How could use Disruptive Innovation to advance your thinking and your career?

A really nice blog from Jeff Shuey

Jeff is an expert in the Enterprise Content Management industry. He brings over 20 years of Channel Sales, Partner Marketing and Alliance expertise to audiences around the world in speaking engagements and via his writing. 

He has worked for Microsoft, Kodak, K2 and Gimmal. Follow him on Twitter @jshuey or on LinkedIn: in/JeffShuey

The blog is all about how could use Disruptive Innovation to advance your thinking and your career?

It's quite funny as without realising it - I have been doing this for years. Now it has a name - I will double my efforts by doing it consciously, see below ... 

"First, let’s think about what Disruptive Innovation (otherwise known as DI) means.

A disruptive innovation is an innovation that helps create a newmarket and value network ~via Wikipedia

Using DI thinking can certainly impact long held business models. A few business that have been impacted by Disruptive Innovations are listed below and followed by some of the businesses that stepped in to replace them.

• Tower Records –> Napster (now Pandora, Spotify, iTunes and many others)
• Blockbuster –> Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc.
• Travel Agents / Agencies –> Expedia, Kayak, et al

In the first example the original disruptive innovator, Napster, has already been DI’d by new entrants. Which only proves the point that DI thinking is an effort that never ends. Very much like your career. You need to constantly be on the lookout for a different way to do something.

You could argue that Uber - the DI of the taxi industry is going to be DI'ed by Justaxi - the Manchester cheeky up start / start up. 

However, the same principles can be applied to your Career Development. For example:

• In education: Instead of 4 years for university –> Consider MOOC’s.
• (Which is what I did to learn about gamifaction with University of Penn) 
• Instead of climbing the corporate ladder –> Create your own ladder
• (Which is what I am going to do with my own mobile games company) 
• In lieu of solving the same old problems –> Develop new ways of thinking that focus on higher value customer needs
• (Again my plan for mobile games - that can become gifts for people....) 

First, seek to understand the business you are really in. Make no mistake… a career is a business. It’s the most important business you will ever invest your time and energy into and you’ll be doing it for a long time. So, make the most of it.

To understand your business and to think a little more sideways you should start by asking different questions, experimenting with new models, and looking for different ways to add value in ways that have not been considered.

For example, if you went to school to become an engineer:

• What are you actually creating?
• What benefit are you really delivering?
• Are there different ways you can deliver value to the customer?

These same questions can be applied to almost any career. Whether you studied accounting, drama or zoology.

Seek to Out Innovate Yourself

This may seem like an oxymoron, but when you think about it you need stay ahead of the competition. Where the competition is not necessarily the person in the cube next to you. The competition is yourself. 

You want to do more tomorrow. But, you don’t always need to work longer hours. The old cliché is true here… you want to Work Smarter, Not Harder. When you do your ability to brand yourself as an innovator will be preceded by your ability to think differently, ask tough questions and deliver stellar results."

Wise words Jeff - which is why I popped then up here...