devices are awesome and time saving they are continually causing us to spend and spend to get the new stuff and throw away our old stuff.  So we keep the wheel of the market ever turning which again is good, I guess.  Our economy counts on us spending to stay afloat.  So new, disruptive technologies and innovations fills the bill.  And another plus for the market is that not only do we pay for all the new devices but we usually have a monthly fee as well. 

But there may be some very large drawbacks to this disruptive innovation in that it is now coming after your jobs.  "Jobs such as factory and warehouse workers, paralegals, payroll administrators, office assistants and retail salespeople are but a few of the repetitive jobs that developers can write code for." 

But that's not all.  No, disruptive innovation, (as they like to call it) is also coming after upper-middle class jobs that require more thinking, reasoning, or remembering.  Through cloud technology many of the most skilled employees in sales, marketing and HR will slowly fad away.  All this will eventually affect many other aspects such as the University that students spend 4 years and a lot of dollars to get educations to get these jobs. 

So let me see if I have this...disruptive innovation will throw my life into disorder due to the introduction of new technology that can do my job instead of me.  Uhmm!  Then how will I have the money to buy the next, latest and best disruptive technology?