Da Da Disruption!

Disruption: “A disturbance or problems that interrupt an event, activity, or process.” Whether it be a single act, a business strategy or an epoch; disruptions are all round us. I think of Rosa Parks sitting on that bus, a single act of disruption that influenced a movement. It wasn't that her action was particularly extreme (like killing someone) but that it seemed to capture the emotions of so many others. The emotional validation that was offered in this simple act seems to be a key factor to its disruptive potency.

• So what happens leading up to a disruptive behavior?
• What qualifies as a disruptive? What makes it effective?
• What potential for change lies in the aftermath of a disruptive act?
• How are businesses living, breathing and acting within disruptive places?
• Are there actors doing this specifically in relation to sustainability?

For the next quarter, I plan to look at the current state of disruption in our modern business world today. I want to investigate companies and individuals leading the charge both in the past, present and future. I would like to examine their unique interactions with consumers and citizens and how exactly they are changing business for good or bad. I'm curious to see how companies act disruptively themselves but I also want to observe how they interact to the mounting human emotion behind disruptive acts like that of Rosa Parks.

What peaked my interest in all this disruption? Well, for quite some time I’ve been obsessed with this anthropologist, Victor Turner, and his social change theories concerning Rituals and Rites of Passage. His work has now been applied beyond anthropology into various fields concerning social structure and change. He is most famous for the ‘social drama’, a sequence of social events that he believed to play out universally in all human cultures. There are four stages: Breach, Crisis, Redressive Action and Reintegration. The disruptive part (aka the fun part) comes after the crisis event, when no one knows what’s what anymore and they enter a ‘liminal’ space. 

Liminality is a curious place to ‘be’ because its essentially a transitional or transformative place. Everyday assumptions, institutions, boundaries, hierarchies and social norms have the ability to dissolve and open up a new space for social creation. However, like the airport or a waiting room, one cannot stay there forever. We eventually reintegrate with evolved agreements or end up further reinforcing old social structures.

All this got me thinking about intentional liminality and ways to actually create an open space for evolving ideas. It seems that liminal states are a part of the process for effective disruption. In order to transform a behavior, eventually we have to relax our previous thoughts and habits.  There are some businesses like Apple, that have continually changed the rules of the game, creating a space for new behaviors to thrive. Their disruptive strategies have proven effective as we can see with the widespread adoption of their products and services.  

I look forward to exploring the disruptive world with you all in Quarter two. Please feel free to post ANY materials and share your thoughts & feelings below. Thanks!