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A disruptive technology or disruptive innovation is an innovation that helps create a new market and value network, and eventually goes on to disrupt an existing market and value network. 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. Although the term disruptive technology is widely used, disruptive innovation seems a more appropriate term in many contexts since few technologies are intrinsically disruptive; rather, it is the business model that the technology enables that creates the disruptive impact.

In the first of his lectures for Saïd Business School, Clayton Christensen explains his theory of disruption, drawing on examples of innovations occurring in the steel industry and from leading companies such as Toyota, Sony, Walmart and Indian refrigerator manufacturer, Godrej. Christensen explores how the theory can explain why the economies of America, England and Japan have stagnated. He also uses the theory to analyse how economies in Asia have achieved prosperity and to examine why countries such as Mexico are not experiencing economic growth.

What interests me is how the lessons found in the article could be applied to real world community governance in relation to the public sector. Such communities are already in existence so cannot be created outside of the box to start with, however many of the other observations can be applied especially with the use of the Internet and application of direct democratic dialogue. It should be possible to create some new disruptive innovations which such an approach and resources to create some new community paradigms.

OUR PHILOSOPHY IS UNIQUE in the consulting industry. We were founded by Clayton Christensen, professor and author of the best-selling books The Innovator's Dilemma and The Innovator's Solution, but we are not a typical "guru" firm. We have developed a series of market-tested tools and techniques that enable growth through innovation, but we are not a "black box." We deliver compelling workshops and speeches, but we are not "trainers."

In the second of his lectures for Saïd Business School, Clayton Christensen gives an insight into the 'panda's thumbs' of management thinking- dated practices that hinder management decision-making and the profitability of companies. He gives the examples of managers focusing too heavily on gross margins rather than net profit and refusing to reduce their production costs as a way of avoiding disruption by smaller companies. He then gives an insight his Job to be Done theory.

Capitalists seem almost uninterested in capitalism, even as entrepreneurs eager to start companies find that they can't get financing. Businesses and investors sound like the Ancient Mariner, who complained of "Water, water everywhere - nor any drop to drink." It's a paradox, and at its nexus is what I'll call the Doctrine of New Finance, which is taught with increasingly religious zeal by economists, and at times even by business professors like me who have failed to challenge it. This doctrine embraces measures of profitability that guide capitalists away from investments that can create real economic growth.

We live in a world relentlessly pushed forward by the velocity, volatility, uncertainty, disruption, and disequilibrium of constant change.  As the pace of change accelerates, so does the shelf-life of our strategies, processes, frameworks, and systems.  The rapidity of change now requires an expanding and continuously evolving breadth and depth to our repertoire of problem-solving strategies and leadership skill-sets.  Yet, even in the face of this rapidity of change and the disequilibrium it creates, too often, we find ourselves as individuals and organizations siloed in and dedicated to only one way of doing and working.  

In his third lecture for Saïd Business School, Clayton Christensen looks at the process of research and explores the complexities involved in developing a theory. He draws particular attention to the importance of finding anomalies in research and the potential of anomalies to shed light and give greater insight into phenomena.

The adjacent possible is a kind of shadow future, hovering on the edges of the present state of things, a map of all the ways in which the present can reinvent itself…

Americans know that government is broken. But Washington insiders will never fix it. Bureaucracy is their safe nest. They won't let the new president fix it either. That's why we must join together to demand a historic overhaul. The solutions are relatively easy- remaking government into simple frameworks that allow people to take charge again. What's hard is overthrowing the Washington status quo. It will only happen with your help...

We are one of eleven strategic partners of the ABCD Institute, and the lead partner in Europe. We have worked as ABCD social explorers, trainers, mentors, facilitators, researchers and consultants with change partners and disruptive innovators around the world. These include Communities, Charities, NGOs/NPOs, Faith-based organisations, Think Tanks; local and national Governments in over 30 countries.

We are one of eleven strategic partners of the ABCD Institute, and the lead partner in Europe. We have worked as ABCD social explorers, trainers, mentors, facilitators, researchers and consultants with change partners and disruptive innovators around the world. These include Communities, Charities, NGOs/NPOs, Faith-based organisations, Think Tanks; local and national Governments in over 30 countries. Our ambition is to support the proliferation of inclusive, bottom up, community driven change. We aim to achieve this by supporting local communities and supportive mediating/civic organisations to create the conditions where any neighbourhood can identify, connect and mobilise its assets to the benefit of the whole community.