I’m feeling very late to the party. A colleague sent a recent article by Judith Shulevitz in The New Republic, which apparently echoed a post by Andy Rachleff on the Web site TechCrunch, both on the term disruptive. Last I heard, disruptive described my son’s behavior when he ate too many brownies at the Scout Jamboree. Back then, disruptive behavior was a tendency to be tamed or channeled. Now it’s a theory, a strategy, a goal. Not to mention an approach that academics need to be aware of, since, as Shulevitz points out, “Disruption, well, disrupts—not just ‘the status quo,’ but people’s lives.”
Let me see if I can wrap my head around the positive spin on disruption. In business, you invent a product and then go on to improve, update, and streamline it so you can keep selling new and more expensive gizmos even to those who bought your gizmo in the first place. Then …