Big Idea 2015: This Is What Next Year's Disruptors Have In Common

In this series of posts, Influencers and members predict the ideas and trends that will shape 2015. Read all the stories here and write your own (please include the hashtag #BigIdeas2015 in the body of your post).

The rapid and widespread embrace of mobile technology is giving rise to a host of disruptive innovators that are propagating trends like "show rooming" in retail, "the sharing economy" in services and wearable sensors in healthcare. Some are even reshaping industry hierarchies.

Similarly, in media — my area of focus — a group of digital-native publishers have embraced a style of storytelling that is more social by design, yet still newsy. These upstarts, I have observed, think deeply about distribution first and have it guide their content strategy. They have built themselves from the ground up to capitalize on the outsized role that social network algorithms now play in guiding attention flows.

What all of these disruptors have in common, it seems, is an adherence to and even a devotion to systems thinking. This is where I am putting my energy in 2015.

These disruptors don't study themselves or their competitors as much as they study the ecosystem - the network. Then they attempt to connect the dots in a way that makes it easier for information, ideas, goods and services to frictionlessly flow from creators to consumers.

This may sound like a novel idea, but actually it's not. It's simply synergy — but on steroids.

In my cube I keep this map that Walt Disney drew back in 1957 to depict his burgeoning content and experiential ecosystem. It keeps me thinking about the big picture and what marketers must do today to efficiently connect their disparate programs in a way that will enable their messages to stick to screens.

What I find fascinating about this image is its simplicity and the connectors – the seams that run between the big hubs like Disneyland and theatrical films.

Walt Disney was a systems thinker and ahead of his time. He saw the forest through the trees and he created a giant that even today is built for synergy. If you were to take any of the Walt Disney Company's major content franchises — Marvel, Star Wars, Frozen and dozens of others — you could probably draw a similar map for each.

It makes me excited about how our clients could do the same with their content ecosystems.

However, it also makes me think that there will be many more opportunities for systems thinkers in the marketplace who can serve as "generalist specialists" and connect the dots in a networked world.

Middle Photo: Disney