Disruptive Innovation and the challenges of technology integration

Disruptive innovation is a buzzword these days.  Wikipedia remarks that:

"A disruptive innovation is an innovation that helps create a new market and value network, and eventually disrupts an existing market and value network (over a few years or decades), displacing an earlier technology. The term is used in business and technology literature to describe innovations that improve a product or service in ways that the market does not expect, typically first by designing for a different set of consumers in a new market and later by lowering prices in the existing market."

The term was originally coined by Clayton Christensen, of Harvard Business School, in his book “The Innovator’s Dilemma”. Christensen used the term to describe innovations that create new markets by discovering new categories of customers. They do this partly by harnessing new technologies but also by developing new business models and exploiting old technologies in new ways.

Disruptive innovation has become a popular buzzword and it's application has widened to include all forms of organisation and social systems.

So what?

In last week's newsletter I reminded schools how far we'd come in a decade. A decade ago we didn't have iPads, iPhones, NBN, DER (or post DER), 1: and BYO(D), Facebook, Youtube, IPTV, 3D Printers, tablets, eBooks or the cloud. A decade ago Kodak, Blockbuster and Borders were all visible brands.

Can you imagine going back to 2005 and trying to explain to your colleagues what changes are ahead of them?

If we look at some of the top ten disruptive innovations of the last hundred years, odds are most of them occurred in the last decade.

And the rate of change is not showing any signs of slowing. Self-driving vehicles will change how we transport ourselves in ways that we cannot possibly imagine. Drones will no longer bring death and invasions of privacy, but goods and services. Meanwhile augmented reality will entirely reshape the way we see and interact with our work.

Yet here is the kicker which every educational presenter worth their salt will tell you for a princely sum and transport expenses ... WHAT THE HECK ARE WE GONNA DO ABOUT IT?

How do we prepare students for a future world when the scope of our vision has been trimmed by accelerating innovation and change to a point where we are unable to even envision society a decade ago?

I am currently writing a position paper on technology integration which reviews the past, present and possible future.

I've suddenly got writers block!

I'd love to hear about the disruptive innovations that you know are right around the corner. Add your suggestions to the comments below.