Brent Soderberg

For much of my career as a web developer I have worked within or for organizations that might be described as “old media”, whether that be television or publishing companies. Sometimes the wheels of change for adapting to new technology or trends can be slow. With the current popularity of “social networks” or “social media” sites like Facebook and Twitter, it is interesting to see how old media adapts to, or uses social media.

This past week I have come across a couple of ideas or terms that I really liked. One is the idea of Disruptive Innovation, and the other is the importance or having a Sense of Urgency.

What is Disruptive Innovation? It is described as a different way of doing things that create new markets or transform an old market by making things more simple. Below is a playlist of a few YouTube videos that better explain Disruptive Innovation.

The other concept that I came across this week is the importance of having a sense of urgency within an organization. I first watched a conversation with John Doerr from the 2007 Web 2.0 conference. He talked about the ingredients that made Google successful, and those included technical excellence, going after an under served market, and having a sense of urgency.

Harvard Professor John Kotter wrote a book called A Sense of Urgency and explains better than I can what it is.

These types of things always inspire me, and this week I think I have come up with a couple of ideas that have the ingredients of disruptive innovation, but now I need a sense of urgency to get them done.