The meaning of disruption according to James William
If there’s one word that’s been repeated by the tech circles until everyone gets sick of it, and then repeated some more, the word is disruption. For a time, that word packed a lot of significance, standing for a principle, a method, the desired outcome, a practice, and something every tech business wanted to lay a claim of having done to the world.
In truth, however, there are many tech businesses that, even though were hailed as big disruptors, haven’t disrupted anything. Uber didn’t invent the taxi, it just took it online. Skype, on the other hand, took phone calls online but made them free, and added video and text chat to them, creating a bigger disruptive innovation than Uber.
“Disruption is a kind of an idea that’s probably been mythologized by the likes of Facebook with their [former] motto about moving fast and breaking stuff,” explains James William, a successful tech entrepreneur and founder of TripleOne. “Still, many people don’t exactly know what disruption is, let alone how to disrupt and innovate while avoiding sinking an entire industry.” Breaking things has its consequences.
The Disruptive Innovation of TripleOne
TripleOne is James William’s brainchild, a tech company that employs the principle of a decentralized company. In TripleOne, decision-making is spread out among the people who are a part of a project, a company created under the TripleOne umbrella. This type of model fosters participation and provides a clear incentive as people are rewarded for their input.
Just how disruptive James William’s project will end up being has yet to be seen. The idea, however, shows a lot of promise. “I’m not sure whether the company will end up disrupting any single industry,” says James, “because we are aiming to disrupt the way business is done in general. But the energy is there, we want to innovate the way into an improved business environment that does more than just steal the market from others.”
Demystifying Disruption
People often think that disruption is something that happens overnight. Nothing could be further from the truth. Some of the biggest disruptors that operate today took a lot of time to develop fully. The reason for the slow pace of disruption is that markets require time to change. That’s not something that happens overnight.
Another fairly common misconception about disruption is that people can see it as it happens. Just like it can become incredibly slow, disruption can also happen under the radar, slowly creating changes that become obvious only after they’ve occurred.
“Because disruption is such a hyped word, people want to be on the know and see it happen,” explains James William. “If only they knew that a lot of the time, the things that disrupt and innovate are only interesting to the people who are very into them.” Disruption can also be a little boring, at least to the general public and those who are more interested in seeing the end effect and not the whole journey.
Finally, for the people who invest in it, every potentially disruptive endeavor is a huge gamble. There are rarely any guarantees in the business world, but the few there are don’t apply when looking for novel ways to do things. In those cases, it’s the entrepreneur who has to shoulder the loss or reap the rewards.
ADVT.
