The Era of Disruption

Every era has a name. 

We’ve had the Roaring 20’s, the Cold War, the Me Decade as well as those classics like the Dark Ages, the Renaissance, and the Victorian Age. Whatever we call it, the descriptor we use seems to capture either the imagination or action of what is going on in that particular time.

So what should we call the time we live today? Before we come up with that name, it’s worth taking a look at what is happening around us. 

Over the past decade, we have radically transformed and redefined our economy and culture in ways never imagined. The conventional definitions that we have used for generations no longer apply.  For example, in the past year, the U.S. Supreme Court has redefined marriage. If you fill out any job application or just about any other form, in the section where you identify your gender, you can select “male,” “female” or “I choose not to declare.” The same is true of demographic identification; alongside the categories of Caucasian, African American, Latino, Native American and others is the option, “I choose not to declare,”

In terms of politics, let’s just say all of the conventional rules and laws have been defied and upended in this election cycle.

Meanwhile in the private sector, the rise of the gig economy has forever altered what it means to be an employee, as well as an employer. Business models and approaches are upending longstanding industries and operations. From taxicabs, to hotel and lodging, to aerospace, Uber, Airbnb and SpaceX have taken on the establishments that have long-dominated their respective industries and are winning more than just customers and market share. They’re winning vocal and enthusiastic fans too. 

Even the definition of success has dramatically changed. For most people, success has always been measured by who has the most stuff (e.g., money, houses, titles, cars). Today, those material items don’t matter near as much, especially as the largest and most influential generation on the planet, the Millennials, are far more interested in collecting experiences than things. 

Probably the biggest experiential change occurring today relates to data.

Every one of us generates more data on a daily basis with our phones, computers, Fitbits, debit cards, banking transactions, grocery rewards and pharmacy rewards numbers than was probably collected in the first U.S. Census in 1790.

For generations in antiquity, if you wanted to be one of the best educated people in the world, you went to the library in Alexandria, Egypt; that was where the epicenter of knowledge. Today, all of the knowledge contained in that ancient library could fit on a USB stick. That knowledge and more is widely distributed and accessible with a few keystrokes, if not a quick ask of Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Echo or Google’s Now. In fact, the handheld phone we use to text friends and send emoticons contains more computing power than what landed American astronauts on the moon nearly 50 years ago. 

The mapping of the human genome, once thought not possible, is yielding new generations of drugs, treatments and biological engineering that were once only reserved for the pages of science fiction. Today it is possible to go into just about any major research hospital in America and see the early stages of how man and machine are coming together to restore mobility and function to people who have lost a limb or most any other body part. For example, medical research is making massive strides in bionic eye implants, restoring sight to those who have lost it.

Meanwhile, robots are steadily entering the consumer home. But robotics is more than just a Roomba roaming about your family room and picking up crumbs and kitty litter. Robotics are quickly becoming a personal assistant that greets you by name, orders your favorite takeout, shares a recipe at the kitchen counter, and takes a family photo. 

Within the next 10 years, each of us will either own or work alongside a robot.

In that same 10 years, you will also own or be ferried about by an autonomous vehicle that will take you to work, your kids to school, or even on vacation as you enjoy playing Words with Friends or the other distraction of the day while something else literally does the driving.

And let’s not forget about the rise of artificial intelligence (AI). We can all marvel at IBM’s Watson winning a million dollars on Jeopardy, but when that computer and others like it can consume and process information faster than we ever can or could, something game changing is happening. 

Some might call everything I have just described to you as evolution.  That’s a fair term. It may even be the right one, but I think it’s something bigger than that. There’s a transition underway that is starting to radically transform our lives, commerce and community. Technology is not just beside us to help us do our jobs and live our lives. That fact has been true since the first wheel was shaped. Instead, technology and its innovations are becoming rising parallel powers to our everyday way of life. 

Unlike any era before it, technology and innovation are becoming more sentient in how they operate, make judgments in what they do, and all of us are first-person witnesses to its rise.

When you compare that to the social changes and cultural redefinitions I’ve described, that’s more than just evolution. It’s Disruption; hence the name for our mutual time together, the era of Disruption.

Remember in this unfolding era, the regular definition of how we look at things no longer applies. Think of the definitions to all of the things I’ve described and look at how each of them is radically changing by forces that are truly challenging the status quo.

So what does all of this disruption mean for our future?

I can offer only two words of counsel: “Buckle up.”

More is coming. The classic quote of Heraclitus, “there is nothing permanent except change,” is an apt descriptor for today’s world because disruption is just that – it changes things from the norm we know and the norm we expect.  That will always make people uncomfortable.

We can all pine for the “good ol’ days” of yesteryear, but those days were just as disruptive to the generations living then as the dramatic changes we see today are to us. The difference today is that more people, things, economies and livelihoods are being changed faster than ever before. And that’s as much a warning as it is a positive metric to keep in mind as we all go forward in this disruptive era.

If you aren’t prepared to be disrupted, you should be prepared to be a display piece in a museum. As that display piece, people can certainly learn, respect and critique how you lived your life, did your business or engaged the world, but they will see that your role in all of those things stopped evolving at some point. Go through any museum anywhere in the world and you can find any number of examples of when people stopped disrupting the world around them. When that happens, people move on and look elsewhere for creativity, opportunity and the ability to make a difference.

And that’s the point of disruption – it makes a difference to the status quo. It’s the reason I see so much opportunity in this era, perhaps more than in any era before.