
Disrupting “Disruption” Rhetoric - slasaus
http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2013/09/disrupting-disruption-rhetoric.html
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enraged_camel
Starting something with the goal of disrupting an existing industry is like
becoming an actor or singer with the goal of making it to the Top 10 charts:
both types of efforts are doomed to fail because they focus on the wrong
thing.

The right thing to focus on would be to try to do the best job possible. A
musician who tries to create the best music possible and to connect with
his/her fans at the deepest level possible is much more likely to actually
become famous. In other words, things like "disruption" and "becoming famous"
are best treated as byproducts, rather than the main goal.

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jjindev
The narrow definition of disruptive technology is probably something like "a
new entrant who through a low cost product, depowers much more established and
high end players." That's a bit different than just trying to be top dog.

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wmf
The "disruption" that people are talking about in Silicon Valley these days is
more similar to the common sense meaning and less similar to Christensen's
concept of "disruptive" innovation. [http://blogs.hbr.org/2013/03/stop-
reinventing-disruption/](http://blogs.hbr.org/2013/03/stop-reinventing-
disruption/)
[http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2013/05/disr...](http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2013/05/disrupting_disruption_a_once_useful_concept_has_become_a_lame_catchphrase.html)

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acjohnson55
I'm just tired of hearing the word "disrupt". It just feels so juvenile and
faux-edgy to me. Just provide be innovative and provide something that
improves people's lives.

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eulerphi
It is juvenile. And it is inherently carnal. A business shouldn't need to
screw with other businesses to be successful. It's much better to have a
business that stands on its own merit rather than one that parasitically
targets other businesses. Disruption is a natural process, not a goal. Making
it a goal just causes impurity in the realm of what the company actually is
vying to do.

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jjindev
Christensen did good descriptive work in his early books. Disruption was a
thing. He tagged it, studied it, and described it. All that was very helpful.
I actually am sympathetic to his later prescriptive works, I think they are
seeking to solve social problems through disruptive change. I think what's
happening in this essay though is that Pasquale sees the effect bound to the
prescriptions, or even some alliance of pundits. That's just not the case. We
can argue suggestions, but disruption will keep happening where we don't
expect it ... because it is a thing.

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mindcrime
Meh... I don't think the problem is focusing on "disruption", and I don't see
that making any attempt to defocus "disrupting" existing power structures is
any sort of improvement. The problem is, it's _fucking hard_ to actually
"disrupt" big, powerful, entrenched structures and institutions! Disrupting
health-care, for example, isn't as simple as, for example, setting up an EMR
site and enabling the ability for people to seamlessly and transparently share
their medical records across providers, etc., etc. You can build all the
Electronic Medical Records tech you want, but that shit is highly regulated,
and their are large, powerful companies with dominant positions in health-
insurance, and health-care providers who have to be onboard for things to
become widely adopted.

And, of course, there's not much competition in the health-care field, largely
due to... wait for it... government regulations.

I posit that our focus should be on making the changes in our society that
would actually _allow_ disruption to occur.

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wmf
It seems like every good idea eventually becomes a buzzword which is used not
as a description but as an aspirational substitute for the activity that it
originally described. If you need to say that you're "disrupting" you probably
aren't.

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hershel
Why does disruption(1) seem not to work in healtcare:

1\. Disruption means offering something with less quality(but good enough).
People are less willing to make those compromises in health care.

2\. Industry players(big businesses, doctors, nurses) have huge amount of
political power, partly because of 1, In an highly regulated industry - this
means disruptors aren't allowed.

3.insurance makes people disregard the costs of treatment, again stopping
disruptors.

If I remember correctly,Clayton Christensen is aware of those issues, and his
first silution(before democrats came to power) was health vouchers.

I think he believed they will enter price competition into the market,
hopefully people will be willing to use disruptive innovations, and maybe with
the potential new money, disruptors will succeed in lobbying and changing the
rules.

That is one solution.

Anyway, if anybody want to lower the costs of medicine, those issues are need
to be dealt with. The author just uses a lot of big words, and says nothing
but blaming vague power structures. Not a very useful article.

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bluekeybox
Given that the author of this article is "Schering-Plough Professor in Health
Care Regulation and Enforcement", it should be obvious why disruption rhetoric
may appear threatening to him.

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brendoncrawford
Are you suggesting that would weaken his argument?

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bluekeybox
Given that the author uses the cui bono argument quite extensively (see, for
example, "unfortunately, the “disruptions” pursued by Silicon Valley giants
... often have little to do with challenging the biggest power centers in
society. And why would they?"), I see no reason why the same logic can't be
applied to his own words.

