{"id":3175,"date":"2016-08-30T08:41:48","date_gmt":"2016-08-30T07:41:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/open-organization.com\/?p=3175"},"modified":"2016-08-30T08:41:48","modified_gmt":"2016-08-30T07:41:48","slug":"three-meanings-of-the-word-disruption","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/open-organization.com\/en\/2016\/08\/30\/three-meanings-of-the-word-disruption\/","title":{"rendered":"Three meanings of the word ‘disruption'"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The word “disruption” gets thrown around a whole lot these days, including on this blog. A good word-throw requires a good grip on the meanings of a word, a bit like in wrestling. In the case of “disruption”, three plausible meanings\u00a0emerge from the semantic\u00a0chaos:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Disruption as the innovator’s dilemma (Clayton Christensen)<\/li>\n
  2. Disruption as digital scorched earth strategy (Bruce Sterling)<\/li>\n
  3. Disruption as a misguiding buzzword (Peter Thiel)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    1. The innovator’s dilemma<\/h3>\n

    Christensen wrote a series of books based on the idea that what explains the sudden death of healthy companies is the difficulty for established companies to switch to new product technologies.\u00a0Customer-orientation is useless when the problem is to avoid being blindsided by technologies that at first don’t seem to pose a threat.\u00a0Indeed, products offered by disruptive competitors tend at first to offer lower performance. Think early digital cameras vs. Kodak<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    Corporate cultures may compound this difficulty, to the point that a switch\u00a0becomes impossible.<\/p>\n

    2. Wrangling<\/h3>\n

    In his 2014 short essay\u00a0The Epic Struggle of the Internet of Things<\/em>, Bruce Sterling focused on an aspect of disruption most readily observed in the behavior of GAFA:\u00a0\u201cThe classic wrangle\u00a0is to give away, to bestow, in a lordly fashion, what the other guy most prizes in life.\u201d This is disruptive both to established and new businesses. If a GAFA gives away a “free” GPS map service, it makes it that much harder for geolocation businesses to make money from paying customers.<\/p>\n

    3. Don’t disrupt<\/h3>\n

    This is Peter Thiel’s advice. Here is a quote\u00a0on the matter taken from his\u00a0Zero to One\u00a0<\/em>book:<\/p>\n

    “Silicon Valley has become obsessed with \u201cdisruption.\u201d Originally, \u201cdisruption\u201d was a term of art to describe how a firm can use new technology to introduce a low-end product at low prices, improve the product over time, and eventually overtake even the premium products offered by incumbent companies using older technology. This is roughly what happened when the advent of PCs disrupted the market for mainframe computers: at first PCs seemed irrelevant, then they became dominant. Today mobile devices may be doing the same thing to PCs.<\/p>\n

    However, disruption has recently transmogrified into a self-congratulatory buzzword for anything posing as trendy and new. This seemingly trivial fad matters because it distorts an entrepreneur\u2019s self-understanding in an inherently competitive way. The concept was coined to describe threats to incumbent companies, so startups\u2019 obsession with disruption means they see themselves through older firms\u2019 eyes. If you think of yourself as an insurgent battling dark forces, it\u2019s easy to become unduly fixated on the obstacles in your path. But if you truly want to make something new, the act of creation is far more important than the old industries that might not like what you create. Indeed, if your company can be summed up by its opposition to already existing firms, it can\u2019t be completely new and it\u2019s probably not going to become a monopoly.”<\/p>\n

    Note that the\u00a0first paragraph refers of course to Christensen’s analysis, and that in Thiel’s framework, becoming a monopoly is the fundamental business goal for a startup.<\/p>\n

    *<\/p>\n

    In all three cases, disruption implies the destruction of economic value: healthy businesses disappearing ; new businesses prevented from making money ; and competition destroying the value that would otherwise be captured by a monopoly.\u00a0Thus it seems legitimate to consider that, to some extent, “disruption” is essentially another way of saying “creative destruction.”<\/p>\n

    The only form of innovation that isn’t disruptive is incremental innovation. Breakthrough innovation is necessarily disruptive for competitors. This is generally not mentioned, but only because the point is fairly obvious.\u00a0Substitution is often the only way to overcome stagnation.<\/p>\n

    [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_post_nav _builder_version=”3.14″ prev_text=”Previous article” next_text=”Next article” in_same_term=”on” background_color=”#3d59a1″ title_font=”|800|||||||” title_text_color=”#ffffff” title_font_size=”15px” custom_padding=”10px|10px|10px|10px” border_radii=”on|5px|5px|5px|5px” border_width_all=”1px” border_color_all=”#3d59a1″ saved_tabs=”all” custom_margin=”30px|||” global_module=”8506″ \/][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    \n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/div>
    \n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/div> The word “disruption” gets thrown around a whole lot these days, including on this blog. A good word-throw requires a good grip on the meanings of a word, a bit like in wrestling. In the case of “disruption”, three plausible meanings\u00a0emerge from the semantic\u00a0chaos: Disruption as the innovator’s dilemma (Clayton Christensen) Disruption as digital […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":3196,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"

    Le mot \u00abdisruption\u00bb est utilis\u00e9, jet\u00e9 \u00e0 tout va en ce moment, y compris sur ce blog. Trois significations plausibles \u00e9mergent du chaos s\u00e9mantique:<\/p>

    1. La disruption comme dilemme de l'innovateur (Clayton Christensen)<\/li>
    2. La disruption comme strat\u00e9gie de la terre br\u00fbl\u00e9e dans le num\u00e9rique (Bruce Sterling)<\/li>
    3. La disruption comme un mot \u00e0 la mode d\u00e9voy\u00e9 (Peter Thiel)<\/li><\/ol>
      1. Le dilemme de l'innovateur<\/strong><\/li><\/ol>

        Christensen a \u00e9crit une s\u00e9rie de livres bas\u00e9s sur l'id\u00e9e que la difficult\u00e9 les entreprises \u00e9tablies \u00e0 passer aux nouvelles technologies de produits explique la mort soudaine de soci\u00e9t\u00e9s en bonne sant\u00e9. Se baser sur le client est inutile lorsqu\u2019il s\u2019agit d'\u00e9viter d'\u00eatre aveugl\u00e9s par des technologies qui, au premier abord, ne semblent pas constituer une menace. En effet, les produits offerts par des concurrents perturbateurs ont tendance au d\u00e9but \u00e0 offrir des performances moindres. Pensez aux appareils photo num\u00e9riques pr\u00e9coces face \u00e0 Kodak.<\/a><\/p>

        Les cultures d'entreprise peuvent aggraver cette difficult\u00e9, au point que le passage devient impossible.<\/p>

        1. La bataille<\/strong><\/li><\/ol>

          Dans son essai The Epic Struggle of the Internet of Things<\/em>, paru en 2014, Bruce Sterling se concentre sur un aspect de la disruption\u00a0observable chez les GAFA: \u00abLa bataille classique est de donner, d\u2019accorder, de mani\u00e8re seigneuriale, ce que les autres valorisent le plus.\u00a0\u00bb C'est autant disruptif pour les entreprises \u00e9tablies et que les nouvelles. Si un GAFA fournit un service de cartographie GPS \u00abgratuit\u00bb, c\u2019est tr\u00e8s difficile pour les entreprises de g\u00e9olocalisation de gagner de l\u2019argent en faisant payer les consommateurs.<\/p>

          1. Ne pas perturber<\/strong><\/li><\/ol>

            Tel est le conseil de Peter Thiel. Voici une citation sur la question tir\u00e9e de son livre Zero to One<\/em> :<\/p>

            \u00ab\u00a0 La Silicon Valley est devenu obs\u00e9d\u00e9e par la \u00abdisruption \u00bb. A l'origine,\u00ab disruption \u00bb \u00e9tait un terme technique utilis\u00e9 pour d\u00e9crire comment une entreprise peut utiliser les nouvelles technologies pour introduire un produit bas de gamme \u00e0 bas prix, am\u00e9liorer le produit au fil du temps, et \u00e9ventuellement d\u00e9passer les produits haut de gamme offerts par les entreprises \u00e9tablies qui utilisent l\u2019ancienne technologie. C\u2019est \u00e0 peu pr\u00e8s ce qui est arriv\u00e9 quand l'av\u00e8nement des PC a disrupt\u00e9 le march\u00e9 des ordinateurs avec unit\u00e9 centrale : le premier PC ne semblait pas pertinent, il est devenu dominant. Les appareils mobiles aujourd'hui auront peut-\u00eatre le m\u00eame effet sur les PC.<\/p>

            \u00a0<\/p>

            Cependant, disruption<\/i>\u00a0s\u2019est r\u00e9cemment m\u00e9tamorphos\u00e9 en un mot charg\u00e9 d\u2019autosatisfaction pour tout ce qui se veut branch\u00e9 et nouveau. Cet engouement apparemment b\u00e9nin est important puisqu\u2019il fausse la compr\u00e9hension de soi d'un entrepreneur dans un sens intrins\u00e8quement comp\u00e9titif. Le concept a \u00e9t\u00e9 invent\u00e9 pour d\u00e9crire les menaces pesant sur les entreprises \u00e9tablies, de sorte que l'obsession des start-ups pour la \u00ab disruption<\/i>\u00bb signifie qu'elles se voient \u00e0 travers les yeux de ces entreprises plus anciennes. Si vous vous pensez comme un insurg\u00e9 luttant contre les forces obscures, il est facile de devenir excessivement obs\u00e9d\u00e9 par les obstacles qui pavent votre chemin.<\/p>

            Mais si vous voulez vraiment faire quelque chose de nouveau, l'acte de cr\u00e9ation est beaucoup plus important que les anciennes industries qui pourraient ne pas aimer votre cr\u00e9ation. En effet, si votre entreprise peut \u00eatre r\u00e9sum\u00e9e par son opposition \u00e0 des entreprises d\u00e9j\u00e0 existantes, elle ne peut pas \u00eatre compl\u00e8tement nouvelle et elle ne deviendra probablement pas un monopole.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>

            \u00a0<\/p>

            Notez que le premier alin\u00e9a fait \u00e9videmment r\u00e9f\u00e9rence \u00e0 l'analyse de Christensen, et que dans le cadre de Thiel, devenir un monopole est l'objectif premier d\u2019une startup.<\/p>

            *<\/p>

            Dans ces trois cas, la perturbation implique la destruction de la valeur \u00e9conomique: les entreprises en bonne sant\u00e9 disparaissent ; \u00a0de nouvelles entreprises sont emp\u00each\u00e9es de\u00a0gagner de l\u2019argent ; la concurrence d\u00e9truit la valeur qui sinon serait captur\u00e9e par un monopole. Il semble donc l\u00e9gitime de consid\u00e9rer que, dans une certaine mesure, la \u00abdisruption<\/i>\u00bb est essentiellement un autre mot pour \u00abdestruction cr\u00e9atrice\u00bb.<\/p>

            La seule forme d'innovation qui ne soit pas \u00ab disruptive \u00bb, c\u2019est l'innovation incr\u00e9mentale. L'innovation de rupture est n\u00e9cessairement perturbatrice pour les concurrents. Ce n\u2019est g\u00e9n\u00e9ralement pas mentionn\u00e9 puisque c\u2019est un aspect assez \u00e9vident. La substitution est souvent le seul moyen de surmonter la stagnation.<\/p>","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[217,301,366,472,1284,1491],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/open-organization.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3175"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/open-organization.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/open-organization.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/open-organization.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/open-organization.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/open-organization.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3175\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/open-organization.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/open-organization.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/open-organization.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/open-organization.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}