You can't get there from here -- a phrase that helps define disruption

By Tom Foremski - January 29, 2006

By Tom Foremski for SiliconValleyWatcher

CantGetThere.jpgI love this American saying, "You can't get there from here," I'm told it comes from Maine. It seems to make no sense but when you need to use it--it makes perfect sense.

I find myself thinking of the phrase more and more these days. It's because I see companies and people defending dying business models because they are still profitable. And because the new business models are not yet formed.

That means an organization can't jump to the new business models because it doesn't recognize that there is a big change happening in its industry; or it can see it happening but cannot jump to the new business models because the new cannot support the old cost structures.

For example, that's what I see happening in the PR industry, which sees itself carrying on business as usual and defending its traditional methods of PR, with no threat to its business from new communications methods such as blogging.

While in the media sector, media companies can see the writing on the wall but they cannot jump over to become new media companies. Because the new media business models are too flimsy to support the old cost structures.

In both cases, "You can't get there from here." You have to be a new company you have to be a new rules company.

Is internet a disruptive technology?

"You can't get there from here," also helps to define a "disruptive technology." I define a disruptive technology as something which companies do not see coming, when they see it they pooh pooh it, then they grudgingly accept it, then they can't do anything about it.

A disruptive technology is like seeing the car crash in slow motion, it is seeing the train wreck happening right in front of you--and you can't get out of the way.

PC was disruptive


That's what the PC did to the minicomputer and mainframe companies of the East Coast. They laughed at the PC, then when the train wreck started they couldn't get out of the way, yet they could see it coming.

It took down all those minicomputer companies etc, and it nearly took down IBM forcing it to reinvent itself as a services company.

Now that's a disruptive technology! Don't you think that the internet is a disruptive technology? It's a very powerful technology, more powerful than the PC. But where is the disruption?

All the tech companies that made it through the PC revolution are pretty much still there. The disruption is in the media sector--the internet is a publishing technology.

Now, with blogging, we've connected up the other end of the internet. Now, you can publish to any device with a web browser. Now, any device with a web browser can publish back.

This is why this really is a new internet and this is why there will be lots of disruption of media companies.

Oh, and by the way: every company today is a media company to some degree. Because every company publishes and tells stories, to itself, to its customers, to its community, to its new hires. An organization is not much more than its stories--that's the content. (And you can think of business processes as stories too.)

And those stories had better be good, truthful stories, and they had better be compelling stories. That's the new media--that's the new communications.

If you've understood this post, and I've helped you see the internet in a new way, then you are now six to nine months months ahead of the game--and you owe me at least a dinner :-)


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By Tom Foremski - January 29, 2006 | Permalink | Comment | Category: new rules
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Comments (6)

Hari:

Tom,

I feel Blogging was there even during Internet 1.0 too, only the name was not there, i used to see lot of mycity.com's and new.com's popping up everywhere, yes the technology was premature. I was involved in one such dot.com of my own, i am sure blogging has been made easy with the new software. But i feel the content always wins, I am a regular visitor of your website and I feel it is a great way to start the day, so slowly you replacing my morning news paper in a way, and I can see what you mean by disruptive technology in that context.

Posted: January 29, 2006 8:46 PM

Tom Foremski - Silicon Valley Watcher [TypeKey Profile Page]:

Thanks for your kind words about SVW. I try to provide original thinking and ideas and when I can't I don't :-)

Blogging, however, is more than just about content. It is content on steroids. It is content that is live and that carries its own communications within it (links, comments and trackbacks.) It really is a new media, it is something which could not be done with the old media. And that's what makes it fun and that's what provides opportunities to create new types of media preoducts/services.

Posted: January 30, 2006 2:34 AM

Tim Bee:

You haven't earnt your dinner that easily - I get how the media is affected, being amidst that change myself. But how are other companies' processes affected by the read/write web? you can't trackback a payroll or a supply chain... can you?

Posted: January 30, 2006 8:41 AM

Jessica:

The sentence about defending dying business models really struck a chord with me - so much so that I've gone and quoted it both on my blog and to my colleagues. Part of what I think is so interesting about the track that marketing is taking in this "new" internet market is that there are a whole lot of questions regarding how and why and where markets are changing and what needs to be done about it. The fun part is coming up with the right answers. Thanks for the insight.

Posted: February 3, 2006 1:36 PM

art:

you can't get therefrom here is the punch line from a Bert & I routine

see the wiki link

Posted: May 17, 2008 7:06 PM

Tom Foremski:

Art: It'll be the punchline for a lot of media companies too, but they won't be laughing!

Posted: May 19, 2008 8:17 PM

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