I promised a couple of weeks ago to take a look at disruptive and sustaining technologies with a specific example, so here it is:
For-profit companies are driven and sustained by, obviously, profits, but let's look at an example of how disruptive and sustaining technologies might work in an organization like Extension. For anyone coming in from the outside, 'Extension' is defined (loosely) here as a state University or Cooperative Extension Service associated with a land-grant university and charged with, among other things, communicating and teaching about subjects researched at the university that have a practical impact on people's lives.
Note: I’m still working these ideas out and this isn’t meant to be the one great answer; it’s a way for me to think through what it means and how to understand the adoption of disruptive technologies and the impact they can have. Things will adjust, I’m sure, as I explore further. Comments, as always, would be welcome.
Traditionally, Extension communicates new knowledge through publications, meetings, and demonstrations. If we look for a moment at communication through publications, we can see that this particular mode of communication can take a number of forms--print, web, video, radio, electronic mailing lists, and others. Many of these are technologies that have been adopted by Extension in order to improve the reach and accessibility of Extension publications for our clients. Each of these media production methods have addressed particular needs for Extension’s clients. Each of these methods have established development procedures which involve content specialists, program directors, and communication specialists who work together to provide clear, readable, informative, and accessible materials. The final products are highly polished, well edited, attractively laid out, professional products.
Weblogs, on the other hand, are a direct-to-consumer product. They bypass program directors and communication specialists (except in the sense that a program director or communication specialist might also have a weblog). They are cheap and fast and simple. While the main template can be attractive and readable, they aren’t necessarily as elegant as professional publications, they aren’t always as well-written, and they aren’t edited. They may contain errors that have to be corrected later.
Let’s look at how weblogs and traditional (though often innovative) Extension communication methods compare when considered in the context of disruptive technologies.
1. Disruptive technologies may initially underperform established methods--but they have other features that provide some value.
Weblogs often use standard design templates. They list information in a simple chronological format with some ability to archive information by category and date. There is little complexity in the layout of individual entries, although images and tables can be used in limited straightforward ways. Entries are usually not edited by anyone other than the author and are often short, lacking background and reference material (though most weblog entries include links to additional material on the topic).
However, weblogs are easy to start, require little technical expertise, and are easy to maintain. Good weblogs are frequently updated with current information and breaking news, giving people a reason to return frequently. Information can be posted immediately without a lengthy editorial and review process. The layout makes it very simple to find the most recent information, which some readers value very highly (possibly more highly than excellent production values or high readability). Information is unmediated. It is posted in the specialist’s own voice and it focuses on 'things of interest to this particular specialist' which may include topics such as Extension’s new strategic plan, but may include many other things as well, even things that are not directly Extension-related or content-related. These factors--voice and knowledge filtering--are important in building trust, something some people, in particular those unfamiliar with Extension and those accustomed to searching for timely information on the Internet, value very highly.
2. Technologies progress faster than the market, giving customers more than they need or are willing to pay for.
Some people value fast over excellent. Some don’t want to print publications off the web, they just want to find the information, read it, and move on. Many have no interest in a well-produced learning module, no matter how excellent, that can’t tell them the latest status of an issue today. These clients aren’t teaching a class, they aren’t helping their own clients, they want to know what they want when they want it. And they want to build relationships. They want to collect their own network of experts; their go-to people for the information they need to make the important and everyday decisions in their lives.
For these customers, the time required to produce excellent learning materials or professional print or web publications is a higher cost than they want to pay. While the production is excellent, takes advantage of new technologies and provides a professional product with useful accessible information, it’s more information than they need, too far removed from when they want it.
3. Disruptive technologies are first adopted in emerging or insignificant markets and by marginal customers.
Extension listens to its best customers (as we should) and those customers tell us that they want more publications, more web pages, more learning modules, more video, and more market reports, all of which they do want and all of which help them in some way to learn more and do their jobs better.
Meanwhile, there are also a large number of people who only come to Extension occasionally, who don’t come to Extension because they don’t think we have what they need, or who don’t know anything about Extension and what we can provide. While some of them may indeed want our current publications, videos, and web pages--if we could just make the connection with them--some of them want (or could benefit the most from) something else entirely. If we don’t provide it, there are two other possibilities--someone else will provide it or no one else will and they’ll go away without the information they need and want. In the present days with a global Internet, a third possibility also exists--another state Extension service will provide it and gradually squeeze us out of the picture for that group of customers (and eventually all our customers as the disruptive technology proceeds to become more ‘mainstream’).
Sometimes disruptive technologies completely eliminate the old technologies eventually becoming better, faster, and more responsive. Weblogs will probably never replace traditional Extension communication production. For formal education and other activities, it is likely that there will always be a demand for high-quality, professionally produced materials. Weblogs speak to a different need--the need for timely information, on-the-spot analysis, and relationship and trust-building. While these are all things that traditional approaches may be able to do, they can’t do it as well, as cheaply or as quickly as weblogs can. In addition, weblogs can give a voice to individual specialists and their particular expertise in a way that traditional communication materials often have not. Even newspaper columns, which some specialists produce are not as immediate as weblog publication.
Weblogs are disruptive because they will come whether we ‘allow’ them or not. They are ‘low-end’ compared to our current rich communication offerings, but they provide some things to some people that other tools can’t provide and their capabilities are growing rapidly. How we develop them and some of the new technologies that accompany them, like syndication and aggregation, can determine who we serve, how we’re perceived, and who Extension is in the coming years.